Struts + Spring integration example

Ref:- http://www.mkyong.com/struts/struts-spring-integration-example/

Here’s a tutorial to show how to access beans declared in the Spring Ioc container in a web application developed with Apache Struts 1.x.

Spring comes with “Struts-specific” solution for access beans declared in the Spring Ioc container.

1. Register a Spring’s ready-make Struts plug-in in the Struts configuration file.
2. Change your Struts action class to extend the Spring’s ActionSupport class, a subclass of the Struts Action class.
3. The ActionSupport provide a convenient getWebApplicationContext() method for you to access beans declared in Spring Ioc container.

1. Struts + Spring dependencies

To integrate with Struts 1.x, Spring is required the “spring-web.jar” and “spring-struts.jar” libraries. You can download it from Spring web site or Maven.
pom.xml

        <!-- Spring framework --> 
 <dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring</artifactId>
  <version>2.5.6</version>
 </dependency>
    
        <dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
  <version>2.5.6</version>
 </dependency>
 
 <dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-struts</artifactId>
  <version>2.0.8</version>
 </dependency>

2. Register Struts plug-in

In your Struts configuration file (struts-config.xml), register the Spring’s ready-make Struts plug-in – “ContextLoaderPlugIn“.

struts-config.xml

<struts-config>
    <!-- Spring Struts plugin -->
  <plug-in className="org.springframework.web.struts.ContextLoaderPlugIn">
  <set-property property="contextConfigLocation"
   value="/WEB-INF/classes/SpringBeans.xml" />
   </plug-in>
</struts-config>

The “ContextLoaderPlugIn” will handle all the integration work between Struts and Spring. You can load your Spring’s bean xml file into the “contextConfigLocation” property.

SpringBeans.xml

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd">
 
 <!-- Beans Declaration -->
 <import resource="com/mkyong/customer/spring/CustomerBean.xml"/>
 
</beans>

3. Spring’s ActionSupport

In Struts Action class, extends the Spring “ActionSupport” class, and get the Spring’s bean via “getWebApplicationContext()” method.

CustomerBean.xml

    <bean id="customerBo" class="com.mkyong.customer.bo.impl.CustomerBoImpl" >
     <property name="customerDao" ref="customerDao" />
    </bean>

Struts Action

package com.mkyong.customer.action;
 
import java.util.List;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForward;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMapping;
import org.springframework.web.struts.ActionSupport;

import com.mkyong.customer.bo.CustomerBo;
import com.mkyong.customer.model.Customer;
 
public class ListCustomerAction extends ActionSupport{
 
  public ActionForward execute(ActionMapping mapping,ActionForm form,
 HttpServletRequest request,HttpServletResponse response) 
        throws Exception {
 
 CustomerBo customerBo =
  (CustomerBo) getWebApplicationContext().getBean("customerBo");
  
 ...
 return mapping.findForward("success");
   
  }
}

Done.