Monday 23 May 2016

MVC Sending Email

Create Action

The next step is to create an Action method that takes care of sending the email. Let us create a new class called Emailer.java with the following contents.
package com.tutorialspoint.struts2;

import java.util.Properties;
import javax.mail.Message;
import javax.mail.PasswordAuthentication;
import javax.mail.Session;
import javax.mail.Transport;
import javax.mail.internet.InternetAddress;
import javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage;

import com.opensymphony.xwork2.ActionSupport;

public class Emailer extends ActionSupport {

   private String from;
   private String password;
   private String to;
   private String subject;
   private String body;

   static Properties properties = new Properties();
   static
   {
      properties.put("mail.smtp.host", "smtp.gmail.com");
      properties.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.port", "465");
      properties.put("mail.smtp.socketFactory.class",
                     "javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory");
      properties.put("mail.smtp.auth", "true");
      properties.put("mail.smtp.port", "465");
   }

   public String execute() 
   {
      String ret = SUCCESS;
      try
      {
         Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(properties,  
            new javax.mail.Authenticator() {
            protected PasswordAuthentication 
            getPasswordAuthentication() {
            return new 
            PasswordAuthentication(from, password);
            }});

         Message message = new MimeMessage(session);
         message.setFrom(new InternetAddress(from));
         message.setRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, 
            InternetAddress.parse(to));
         message.setSubject(subject);
         message.setText(body);
         Transport.send(message);
      }
      catch(Exception e)
      {
         ret = ERROR;
         e.printStackTrace();
      }
      return ret;
   }

   public String getFrom() {
      return from;
   }

   public void setFrom(String from) {
      this.from = from;
   }

   public String getPassword() {
      return password;
   }

   public void setPassword(String password) {
      this.password = password;
   }

   public String getTo() {
      return to;
   }

   public void setTo(String to) {
      this.to = to;
   }

   public String getSubject() {
      return subject;
   }

   public void setSubject(String subject) {
      this.subject = subject;
   }

   public String getBody() {
      return body;
   }

   public void setBody(String body) {
      this.body = body;
   }

   public static Properties getProperties() {
      return properties;
   }

   public static void setProperties(Properties properties) {
      Emailer.properties = properties;
   }
}
As seen in the source code above, the Emailer.java has properties that correspond to the form attributes in the email.jsp page given below. These attributes are
  • from - The email address of the sender. As we are using Google's SMTP, we need a valid gtalk id
  • password - The password of the above account
  • to - Who to send the email to?
  • Subject - subject of the email
  • body - The actual email message
We have not considered any validations on the above fields, validations will be added in the next chapter. Let us now look at the execute() method. The execute() method uses the javax Mail library to send an email using the supplied parameters. If the mail is sent successfuly, action returns SUCCESS, otherwise it returns ERROR.

Create main page

Let us write main page JSP file index.jsp, which will be used to collect email related information mentioned above:
<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
   pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/struts-tags"%>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Email Form</title>
</head>
<body>
   <em>The form below uses Google's SMTP server. 
   So you need to enter a gmail username and password
   </em>
   <form action="emailer" method="post">
   <label for="from">From</label><br/>
   <input type="text" name="from"/><br/>
   <label for="password">Password</label><br/>
   <input type="password" name="password"/><br/>
   <label for="to">To</label><br/>
   <input type="text" name="to"/><br/>
   <label for="subject">Subject</label><br/>
   <input type="text" name="subject"/><br/>
   <label for="body">Body</label><br/>
   <input type="text" name="body"/><br/>
   <input type="submit" value="Send Email"/>
   </form>
</body>
</html>

Create Views

We will use JSP file success.jsp which will be invoked in case action returns SUCCESS, but we will have another view file in case of an ERROR is returned from the action.
<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
 pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/struts-tags"%>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Email Success</title>
</head>
<body>
   Your email to <s:property value="to"/> was sent successfully.
</body>
</html>
Following will be the view file error.jsp in case of an ERROR is returned from the action.
<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
 pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/struts-tags"%>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Email Error</title>
</head>
<body>
   There is a problem sending your email to <s:property value="to"/>.
</body>
</html>

Configuration Files

Now let us put everything together using the struts.xml configuration file as follows:
<?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.devMode" value="true" />
   <package name="helloworld" extends="struts-default">

      <action name="emailer" 
         class="com.tutorialspoint.struts2.Emailer"
         method="execute">
         <result name="success">/success.jsp</result>
         <result name="error">/error.jsp</result>
      </action>

   </package>

</struts>
Following is the content of web.xml file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" 
   xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
   http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
   id="WebApp_ID" version="3.0">
   
   <display-name>Struts 2</display-name>
   <welcome-file-list>
      <welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
   </welcome-file-list>

   <filter>
      <filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
      <filter-class>
         org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.FilterDispatcher
      </filter-class>
   </filter>

   <filter-mapping>
      <filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
      <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
   </filter-mapping>
</web-app>
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MVC Validations Framework

Create main page

Let us write main page JSP file index.jsp, which will be used to collect Employee related information mentioned above.
<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
   pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/struts-tags"%>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Employee Form</title>
</head>

<body>
   <s:form action="empinfo" method="post">
      <s:textfield name="name" label="Name" size="20" />
      <s:textfield name="age" label="Age" size="20" />
      <s:submit name="submit" label="Submit" align="center" />
   </s:form>
</body>
</html>
The index.jsp makes use of Struts tag, which we have not covered yet but we will study them in tags related chapters. But for now, just assume that the s:textfield tag prints a input field, and the s:submit prints a submit button. We have used label property for each tag which creates label for each tag.

Create Views

We will use JSP file success.jsp which will be invoked in case defined action returns SUCCESS.
<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
 pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/struts-tags"%>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Success</title>
</head>
<body>
   Employee Information is captured successfully.
</body>
</html>

Create Action

So let us define a small action class Employee, and then add a method calledvalidate() as shown below in Employee.java file. Make sure that your action class extends the ActionSupport class, otherwise your validate method will not be executed.
package com.tutorialspoint.struts2;

import com.opensymphony.xwork2.ActionSupport;

public class Employee extends ActionSupport{
   private String name;
   private int age;
   
   public String execute() 
   {
       return SUCCESS;
   }
   public String getName() {
       return name;
   }
   public void setName(String name) {
       this.name = name;
   }
   public int getAge() {
       return age;
   }
   public void setAge(int age) {
       this.age = age;
   }

   public void validate()
   {
      if (name == null || name.trim().equals(""))
      {
         addFieldError("name","The name is required");
      }
      if (age < 28 || age > 65)
      {
         addFieldError("age","Age must be in between 28 and 65");
      }
   }
}
As shown in the above example, the validation method checks whether the 'Name' field has a value or not. If no value has been supplied, we add a field error for the 'Name' field with a custom error message. Secondly, we check if entered value for 'Age' field is in between 28 and 65 or not, if this condition does not meet we add an error above the validated field.

Configuration Files

Finally, let us put everything together using the struts.xml configuration file as follows:
<?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.devMode" value="true" />
   <package name="helloworld" extends="struts-default">

      <action name="empinfo" 
         class="com.tutorialspoint.struts2.Employee"
         method="execute">
         <result name="input">/index.jsp</result>
         <result name="success">/success.jsp</result>
      </action>

   </package>

</struts>
Following is the content of web.xml file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
   xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
   xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee
   http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
   id="WebApp_ID" version="3.0">

   <display-name>Struts 2</display-name>
   <welcome-file-list>
      <welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
   </welcome-file-list>

   <filter>
      <filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
      <filter-class>
         org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.FilterDispatcher
      </filter-class>
   </filter>

   <filter-mapping>
      <filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
      <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
   </filter-mapping>
</web-app>
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Actions In mvc

Create Action

The only requirement for actions in Struts2 is that there must be one no-argument method that returns either a String or Result object and must be a POJO. If the no-argument method is not specified, the default behavior is to use the execute() method.
Optionally you can extend the ActionSupport class which implements six interfaces including Action interface. The Action interface is as follows:
public interface Action {
   public static final String SUCCESS = "success";
   public static final String NONE = "none";
   public static final String ERROR = "error";
   public static final String INPUT = "input";
   public static final String LOGIN = "login";
   public String execute() throws Exception;
}
Let us take a look at the action method in the Hello World example:
package com.tutorialspoint.struts2;

public class HelloWorldAction{
   private String name;

   public String execute() throws Exception {
      return "success";
   }
   
   public String getName() {
      return name;
   }

   public void setName(String name) {
      this.name = name;
   }
}
To illustrate the point that the action method controls the view, let us make the following change to the execute method and extend the class ActionSupport as follows:
package com.tutorialspoint.struts2;

import com.opensymphony.xwork2.ActionSupport;

public class HelloWorldAction extends ActionSupport{
   private String name;

   public String execute() throws Exception {
      if ("SECRET".equals(name))
      {
         return SUCCESS;
      }else{
         return ERROR;  
      }
   }
   
   public String getName() {
      return name;
   }

   public void setName(String name) {
      this.name = name;
   }
}
In this example, we have some logic in the execute method to look at the name attribute. If the attribute equals to the string "SECRET", we return SUCCESS as the result otherwise we return ERROR as the result. Because we have extended ActionSupport, so we can use String constants SUCCESS and ERROR. Now, let us modify our struts.xml file as follows:
<?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.devMode" value="true" />
      <package name="helloworld" extends="struts-default">
         <action name="hello" 
            class="com.tutorialspoint.struts2.HelloWorldAction"
            method="execute">
            <result name="success">/HelloWorld.jsp</result>
            <result name="error">/AccessDenied.jsp</result>
         </action>
      </package>
</struts>

Create a View

Let us create the below jsp file HelloWorld.jsp in the WebContent folder in your eclipse project. To do this, right click on the WebContent folder in the project explorer and select New >JSP File. This file will be called in case return result is SUCCESS which is a String constant "success" as defined in Action interface:
<%@ page contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/struts-tags" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello World</title>
</head>
<body>
   Hello World, <s:property value="name"/>
</body>
</html>
Following is the file which will be invoked by the framework in case action result is ERROR which is equal to String constant "error". Following is the content ofAccessDenied.jsp
<%@ page contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/struts-tags" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Access Denied</title>
</head>
<body>
   You are not authorized to view this page.
</body>
</html>
We also need to create index.jsp in the WebContent folder. This file will serve as the initial action URL where the user can click to tell the Struts 2 framework to call the execute method of the HelloWorldAction class and render the HelloWorld.jsp view.
<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
   pageEncoding="ISO-8859-1"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/struts-tags"%>
   <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello World</title>
</head>
<body>
   <h1>Hello World From Struts2</h1>
   <form action="hello">
      <label for="name">Please enter your name</label><br/>
      <input type="text" name="name"/>
      <input type="submit" value="Say Hello"/>
   </form>
</body>
</html>
That's it, there is no change required web.xml file, so let us use same web.xml which we had created in Examples chapter. Now we are ready to run our Hello World application using Struts 2 framework.
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MVC Architecture

Struts MVC

Model View Controller or MVC as it is popularly called, is a software design pattern for developing web applications. A Model View Controller pattern is made up of the following three parts:
  • Model - The lowest level of the pattern which is responsible for maintaining data.
  • View - This is responsible for displaying all or a portion of the data to the user.
  • Controller - Software Code that controls the interactions between the Model and View.
MVC is popular as it isolates the application logic from the user interface layer and supports separation of concerns. Here the Controller receives all requests for the application and then works with the Model to prepare any data needed by the View. The View then uses the data prepared by the Controller to generate a final presentable response. The MVC abstraction can be graphically represented as follows.

The model

The model is responsible for managing the data of the application. It responds to the request from the view and it also responds to instructions from the controller to update itself.

The view

A presentation of data in a particular format, triggered by a controller's decision to present the data. They are script based templating systems like JSP, ASP, PHP and very easy to integrate with AJAX technology.

The controller

The controller is responsible for responding to user input and perform interactions on the data model objects. The controller receives the input, it validates the input and then performs the business operation that modifies the state of the data model.
Struts2 is a MVC based framework. In the coming chapters, let us see how we can use the MVC methodology within Struts2.
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