Using Commons Chain with Struts

1. Commands

1.1. Calling Commands

1.2. Inside the Commands

2. Configuration

3. Testing

4. Examples

5. References

1. Commands

1.1. Calling Commands

• Use the 'command' and 'catalog' (optional) attributes for <action>
  • http://struts.apache.org/dtds/struts-config/1_3/

• Call the command from an Action like any other business facade. See CommandAction? in mailreader:
  • http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/chain/cookbook.html

1.2. Inside the Commands

• A ServletActionContext? will be passed into the command's execute method.
  • http://struts.apache.org/struts-action/apidocs/org/apache/struts/chain/contexts/ServletActionContext.html

This may be cast to its parent class WebActionContext instead, if you don't need access to the actual request and response objects.

2. Configuration

• To use ChainAction, configure ChainListener with org.apache.commons.chain.CONFIG_CLASS_RESOURCE in web.xml. The specified xml file must contain a <catalog> element (not <chains> as in the examples.) See the ChainListener Javadoc which says:
  • "If no attribute key [org.apache.commons.chain.CONFIG_ATTR] is specified, on the other hand, parsed configuration resources are expected to contain <catalog> elements, and the catalogs will be registered with the CatalogFactory? for this web application."
  • http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/chain/apidocs/org/apache/commons/chain/web/ChainListener.html

TODO: Find the commons-user thread where Craig and Rahul explained the root element

3. Testing

/TestRequestParam

4. Examples

• /Tiles

• /ActionAndChain

5. References

• Struts Dev thread: http://www.nabble.com/Chain-questions-t706563.html

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