S2: Advice on debugging jsp/action interactions..

[Eric D Nielsen]

This is an off-shoot of an unanswered question I posted about 10 days ago
(during the holidays, I know...)  The orginal email is repeated below, but I'm
asking a more general question now.

I've been getting very frustrated with trying to figure out why some of my jsp's
are not retrieving properties from the backing action.  I have devMode=true and
logging set to DEBUG; but there's nothing in the logs thats helping me.  Break
points inside the getters are not hit.  I've tried both OGNL-based function
calls and EL-based bean/property approaches.  95% of the time everything is
good, but I've been stuck on this jsp for about two weeks and can't figure out
why it doesn't work and I can't seem to find any diagnostic aide to figure out
where the problem is.  (The following code shows the original attempt,  I've
already tried an approach that follows bean conventions, and returns a complete
map rather that is indexed inside the JSP rather than this on-demand lookup
version.)

Can anyone offer any helpful hints for diagnosing why my function isn't getting
called?

Thank you.
Eric

-- Original Email 

I'm working on something a little bit like a data grid. However, while the
current display is tabular, the data backing it isn't. As a result I can't use
straight map notation to access the values to display.  For now I have a
inefficient helper lookup attached to the action, but I can't seem to get it
invoked.

The relevant portion of the jsp looks like

  s:iterator value=competition.feeCategories id=fee
trths:property value=name //th/tr
s:iterator value=competition.sessions id=session
  tr
tds:property value=name //td
   s:iterator value=competition.deadlines id=deadline
tds:property value=#session.getDisplayPrice(#deadline,#fee)
//td !-- 1 --
tds:textfield
name=sessionMap[%{#session.id}][%{#deadline.id}][%{#fee.id}]

value=%{getSessionMarkup(#session,#fee,#deadline).costDeltaInCents} //td
!-- 2--
tdStudio Markup (%)/td
  /s:iterator
   /tr
 /s:iterator
   /s:iterator


The action looks like:
public class ConfigurePrices extends ExcursionBase {
public String execute() {
return SUCCESS;
}
public StudioSessionPrice getSessionMarkup(Session session,
CompetitionDeadline
deadline, FeeCategory fee) {
for (StudioSessionPrice ssp: excursion.getSessionPrices()) {
if
(ssp.getUnderlyingCompetitionSession().getSession().equals(session) 
   
ssp.getUnderlyingCompetitionSession().getDeadline().equals(deadline) 
   
ssp.getUnderlyingCompetitionSession().getFeeCategory().equals(fee))
return ssp;
}
StudioSessionPrice ssp = new StudioSessionPrice();
ssp.setExcursion(excursion);
   
ssp.setUnderlyingCompetitionSession(session.getCSPfor(deadline,fee));
ssp.setCostDeltaInCents(0L);
ssp.setDeltaInPercent(0.0F);
excursion.addSessionPrice(ssp);
excursionRepository.save(excursion);
return ssp;
}
}

ExcursionBase implements ActionSupport; the jsp shown before is hooked up to the
INPUT result of the action.

The line preceding the !-- 1 -- works properly, so I thought I knew how to
call functions with parameters in OGNL. The line around !-- 2-- does not
work. The breakpoint just inside the function is not hit. However there are no
errors in the log. None of the iterator related objects respond to the
getSessionMarkup message and thus shouldn't be masking it from bubbling down to
the action.  What am I missing?

Thank you.

Eric

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S2: Can't seem to access action's properties inside an iterator

[Eric D Nielsen]

I'm working on something a little bit like a data grid. However, while the
current display is tabular, the data backing it isn't. As a result I can't use
straight map notation to access the values to display.  For now I have a
inefficient helper lookup attached to the action, but I can't seem to get it
invoked.

The relevant portion of the jsp looks like

  s:iterator value=competition.feeCategories id=fee
trths:property value=name //th/tr
s:iterator value=competition.sessions id=session
  tr
tds:property value=name //td
  s:iterator value=competition.deadlines id=deadline
tds:property value=#session.getDisplayPrice(#deadline,#fee)
//td !-- 1 --
tds:textfield
name=sessionMap[%{#session.id}][%{#deadline.id}][%{#fee.id}]

value=%{getSessionMarkup(#session,#fee,#deadline).costDeltaInCents} //td 
!-- 2--
tdStudio Markup (%)/td
  /s:iterator
  /tr
 /s:iterator
   /s:iterator


The action looks like:
public class ConfigurePrices extends ExcursionBase {
public String execute() {
return SUCCESS;
}
public StudioSessionPrice getSessionMarkup(Session session, 
CompetitionDeadline
deadline, FeeCategory fee) {
for (StudioSessionPrice ssp: excursion.getSessionPrices()) {
if 
(ssp.getUnderlyingCompetitionSession().getSession().equals(session) 

ssp.getUnderlyingCompetitionSession().getDeadline().equals(deadline) 

ssp.getUnderlyingCompetitionSession().getFeeCategory().equals(fee))
return ssp;
}
StudioSessionPrice ssp = new StudioSessionPrice();
ssp.setExcursion(excursion);

ssp.setUnderlyingCompetitionSession(session.getCSPfor(deadline,fee));
ssp.setCostDeltaInCents(0L);
ssp.setDeltaInPercent(0.0F);
excursion.addSessionPrice(ssp);
excursionRepository.save(excursion);
return ssp;
}
}

ExcursionBase implements ActionSupport; the jsp shown before is hooked up to the
INPUT result of the action.

The line preceding the !-- 1 -- works properly, so I thought I knew how to
call functions with parameters in OGNL. The line around !-- 2-- does not
work. The breakpoint just inside the function is not hit. However there are no
errors in the log. None of the iterator related objects respond to the
getSessionMarkup message and thus shouldn't be masking it from bubbling down to
the action.  What am I missing?

Thank you.

Eric

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S2: s:include tag and s:param

[Eric D Nielsen]

I've been having trouble getting s:include and s:param to work.

I have a snippet I want to include in multiple pages.  This snippet will want to
make use of Struts 2 tags and OGNL, though at present I just need a simple
c:out.

The snippet looks like:
%@ taglib prefix=c uri=http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core; %
div class=primaryBox
  h1Competition Information/h1
  c:out value=${comp.name} /
/div
- END --

I'm currently using it with:
s:include value=/WEB-INF/components/competitions/identity-readonly.jsp
  s:param name=comp value=competition /
/s:include
 END -

The c:out isn't printing anything.

I've tried using ${} notation in the param value; that doesn't lead any
different behavoir for me.

If I reference competition.name in the snippet and skip the s:param, everything
works on this page (because the action exposes the competition property. 
However other pages that include it will not expose it directly (but I can
navigate to it from properties that are exposed).

What am I missing?

Eric


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Re: S2: Actions/DAO interaction getting messy...

[Eric D Nielsen]

Adam Hardy on 26/03/08 00:28:43
Eric D Nielsen on 25/03/08 14:29, wrote:
 Its a Struts2/Spring2/JPA(Hibernate) based project. I'm using a slightly
 modified version of the Generic DAO pattern shown in the Java persistence
 with Hibernate book and/or the IBM ThoughtWorks very similar example.
 (Modified to allow Spring Based Injection of the JPA EntityManger, while
 falling back to a native Hibernate session inside the DAOs to allow a few
 more optimizations).

 So its basically
 Business Objects (POJOs) ---1:1--- DAOs
 which is a relatively normal pattern I beleive.

Is it normal with that Generic DAO pattern to name the DAOs 'services'? In the
Domain-Driven-Design paradigm that I generally follow, the services are objects
which carry out operations that you don't want to specifically assign to one
domain object.

I'm willing to admit a LOT of confusion about DAOs v (Services | Managers) v
business logic on POJOs.  I will say that my Actions are taking things named
services but typed as DAOs since I thought I would eventually migrate towards
this extra tier, but have let to really understand what belongs there.  I think
a large part of my confusion comes from most examples I've seen where just
about 100% of the method in the vast majority of service classes are proxied
calls from the DAO.  With only 1-2 methods added to a small percentage of the
services.  However we are getting quite far afield for Struts matters here.
I'd be very happy to receive further enlightenment, but if its better to move
this part of the discussion elswhere, please let me know...

 just use POJOs there. I believe this approach would work with the
 Model-Driven idea, but it feels a little odd to me to mark up the domain
 object with HTTP-specific details

Yes it would do, but what do you mean by 'mark up the domain object with
HTTP-specific details'? I don't think you have to touch the domain objects to
code the re-construction of your incoming Bug POJO.

Yay! Back to Struts matters...   I haven't written any type converters yet, but
from the examples I'd been seeing I thought you had to add a @TypeConversion
annotation to accessors that wanted custom type conversion.
http://struts.apache.org/2.x/docs/typeconversion-annotation.html
So if I was using Model Driven, would this mean putting these annotation on the
model.  (much like the Vistor pattern for Validation)


Eric



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S2: Actions/DAO interaction getting messy...

[Eric D Nielsen]

I'm starting to get some rather stinky code in one of my projects and wanted to
ask for some advice. (

Its a Struts2/Spring2/JPA(Hibernate) based project. I'm using a slightly
modified version of the Generic DAO pattern shown in the Java persistence with
Hibernate book and/or the IBM ThoughtWorks very similar example. (Modified to
allow Spring Based Injection of the JPA EntityManger, while falling back to a
native Hibernate session inside the DAOs to allow a few more optimizations).

So its basically
Business Objects (POJOs) ---1:1--- DAOs
which is a relatively normal pattern I beleive.

Now I'm working on an Action that creates an object that contains lots of
references to other objects. A bug tracker would be a reasonable facsimile of
my domain object -- when creating a bug, you select a severity, a project, a
module, a found in version, possibly you're assigning it to someone, etc. Most
of these options come from a drop-down on the view page, however they are all
backed by their own domain object -- ie its not just id/string display name
lookup-table backing the drop down.

So the form submits a whole suite of IDs or String natural keys and I need to
build an Defect/Bug and then persist it. In building the Defect I need to
convert all the keys to domain objects. This is where things begin to fall
apart. To covert the keys to domain object seems to require injecting all the
subordinate object DAOs into the Action, its not a big deal but its starting to
feel like the subordinate DAOs are taking over the action. Furthermore, its
slightly annoying from a performance stand-point that I need to retrieve all
the objects from the DB, just to set a foreign key -- I will never be updating
the details on the subordinate object from the master only changing which one
I'm linked to. [As a side issue: this is a place where the Get (returning a
proxy/lazy load thunk with only the ID set without hitting the DB) versus Load
could be useful, but I've never seen any of the generic DAO approaches expose
that level of control in their API -- does anyone know why?]

Here's an example (not from live code, please ignore any minor typos)
representing the current state of application and test code. Afterwards I'll
list a few of the approaches I've considered for cleaning it up:
AddBug.java

code:



public class AddBug extends ActionSupport {
  private BugDAO bugService;
  private UserDAO userService;
  private ProjectDAO projectService;
  private ModuleDAO moduleService;
  private VersionDAO versionService;

  private String submitterUsername;
  private String assigneeUsername;
  private Long projectID;
  private Long moduleID;
  private ListLong affectedVersionIDs;

  public String execute() {
Bug bug = new Bug();
//  The following lines are what feel unclean to me
bug.setSubmitter(userService.findByUsername(getSubmitterUsername()));
bug.setAssignee(userService.findByUsername(getAssigneeUsername()));
bug.setProject(projectService.find(getProjectID()));
bug.setModule(moduleService.find(getModuleID()));
for( Long versionID : getAffectedVersionIDs()) {
  bug.addAffectedVersion(versionService.find(versionID));
}
bugDAO.persist(bug);
return SUCCESS;
  }

  // This block of setters also seems to be wrong...  Only the first one
  // should really be required by this action I think
  public void setBugService(final BugDAO bs) {bugService=bs;}
  public void setUserService(final UserDAO us) {userService=us;}
  public void setProjectService(final ProjectDAO ps) {projectService=ps;}
  public void setModuleService(final ModuleDAO ms) {moduleService=ms;}
  public void setVersionService(final VersionDAO vs) {versionService=vs;}

  public void setSubmitterUsername(final String username)
{submitterUsername=username;}
  public void setAssigneeUsername(final String username)
{assigneeUsername=username;}
  public void setProjectID(final Long id) {projectID=id;}
  public void setModuleID(final Long id) {moduleID=id;}
  public void setAffectedVersionIDs(final ListLong ids)
{affectedVersionIDs=ids;}

  public String getSubmitterUsername() {return submitterUsername;}
  public String getAssigneeUsername() {return assigneeUsername;}
  public Long getProjectID() {return projectID;}
  public Long getModuleID() {return moduleID;}
  public ListLong getAffectedVersionIDs() {return affectedVersionIDs;}
}



TestAddBug.java
(Sorry this is purely from memory so I know I'm missing some of my
infrastructure)

code:


   
   public void testAddBug() {
 String submitterUsername=TestUser;
 String assigneeUsername=TestVictim;
 User submitter=new User(submitterUsername);
 User assignee=new User(assigneeUsername);
 UserDAO userService = createMock(UserDAO.class);

S2/SmartURLs: parameterized results...

[Eric D Nielsen]

I've been trying to understand how parameterized results should work under the
SmartURLs plugin for Struts 2.  In my specific case, I'm trying to redirect on
success to a new URL that includes a paramter.  I've tried modelling it after
the standard XML=based example in the WebWork in Action book on page 191:

  result name=success
type=redirectorder-confirmation.jsp?confirmationNumber=${confirmationNumber}/result

So I tried
@Results({
  @Result(name=success,location=/competitions/admin?id=${getCompId},
type=redirect)})

However nothing gets injected into the variable.  I've tried several different
formulations of the variable: getCompId, getCompId(), compId, etc.   Currently
I have a simple method on the action:
  public String getCompId() {return (comp!=null ? comp.getId().toString() :
0;}

(In reality 0 should never be returned, but I wanted an explicit value to be
able to tell if I've hooked up the paramter correctly, versus having access to
the Id in the first place.)

When I try to follow along directly with the XML based approach the
action/results from struts.xml seem to interact poorly with the other
annotation based configurations and I can't seem to chase down what would make
a valid hybrid configuration.

Cna anyone give me some pointers on how to either make paramterized locations
work with SmartURLs or, how to configure these results in struts.xml wtthout
interfereing too much with the other convention/annotations based approaches?

Thank you.

Eric

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SmartURLs and Validation Annotations...

[Eric D Nielsen]

I've been trying to figure out how to use Validation Annotations with the
SmartURLs plugin.  I'm not sure which half I'm not understanding properly, but
I can't get the validations to fire at all.  I've seen several similiar posts
in the archives and have tried tweaking things in a variety of directions. 
I've also tried emulating Ted Husted's Zero-Configuration Mail-Reader demo app.

I've even tried adding what I think should be an always failing
ExpressionValidator to help make sure that its not some other subsystem
throwing off my expected results.

The failure mode I'm seeing is that execure is getting called regardless of the
validation success or failure.  I'm adding my action, struts.xml,
struts.properties, and web.xml.  What am I missing about how the validations
are supposed to work?

Here's my action
-
package com.ballroomregistrar.compinabox.web.action.account;

import com.ballroomregistrar.compinabox.data.User;
import com.ballroomregistrar.compinabox.data.service.UserDAO;
import com.ballroomregistrar.compinabox.web.action.Unsecured;
import com.opensymphony.xwork2.ActionSupport;
import com.opensymphony.xwork2.validator.annotations.EmailValidator;
import com.opensymphony.xwork2.validator.annotations.ExpressionValidator;
import com.opensymphony.xwork2.validator.annotations.RequiredStringValidator;
import com.opensymphony.xwork2.validator.annotations.Validations;

import org.texturemedia.smarturls.ActionName;
import org.texturemedia.smarturls.ActionNames;
import org.texturemedia.smarturls.Result;


@ActionNames({
@ActionName(name=login, method=execute),
@ActionName(name=login-input,method=input)
})
@Result(name=success, location=pendingActivation, type=redirect-action)
@SuppressWarnings(serial)
@Unsecured
public class Create  extends ActionSupport {
private String username;
private String email;
private String password;
private String password_confirm;
private UserDAO userDAO;


public String input() {
return INPUT;
}

@Validations(
requiredStrings = {

@RequiredStringValidator(fieldName=username,message=Please enter a
username),

@RequiredStringValidator(fieldName=password,message=Please enter a
password),

@RequiredStringValidator(fieldName=password_confim,message=Please
confirm your password)},
emails = [EMAIL 
PROTECTED](fieldName=email,message=Please enter your e-mail
address)},
expressions = {

@ExpressionValidator(expression=password eq password_confirm,message=The
two passwords must be the same),
@ExpressionValidator(expression=true 
eq false, message=Forcing
validation failed)}
)
public String execute() {
User user = new User();
user.setUsername(getUsername());
user.setEmail(getEmail());
user.setPassword(getPassword());
userDAO.makePersistent(user);
return SUCCESS;
}

public void setUsername(String username) {
this.username = username;
}
public String getUsername() {
return username;
}

public void setEmail(String email) {
this.email = email;
}
public String getEmail() {
return email;
}
public void setPassword(String password) {
this.password = password;
}
public String getPassword() {
return password;
}
public void setPassword_confirm(String password_confirm) {
this.password_confirm = password_confirm;
}
public String getPassword_confirm() {
return password_confirm;
}
public void setUserService(UserDAO service) {
userDAO=service;
}
public void setSubmit(String dummy) {}

public static final String CANCEL = cancel;

}
-
My struts.xml
?xml version=1.0 encoding=UTF-8 ?
!DOCTYPE struts PUBLIC
-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Struts Configuration 2.0//EN
http://struts.apache.org/dtds/struts-2.0.dtd;
struts
  constant name=struts.objectFactory value=spring /
  constant name=struts.devMode value=true /

  package name=cib-default extends=struts-default
interceptors
  interceptor name=authentication
class=com.ballroomregistrar.compinabox.web.interceptors.AuthenticationInterceptor
/
  interceptor name=authorization
class=com.ballroomregistrar.compinabox.web.interceptors.AuthorizationInterceptor
/
  interceptor-stack name=cibStack
interceptor-ref name=authentication /
interceptor-ref name=authorization /
interceptor-ref 

Re: SmartURLs and Validation Annotations...

[Eric D Nielsen]

On 10/8/07, Ted Husted wrote:
On 10/8/07, Dave Newton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Is validation firing at *all*? I had been under the
 impression that classes needed to be annotated with
 the Validation annotation.

 http://struts.apache.org/2.x/docs/validation-annotation.html

True.

First, @Validations() tags the class, and then the individual
annotations specify the validations as a separate statement or
statements.


I'm confused.  You say True, but then seem to imply that the class doesn't need
an extra explicit annotation in addition to the annotation on the method?  I've
been looking at the Login class inthe mailreader-zero app and it doesn't tag the
class in addition to the method.

However, it almost working now and it looks like the primary problem was that
something in my build chain is misbehaving -- changes to annotations are only
getting picked up by every other build/deployment.

Other minor issue:
  I was suprised that @EmailValidator doesn't appear to detect a missing email,
it seems like you have to also use @RequiredStringValidator.  And this
indirectly caused most of my problems since I my initial automated tests for
seeing how to hook up validations was only testing a missing email field.

Thank you.
Eric

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Re: [S2] Hooking up custom interceptors (Annotations)

[Eric D Nielsen]

Thank you Dave and Adam.

I;'ve tried both suggestions.
1) Changing away from annotations, works an proved that my interceptors do
work outside of their unit tests and actually in the system.

2) Trying the ParentPackage Annotation, works.  I had read about this
annotation, but convinced myself it wasn't what I was needing...  Since I
thought I needed to set the XWork Package for my action, not the Parent Package
of the XWork Package...  though given the way package inheritence works, I
should have realized it would work.

Now, I really want to use annotations instead of xml where possible, but the
ParentPackage approach doesn't feel as clean/DRY as i would like.

Configuring the interceptor stack (and global results) in XML is acceptable,
since the only other options would tend to require place holder do-nothing
classes to annotate.  However having to annotate every action with a
ParentPackage is very wrong.  It feels like something like one of the following
options would be needed and I can't tell if anything like this exists yet:

1) Provide some way for a default package to be declared in the struts.xml file

2) Make the actionPackages auto-detection set the XWork package based on the
java package in some predictable fashion.  (Not just the namespace as currently
documented.  ParentPackage could still override this default when needed for
flexibility.

3) Move towards the do-nothing class to hold annotations -- some sort of
ActionPackage interface...  Might be able to make it slightly less useless by
allowing anonymous interceptors to be defined/configured here if they don't
need to be re-used in other packages?

Is there some other appraoch to linking all Zero Configuration actions to a
specified package without repeating it in every action?

What could also be useful -- extend the config-browser plugin to expose an
action's XWork package.  It would definitely help with debugging/checking what
XWork package an auto detected actionPackage is using.

Eric

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[S2] Hooking up custom interceptors

[Eric D Nielsen]

I've written a pair of interceptors to implement my application's authentication
and authorization requirements.  I'm now trying to add them into my
application's default stack, but it doesn't seem to be working.  Looking around
with config-browser I can see that the interceptors are not being listed.

I'm using most of the Zero Configuration techniques: actionPackages and the
Result annotations.

I think the problem is that the auto-detected actions aren't being assigned to
the package with the configured custom interceptor stack.

I've tried several variations on naming my XWork package based on the wording in
the Zero Configuration page under Action and Package name, but that seems to
apply to the namespace of the autodetected action not their package.

Here's a current version of the struts.xml package definition.
-
  package name=cib-default extends=struts-default
interceptors
  interceptor name=authentication
class=com.ballroomregistrar.compinabox.web.interceptors.AuthenticationInterceptor
/
  interceptor name=authorization
class=com.ballroomregistrar.compinabox.web.interceptors.AuthorizationInterceptor
/
 /interceptors
 interceptor-stack name=cibStack
   interceptor-ref name=authentication /
   interceptor-ref name=authorization /
   interceptor-ref name=defaultStak /
 /interceptor-stack
 default-interceptor-ref name=cibStack /
   /package


My actions live in:
com.ballroomregistrar.compinabox.web.action

Here is a simple/sample action
--
package com.ballroomregistrar.compinabox.web.action;

import org.apache.struts2.config.Result;

import com.opensymphony.xwork2.Action;

@Result(name=success, value=WEB-INF/jsp/createcomp.jsp)
public class CreateComp implements Action {

public String execute() {
return success;
}

}
--

What am I missing?  How do I link the autodetected actions to a package?  Or how
do I set my custome package as the default package for all actions, etc?

Thank you.
Eric

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In-process acceptance testing with Jetty

[Eric D Nielsen]

I've been trying to adapt the approach shown at

http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2007/04/12/embedded-integration-testing-of-web-applications.html

for building acceptance tests that can be run more simply within the IDE and
that don't require creating a multi-module POM in Maven (since all
articles/books I've seen on setting up integration/acceptance testing in maven
requires the acceptance tests to live in a different module).

I've got the system working for static pages, but there are errors list in the
log.  When I start trying to test a struts 2 action, it fails.  The errors in
the log are something like Unable to load bean referencing JspTemplateEngine.
 The server returns a 404 for the requested page.

The project is setup as a standard maven-webapp archetype, identical directory
structure as the quickstart application on the Struts 2 Wiki (the Struts 2,
Spring2, JPA, Hibernate, AJAX tutorial).  I can tell that the
applicationContext.xml file is getting picked up and processed.  Past that the
logs don't seem to give me much to go on.

Can anyone offer any advice?  Anyone else taking a similar approach to their
integration/acceptance testing?

Thank you.
Eric

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Re: I'm completely lost, please help... [Thank you/Update]

[Eric D Nielsen]

Thank you for your comments.  

After another few hours last night I got things working using the following
sequence of steps:
1.  Deployed a new blank application
2.  Editted all the configuration files, with a text editor
(NOTE: there appears to be a name mismatch between the Tiles TLD and the  
   taglib entry in the web.xml of the sample struts application)
3.  Rebuilt my Tiles framework, again  outside of Eclipse
4.  Created the src/package structure by hand
5.  Coded my custom tag via my preferred text editor
6.  Modified build.xml
7.  Built from command-line ant
8.  Re-started Tomcat from the command-line

Ie, doing everything by-hand in a plain text editor, outside of Eclipse. 
Now that's how I'm used to doing development, but I liked the promise Eclipse
support for testing and CVS as well as the object/method browsing as I'm new to
Java and will always be looking up stuff.

I'm going to try an Eclipse configuration again later today, using your comments
and starting from a regular Java Project in Eclipse and not a Tomcat
Project and see if more manual intervention in the setup allows better results
down the road.

Thank you.

Eric

Quoting Bill Siggelkow [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Eric,
 
 It sounds like you are definitely reaching frustration level. I do not 
 have experience on Mac OS X but I can tell you my WinXP experience. 
 First, I don't use the Sysdeo plug-in; I just start and stop tomcat 
 manually -- I *do* utilize Eclipse's Ant integration to run my builds; 
 this works fine. As far as development, when developing I add the 
 jsp-api.jar and servlet-api.jar to my project's build path; I also 
 reference these jars in my compile path in my Ant script; however, I do 
 not include these jars in my WEB-INF/classes as they are part of 
 Tomcat's system classpath.
 
 As far as my Ant build; I build a War file with the 'dist' target; and 
 then deploy by extracting the WAR into Tomcat's webapps directory. There 
 are other techniques; one popular approach is to point your Tomcat to 
 your application's working development (web) directory; this will let 
 you develop on-the-fly without needing to restart Tomcat.
 
 I suggest you get a simple application working the way you want. Then 
 you can start on your custom tag app.
 
 -Bill Siggelkow
 


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I'm completely lost, please help...

[Eric D. Nielsen]

Long post follows...I don't know if its an Eclipse, Tomcat or  
Struts problem...

I've been trying to get started on Java Web Development using Eclipse,  
Tomcat, and Struts for the past several weeks.   Sometime last week I  
got both simple JSP's (no custom logic) and the same JSP's using Tiles  
working.  I've been trying to work on my first custom tag.  I'm  
developing on a Mac OS X 10.3 platform.

I had to fiddle a lot for the application wide class path and the  
project-specific class path to get the jsp-api.jar reachable.  Once I  
got that fixed the base classes were resolve-able and my classes  
compiled.  However, the default build from Eclipse, using the Tomcat  
project template from the Sysdeo plugin, did not appear to put class  
files into the correct location for Tomcat to use them (ie not in  
WEB-INF/classes/package/).

I looked at the Eclipse In Action book published by Manning to for how  
to invoke Ant from inside Eclipse and use the provided build.xml file  
included in the sample Struts application.

I had to add classpaths to the build.xml to locate servlet-api.jar and  
jsp-api.jar. Once that was done Ant could compile the files and the  
directory structure looked correct.  I had a typo in the package for my  
tag handler in the .tld.  After I fixed that I started getting:
javax.servlet.ServletExceptions with the root cause as  
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/servlet/Servlet

At which point I started working backward, removing custom components  
from my JSP's, until it was only the Tiles and static template content,  
but I got the same errors.  I had been restarting Tomcat several times  
throughout this process from the Sysdeo plugin for Eclipse and didn't  
see anything suspicious in the log.

I now tried the root web-application (default Tomcat install) and  
received:
javax.servlet.ServletException: Error allocating a servlet instance  
org.apache.catalina.values.ErrorReportValue.invoke(ErrorReportValue.java 
: 105)

At this point I tried stopping and restarting Tomcat from the  
command-line instead of from within Eclipse.   The root application  
started working.

My development application however now shows 1 of 2 behaviors:
1) Blank page, no content in view source:  direct request for a simple  
complete jsp (only template text, valid HTML) or for the basic template  
with an pHi/p as the body.  These pages only use the /tags/tiles  
taglib.

2)
org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Failed to load or instantiate  
TagExtraInfo class: org.apache.struts.taglib.logic.IterateTei
 
org.apache.jasper.compiler.DefaultErrorHandler.jspError(DefaultErrorHand 
ler.java:50)

on any page that includes the /tags/struts-logic taglib.
I'm afraid I've corrupted by install of Tomcat or Struts somehow.  I  
haven't done that much actual development, so re-installing everything  
is doable, but the amount of cross application configuration is  
daunting even with the help on-line tutorials and both the Eclipse in  
Action and Struts in Action books.  None of the tutorials indicated  
either of the problems with adding the jsp-api.jar to the eclipse  
and/or Ant classpaths nor the configuration required for .classes to  
end up in /WEB-INF/class.  Does anyone know if Mac OS X has serious  
issues with the normal configurations that would be causing those  
problems?  Does anyone know what I did that cased the ServletExceptions  
near the end of my story or why it can't find struts-logic anymore  
while it can still find tiles? Any other advice?

Thank you.
Eric

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Help with new installation...

[Eric D. Nielsen]

I'm a developer new to Java and Struts.  I've been working with other 
scripting languages for several years, and am excited about an 
opportunity to return to Java.  I'm getting a little 
frustrated/over-whelmed with getting everything configured properly, 
however.

I've gotten Tomcat installed and operational.  I've gotten Eclipse and 
the Tomcat Plugin working.  Simple JSPs, not using any of Struts, work. 
 I was able to deploy the blank Struts application and obtain the 
welcome page.

I've been trying to follow along with the Struts In Action book by 
Husted et al.

However any time I try to use a struts tag lib in a JSP, such as:
%@ taglib uri=/tags/struts-html prefix=html %
I get an error when I view the page:
'org.apache.jasper.JasperException: File /tags/struts-html not found'
 (plus more trace, but assume that's all that really needed.)
struts-html.tld is in the WEB-INF folder for the application
the web.xml file contains:
  taglib
taglib-uri/tags/struts-html/taglib-uri
taglib-location/WEB-INF/struts-html.tld/taglib-location
  /taglib
I feel bad asking this question here, as I know it is bound to be 
something trivial I'm overlooking, but after several days of minor 
tweaking and no progress I need some help.

What do I need to do?
Thank you.
Eric
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Re: Help with new installation...

[Eric D. Nielsen]

I see the response from David Friedman on my question in the archive;  
I'm on the digest so I haven't received the email.  I hope its ok that 
I've replying to my own post, while quoting his response into this:

From: David G. Friedman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Help with new installation...
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 23:27:21 -0500
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=US-ASCII


Eric,

Are you sure your web.xml taglib directive is in the right place 
(usually
about last)?  Have you checked your tomcat logs to see if there are any
loading errors?

Regards,
David

The taglibs are the last set of directives in the file, but are still 
children of the web-app tag.

I am finding something suspicious in my logs now:
Dec 12, 2004 12:12:51 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig 
applicationWebConfig
INFO: Missing application web.xml, using defaults only 
StandardEngine[Catalina].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[/JCIB]

However, Tomcat/webapps/JCIB/WEB-INF/web.xml exists and has full read 
permissions.

I've looked at the Tomcat mailing list archives, it appears that this 
is a common problem for people on Windows systems with the OS playing 
games with folding names to lower-case, but reporting upper-case(or 
something like that)  I'm on Mac OS X and I've verified that the 
WEB-INF directory is fully upper-cased and that the web.xml is fully 
lowercased.

However, I realize now that this is not a Struts problem, so I'l switch 
my query to the Tomcat list, unless anyone here has any parting advice?

Thank you for you reply.
Eric


On Dec 11, 2004, at 10:58 PM, Eric D. Nielsen wrote:
I'm a developer new to Java and Struts.  I've been working with other 
scripting languages for several years, and am excited about an 
opportunity to return to Java.  I'm getting a little 
frustrated/over-whelmed with getting everything configured properly, 
however.

I've gotten Tomcat installed and operational.  I've gotten Eclipse and 
the Tomcat Plugin working.  Simple JSPs, not using any of Struts, 
work.  I was able to deploy the blank Struts application and obtain 
the welcome page.

I've been trying to follow along with the Struts In Action book by 
Husted et al.

However any time I try to use a struts tag lib in a JSP, such as:
%@ taglib uri=/tags/struts-html prefix=html %
I get an error when I view the page:
'org.apache.jasper.JasperException: File /tags/struts-html not found'
 (plus more trace, but assume that's all that really needed.)
struts-html.tld is in the WEB-INF folder for the application
the web.xml file contains:
  taglib
taglib-uri/tags/struts-html/taglib-uri
taglib-location/WEB-INF/struts-html.tld/taglib-location
  /taglib
I feel bad asking this question here, as I know it is bound to be 
something trivial I'm overlooking, but after several days of minor 
tweaking and no progress I need some help.

What do I need to do?
Thank you.
Eric

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