Spring Live

by Matt Raible

Copyright © 2004 by SourceBeat, LLC.

Cover Copyright © 2004 by SourceBeat, LLC.
All rights reserved.

Published by SourceBeat, LLC, Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

Managing Editor: James Goodwill

Technical Editor: Dion Almaer
Copy Editor: Amy Kesic
Layout Designer: Amy Kesic
Cover Designer: Max Hayes

ISBN: 0974884340

Many designations used by organizations to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. These trademarked names may
appear in this book. We use the names in an editorial fashion only with no intention of infringing on the trademark; therefore you will
not see the use of a trademark symbol with every occurrence of the trademarked name.

As every precaution has been taken in writing this book, the author and publisher will in no way be held liable for any loss or damages
resulting from the use of information contained in this book.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents 3

Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Chapter 1: Introducing Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The History of Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

About Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Why Everyone Loves It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Common Criticisms of Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
How Spring Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
How Spring Makes J2EE Easier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Coding to Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Easy Testability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Reducing Coupling: Factory Pattern vs. Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Configuring and Binding Class Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Object/Relational Mapping Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Chapter 2: Spring Quick Start Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Download Struts and Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Create Project Directories and an Ant Build File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Tomcat and Ant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Create Unit Test for Persistence Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Configure Hibernate and Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
How Spring Is Configured in Equinox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Implement UserDAO with Hibernate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Run Unit Test and Verify CRUD with DAO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Create Manager and Declare Transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Create Unit Test for Struts Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Create Action and Model (DynaActionForm) for Web Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Run Unit Test and Verify CRUD with Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Complete JSPs to Allow CRUD through a Web Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Verify JSP’s Functionality through Your Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Adding Validation Using Commons Validator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Add the Validator Plug-in to struts-config.xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Edit the validation.xml File to Specify That lastName Is a Required Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Change the DynaActionForm to DynaValidatorForm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Configure Validation for save() Method, But Not for Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

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Chapter 3: The BeanFactory and How It Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

About the BeanFactory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

A Bean’s Lifecycle in the BeanFactory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Inversion of Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
The Bean Definition Exposed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Configuring Properties and Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Specifying Dependencies with <ref> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Pre-Initializing Your Beans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Autowiring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Dependency Checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
setXXX() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
setBeanFactory() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
afterPropertiesSet() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
init-method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Ready State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Destroying Beans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
The ApplicationContext: Talking to Your Beans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Get That Context! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Tips for Unit Testing and Loading Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Internationalization and MessageSource . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Event Publishing and Subscribing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
A Closer Look at MyUser’s applicationContext.xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Chapter 4: Spring’s MVC Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Unit Testing Spring Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Configure DispatcherServlet and ContextLoaderListener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Modify web.xml to Use Spring’s DispatchServlet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Remove Struts and add Spring Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Create Unit Test for UserController . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Create UserController and Configure action-servlet.xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Create userList.jsp to Display List of Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Create Unit Test for UserFormController . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Create UserFormController and Configure It in action-servlet.xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Create userForm.jsp to Allow Editing User's Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Configure Commons Validator for Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
SimpleFormController: Method Lifecyle Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Spring’s JSP Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

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Chapter 5: Advanced MVC: Templates, Validation, Exceptions and

Uploading Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Templating with SiteMesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Installation and Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Step 1: Configure SiteMesh in web.xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Step 2: Create Configuration Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Step 3: Create a Decorator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Templating with Tiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Installation and Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Step 1: Configure Spring to Recognize Tiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Step 2: Create a Base Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Step 3: Create Page Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Validating the Spring Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Using Commons Validator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
XDoclet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Chaining Validators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Validating in Business Delegates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Spring’s Future Declarative Validation Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Exception Handling in Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Uploading Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Intercepting the Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Sending E-Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Chapter 6: View Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Views and ViewResolvers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Testing the View with jWebUnit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
JSP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
View Resolver Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
JSTL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
The Display Tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Tiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Using Velocity in MyUsers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
View Resolver Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
SiteMesh and Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Edit web.xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Create Velocity Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
userList.vm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
userForm.vm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
fileUpload.vm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
dataAccessFailure.vm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Deploy and Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

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Summary of Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

FreeMarker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
View Resolver Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
SiteMesh and FreeMarker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Edit web.xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Create FreeMarker Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
userList.ftl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
userForm.ftl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
fileUpload.ftl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
dataAccessFailure.ftl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Deploy and Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
XSLT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Create the View Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Deploy and Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Excel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Create the View Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Deploy and Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
PDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Create the View Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Deploy and Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Chapter 7: Persistence Strategies: Hibernate, iBATIS, JDBC, JDO and OJB . 199

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Preparing for the Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Hibernate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Test It! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
MySQL Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Caching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Lazy-Loading Dependent Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Community and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
iBATIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Test It! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Caching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Retrieving Generated Primary Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Community and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Spring JDBC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

Spring Live
Table of Contents 7

Mapping ResultsSets to Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Executing Update Queries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Retrieving Generated Primary Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Test It! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Community and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
JDO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
JDO and Primary Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Test It! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Caching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Community and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
OJB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Test It! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Caching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Community and Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Chapter 8: Testing Spring Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
JUnit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Mock Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Integration Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Testing the Database Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
DbUnit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Database Switching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
Overriding Beans for Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Use JNDI DataSource in Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Load Context Once . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Testing the Service Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Using Mocks for DAO Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
EasyMock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
jMock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Testing the Web Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Testing Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Spring Mocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Cactus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Spring Live
Table of Contents 8

Testing File Upload and E-Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Testing Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
jWebUnit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Canoo WebTest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Chapter 9: AOP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Logging Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Definitions and Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Pointcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Weaving Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
JDK Dynamic Proxies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Dynamic Byte-Code Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Custom Class Loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Language Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Convenient Proxy Beans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
AutoProxy Beans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Practical AOP Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Caching in the Middle Tier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Event Notification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Spring Live
 Dedication

To Abbie and Jack – the coolest kids in town.

Spring Live
 Acknowledgments
I'd like to thank my wife, Julie, for being such a great mother and terrific wife. Your ability to entertain
Abbie and comfort Jack at the same time is amazing. Thank you for building our home and giving birth
to Jack while I wrote this book. Abbie and Jack, thanks for reminding me that work is not as important
as playing with you. Your smiles and giggles always make my day.

I'd like to thank my parents, Joe and Barb, for instilling in me the passion to learn. I learned a lot about
computers from my Dad's passion for them. Dad, thanks for being such a good role model and great
friend. To my sister Kalin, I appreciate your listening to all my stories when we walked home from the
bus stop. I can't help but think that my storytelling as a child helped me become an author.

Thanks to Rod Johnson for providing J2EE developers with such a great framework for developing
J2EE applications more easily. Juergen, Colin, Keith and the rest of the Spring Framework team – keep
up the coding! Your time, commitment and user support are greatly appreciated. Open-source is a great
way to develop software, and your team is one of the best.

To the SourceBeat founders, Matt Filios and James Goodwill, thanks for the opportunity to write and to
do it such an innovative way. SourceBeat is a great model from which readers will truly benefit. Dion, I
appreciate all the time you spent plowing through the code in Spring Live and ensuring all the examples
worked. You've been a great technical editor. Amy, thanks for changing all my "we's" to "you's" and
causing my words to make sense. Your ability to make a technical book flow is remarkable.

Spring Live
 About the Author

Matt Raible is a J2EE Consultant and Developer living in Denver, Colorado. He grew up in a log cabin
in the backwoods of Montana, without any electricity or running water. He loves Montana and its deli-
cious huckleberries and tries to visit a few times a year.

Matt has been developing websites since before Netscape 1.0. He wrote a lot of HTML, JavaScript and
CSS while in college in the 1990s. When he graduated with degrees in Russian, International Business
and Finance, he found that he actually liked computers more and became a consultant.

Matt has been developing Java web applications since 1999 and is President of Raible Designs, Inc. He
is also a member of the J2EE 5.0 Expert Group and hopes to help them make J2EE easier for developers.
Rather than just talking about technologies that make things easier, Matt also uses them in his open-
source application starter kit called AppFuse. He is actively involved in many open-source projects and
blogs about his experiences regularly on www.raibledesigns.com.

Spring Live
 Preface
Thank you for buying a subscription to Spring Live. Unlike traditional books, this book will change,
grow and become better over the next year. Your subscription entitles you to have a say in what goes into
this book over the next 12 months. While the 1.0 version has been fun to write, the updates to this book
are what excite me.

Together, we can act as a team to produce an in-depth, pragmatic and interesting book about the Spring
Framework. As you provide feedback, I can improve existing content in the book and add new content
that interests you. This book is yours as much as it is mine; let's make it great together.

Spring Live is an introduction to the Spring Framework. Version 1.0 targets readers who have no experi-
ence with Spring. The update chapters will target the advanced Spring user. As the Spring Framework
grows and improves over the next year, you will need a book like Spring Live to keep up and get your
job done. If you know of projects that are coming up and using a certain technology in Spring, let me
know; maybe I can write a chapter on it before you start.

This book will be managed similar to an open-source project. There will be monthly releases of the book
and they will be announced on my Spring Live Weblog. All of the source code developed in the chapters
is available at http://sourcebeat.com/downloads. This page has links to download before and after snap-
shots of each chapter's code.

If you find issues or would like to request features, please enter them in JIRA. For general discussion
questions, you can use the Spring Live Forums or Equinox User Mailing List. I've also setup a Conflu-
ence Wiki for tracking FAQs and update chapters. You can also send e-mail to me directly at
[email protected].

Thanks to Atlassian for the JIRA and Confluence software and to Javalobby for hosting the weblog and
forums.

Sincerely,

Matt Raible

Spring Live
 Introduction
This book is written for Java developers familiar with web frameworks. Its main purpose is to allow Java devel-
opers to get up to speed quickly with Spring. It is quite code-intensive because code examples are more useful
than theory when learning a new technology.

This book includes a useable sample application that uses Spring and Hibernate to manage the persistence layer
and the middle tier. This application uses a simple webapp starter kit I developed called Equinox. Equinox is
really just an Ant build file, a directory structure, and the JARs you need to develop a Spring-based J2EE appli-
cation.

In Chapter 2, Equinox is used to quickly develop a simple webapp, called MyUsers, that does CRUD on a
database table. JUnit, Struts, Spring and Hibernate are used to develop MyUsers, and HSQL and Tomcat are used
as a deployment platform. In Chapter 4, MyUsers is refactored to use Spring's MVC framework for the web tier.
All the code developed in the chapters below is done using a test-first methodology.

Chapter 1: Introducing Spring covers the basics of Spring, how it came to be and why it’s getting so much
press and rave reviews. It compares the traditional way of resolving dependencies (binding interfaces to imple-
mentations using a Factory Pattern) and how Spring does it all in XML. It also briefly covers how it simplifies
the Hibernate API.

Chapter 2: Spring Quick Start Tutorial is a tutorial on how to write a simple Spring web application using the
Struts MVC framework for the front end, Spring for the middle-tier glue, and Hibernate for the back end. In
Chapter 4, this application will be refactored to use the Spring MVC framework.

Chapter 3: The BeanFactory and How It Works. The BeanFactory represents the heart of Spring, so it’s
important to know how it works. This chapter explains how bean definitions are written, their properties, depen-
dencies, and autowiring. It also explains the logic behind making singleton beans versus prototypes. Then it
delves into Inversion of Control, how it works, and the simplicity it brings. This chapter dissects the Lifecyle of
a bean in the BeanFactory to show how it works. This chapter also inspects the applicationContext.xml file for
the MyUsers application created in Chapter 2.

Chapter 4: Spring’s MVC Framework describes the many features of Spring’s MVC framework. It shows you
how to replace the Struts layer in MyUsers with Spring. It covers the DispatcherServlet, various Controllers,
Handler Mappings, View Resolvers, Validation and Internationalization. It also briefly covers Spring’s JSP Tags.

Chapter 5: Advanced MVC Framework - Templates, Validation, Exceptions and Uploading Files covers
advanced topics in web frameworks, particularly validation and page decoration. It shows the user how to use
Tiles or SiteMesh to decorate a web application. It also explains how the Spring framework handles validation,
and shows examples of using it in the web business layers. Finally, it explains a strategy for handling exceptions
in the controllers, how to upload files and how to send e-mail.

Chapter 6: View Options covers the view options in Spring’s MVC architecture. At the time of this writing, the
options are JSP, Velocity, FreeMarker, XSLT, PDF and Excel. This chapter aims to become a reference for con-
figuring all Spring-supported views. It also contains a brief overview how each view works and compares con-
structing a page in MyUsers with each option. Additionally, it focuses on internationalization for each view
option.

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Chapter 7: Persistence Strategies: Hibernate, iBATIS, JDBC, JDO and OJB. Hibernate is quickly becoming
a popular choice for persistence in Java applications, but sometimes it doesn’t fit. If you have an existing data-
base schema, or even pre-written SQL, sometimes it’s better to use JDBC or iBATIS (which supports external-
ized SQL in XML files). This chapter refactors the MyUsers application to support both JDBC and iBATIS as
persistence framework options. It also implements the UserDAO using JDO and OJB to showcase Spring's
excellent support for these frameworks.

Chapter 8: Testing Spring Applications explains how to use test-driven development to create high-quality,
well-tested, Spring-based applications. You will learn how to test your components using tools like EasyMock,
jMock and DBUnit. For the Controllers, you will learn how to use Cactus for in-container testing, and Spring
Mocks for out-of-container testing. Lastly, you will learn how to use jWebUnit and Canoo's WebTest for testing
the web interface.

Chapter 9: AOP. Aspect Oriented Programming has received a lot of hype in the Java community in the last
year. What is AOP and how can it help you in your applications? This chapter will cover the basics of AOP and
give some useful examples of how AOP might help you.

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 Chapter
1

Introducing Spring
The Basics of Spring and Its History

This chapter covers the basics of Spring, how it came to be and why it’s getting so much press and rave reviews.
It compares the traditional way of resolving dependencies (binding interfaces to implementations using a
Factory Pattern) and how Spring does it all in XML. It also briefly covers how it simplifies the Hibernate API.

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The History of Spring 2

The History of Spring

Rod Johnson is the ingenious inventor of Spring. It started from infrastructure code in his book, Expert One-on-
One J2EE Design and Development, in late 2002. I highly recommend this book. In it, Rod explains his
experiences with J2EE and how Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) are often overkill for projects. He believes a
lightweight, JavaBeans-based framework can suite most developers’ needs. The framework described eventually
became known as The Spring Framework when it was open-sourced on SourceForge in February 2003. At this
point, Rod was joined by Juergen Hoeller as Lead Developer and right-hand man of Spring. Rod and Juergen
have added many other developers over the last several months. At the time of this writing, sixteen developers
are on Spring’s committee list. Rod and Juergen have recently written a book titled Expert One-on-One J2EE
Development without EJB that describes how Spring solves many of the problems with J2EE.

The architectural foundations of Spring have been developed by Rod since early 2000 (before Struts or any other
frameworks I know of). These foundations were built from Rod’s experiences building infrastructure on a
number of successful commercial projects. Spring’s foundation is constantly being enhanced and re-enforced by
hundreds (possibly thousands) of developers. All are bringing their experience to the table, and you can literally
watch Spring become stronger day-by-day. Its community is thriving, its developers are enthusiastic and
dedicated and it’s quite possibly the best thing that has ever happened to J2EE.

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About Spring 3

About Spring

According to Spring’s web site, “Spring is a layered J2EE application framework based on code published in
Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development by Rod Johnson.” At its core, it provides a means to manage
your business objects and their dependencies. For example, using Inversion of Control (IoC), it allows you to
specify that a Data Access Object (DAO) depends on a DataSource. It also allows a developer to code to
interfaces and simply define the implementation using an XML file. Spring contains many classes that support
other frameworks (such as Hibernate and Struts) to make integration easier.

Following J2EE Design Patterns can be cumbersome and unnecessary at times (and in fact often become anti-
patterns). Spring is like following design patterns, but everything is simplified. For example, rather than writing
a ServiceLocator to look up Hibernate Sessions, you can configure a SessionFactory in Spring. This
allows you to follow the best practices of J2EE field experts rather than trying to figure out the latest pattern.

Why Everyone Loves It

If you follow online forums like TheServerSide.com or JavaLobby.org, you’ve likely seen Spring mentioned. It
has even more traction in the Java blogging community (such as JavaBlogs.com and JRoller.com). Many
developers are describing their experiences with Spring and praising its ease of use.

Not only does Spring solve developers’ problems, it also enforces good programming practices like coding to
interfaces, reducing coupling and allowing for easy testability. In the modern era of programming, particularly in
Java, good developers are practicing Test Driven Development (TDD). TDD is a way of letting your tests, or
clients of your classes, drive the design of those classes. Rather than building a class, then trying to retrofit the
client, you’re building the client first. This way, you know exactly what you want from the class you’re
developing. Spring has a rich test suite of its own that allows for easy testing of your classes.

Compare this to “best practices” from J2EE, where the blueprints recommend that you use EJBs to handle
business logic. EJBs require an EJB container to run, so you have to startup your container to test them. When’s
the last time you started up an EJB server like WebLogic, WebSphere or JBoss? It can test your patience if you
have to do it over and over to test your classes.

NOTE
Recently, an article titled “Testing EJBs with OpenEJB” showed a faster way to test EJBs, but it’s only a
workaround for the testability problems inherent in EJBs.

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About Spring 4

Common Criticisms of Spring

With success, there’s always some criticism. The most compelling argument I’ve seen against Spring is that it’s
not a “standard,” meaning it’s not part of the J2EE specification and it hasn’t been developed through the Java
Community Process. The same folks who argue against Spring advocate EJBs, which are standard. However, the
main reason for standards is to ensure portability across appservers. The code you develop for one server should
run on another, but porting EJBs from one EJB container to another is not as simple as it should be. Different
vendors require different deployment descriptors and there’s no common way of configuring data sources or
other container dependencies. However coding business logic with Spring is highly portable across containers –
with no changes to your code or deployment descriptors!

While Spring “makes things easier,” some developers complain that it’s “too heavyweight.” However, Spring is
really an a la carte framework where you can pick and choose what you want to use. The development team has
segmented the distribution so you can use only the Java ARchives (JARs) you need.

How Spring Works

The J2EE Design and Development book illustrates Spring and how it works. Spring is a way to configure
applications using JavaBeans. When I say JavaBeans, I mean Java classes with getters and setters (also called
accessors and mutators) for its class variables. Specifically, if a class exposes setters, Spring configures that
class. Using Spring, you can expose any of your class dependencies (that is, a database connection) with a setter,
and then configure Spring to set that dependency. Even better, you don’t have to write a class to establish the
database connection; you can configure that in Spring too! This dependency resolution has a name: Inversion of
Control or Dependency Injection. Basically, it’s a technical term for wiring dependent objects together through
some sort of container.

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 About Spring 5

Spring has seven individual modules, each having its own JAR file Below is a diagram1 of the seven modules:

Figure 9.1: Spring’s seven modules

In the MyUsers application that you will develop in Chapter 2, you will use several of the modules above, but
not all of them. Furthermore, you’ll only be using a fraction of the functionality in each module.

1. This diagram is based on one from Spring’s Reference Documentation.

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About Spring 6

The diagram below shows the Spring modules that MyUsers will be using.

Figure 9.1: MyUsers application architecture using Spring

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How Spring Makes J2EE Easier 7

How Spring Makes J2EE Easier

In Figure 1.2, you can see that Spring provides a lot of pieces in the application you’ll be building. At first
glance, it looks intrusive and that you’ll to have to know a lot about Spring. Not true, my friend. In most cases,
you won’t even see Spring’s API being used. For instance, in the middle tier, you will set up declarative
transactions and set DAOs on the business delegates. Your code will not see a single import from Spring, nor any
Factory Patterns to figure out which DAO implementation to use. You simply configure it all in an XML file -
and voila! - clean design is yours.

The following sections talk about some of the processes that Spring simplifies.

Coding to Interfaces

Coding to interfaces allows developers to advertise the methods by which their objects will be used. It’s helpful
to design your application using interfaces because you gain a lot of flexibility in your implementation.
Furthermore, communicating between the different tiers using interfaces promotes loose coupling of your code.

Easy Testability

Using Test-Driven Development (TDD) is the best way to rapidly produce high-quality code. It allows you to
drive your design by coding your clients (the tests) before you code interfaces or implementations. In fact,
modern IDEs like Eclipse and IDEA will allow you to create your classes and methods on-the-fly as you’re
writing your tests. Spring-enabled projects are easy to test for two reasons:

• You can easily load and use all your Spring-managed beans in a JUnit test. This allows you to
interact with them as you normally would from any client.

• Your classes won’t bind their own dependencies. This allows you to ignore Spring in your tests
and set mock objects as dependencies.

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How Spring Makes J2EE Easier 8

Reducing Coupling: Factory Pattern vs. Spring

In order to have an easily maintainable and extendable application, it’s not desirable to tightly couple your code
to a specific resource (for example, you may have code that uses SQL functions that are specific to a database
type). Of course, it’s often easier to code to a specific database if the proprietary functionality helps you get your
job done quicker. When you do end up coding proprietary functionality into a class, the J2EE Patterns
recommend that you use a Factory Pattern to de-couple your application from the implementing class.

In general, it’s a good idea to create interfaces for the different layers of your application. This allows the
individual layers to be ignorant of the implementations that exist. A typical J2EE application has three layers:

• Data Layer: classes that talk to a database or other data storage system.

• Business Logic: classes that hold business logic provide a bridge between the GUI layer and data
layer.

• User Interface: classes and view files used to compose a web or desktop interface to a user.

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How Spring Makes J2EE Easier 9

Figure 1.3 is a graphical representation of a typical J2EE application.

Figure 9.1: A typical J2EE application

A Factory Pattern (also known as the Abstract Factory and Factory Method from the Gang of Four Patterns)
allows you to easily switch from one implementation to another by using a couple of factory classes. Typically,
you’ll create an abstract DAOFactory class and a factory class for the specific implementation (such as
DAOFactoryMySQL). For more information, see Core J2EE Patterns – Data Access Object from the J2EE
Patterns Catalog.

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How Spring Makes J2EE Easier 10

Configuring and Binding Class Dependencies

The Factory Pattern is a complicated J2EE pattern. Not only does it require two classes to setup, but it also
introduces issues with managing dependencies of those “factoried” objects. For instance, if you’re getting a
DAO from the factory, how do you pass in a connection (rather than opening one for each method)? You can pass
it in as part of the constructor, but what if you’re using a DAO implementation that requires a Hibernate Session?
You could make the constructor parameter a java.lang.Object and than cast it to the required type, but it just
seems ugly.

The better way is to use Spring to bind interfaces to implementations. Everything is configured in an XML file
and you can easily switch out your implementation by modifying that file. Even better, you can write your unit
tests so no one knows which implementation you’re using – and you can run them for numerous
implementations. It works great with iBATIS and Hibernate DAO implementations. Since the test is in fact a
client, it’s a great way to ensure the business logic layer will work with an alternative DAO implementation.
Here’s an example of getting a UserDAO implementation using Spring:

ApplicationContext ctx =
new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml");
UserDAO dao = (UserDAO) ctx.getBean("userDAO");

You’ll have to configure the “userDAO” bean in the /WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml file. Below is a code
snippet from Chapter 2:

<bean id="userDAO" class="org.appfuse.dao.hibernate.UserDAOHibernate">

<property name="sessionFactory">
<ref local="sessionFactory"/>
</property>
</bean>

If you want to change the implementation of UserDAO, all you need to change is the “class” attribute in the
above XML block. It’s a cleaner pattern that you can use throughout your application. All you need to do is add a
few lines to your beans definition file. Furthermore, Spring manages the Hibernate Session for this DAO for you
via the "sessionFactory" property. You don’t even need to worry about closing it anymore!

NOTE
Spring is often referred to as a “lightweight container” because you talk to its “ApplicationContext” in order to get
instantiated objects. The objects are defined in a context file (also called beans definition file). This file is simply an
XML file with a number of <bean> elements. In a sense, it’s a “bean container” or an “object library,” where
everything has been set up and is ready to be used. It’s not really a container in the traditional sense (such as
Tomcat or WebLogic), but more of a “configured beans provider.”

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How Spring Makes J2EE Easier 11

Object/Relational Mapping Tools

Another example of Spring’s usability is its first-class support for Object/Relational Mapping (ORM) tools. The
first advantage of using the ORM support classes is you don’t need to try/catch many of the checked exceptions
that these APIs throw. Spring wraps the checked exceptions with runtime exceptions, allowing the developer to
decide if he wants to catch exceptions. Below is an example of a getUsers() method from a
UserDAOHibernate class without Spring:

public List getUsers() throws DAOException {

List list = null;

try {
list = ses.find("from User u order by upper(u.username)");
} catch (HibernateException he) {
he.printStackTrace();
throw new DAOException(he);
}

return list;
}

Here is an example using Spring’s Hibernate support (by extending HibernateDaoSupport), which is much
shorter and simpler:

public List getUsers() {

return getHibernateTemplate()
.find("from User u order by upper(u.username)");
}

From these examples, you can see how Spring makes it easier to de-couple your application layers, your
dependencies and it handles configuring and binding a class’s dependencies. It also greatly simplifies the API to
use ORM tools, such as Hibernate.

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Summary 12

Summary

This chapter discussed the history of Spring, why everyone loves it and how it makes J2EE development easier.
Examples were provided comparing the traditional Factory Pattern to Spring’s ApplicationContext, as well
as a before and after view of developing with Hibernate.

Spring’s ApplicationContext can be thought of as a “bean provider” that handles instantiating objects,
binding their dependencies and providing them to you pre-configured.

Chapter 2 is a tutorial for developing a web application that uses Spring, Hibernate and Struts to manage users in
a database. This application will demonstrate how Spring makes J2EE and Test-Driven Development easier.
Chapter 3 examines the Spring Core module, as well as the lifecycle of the beans it manages. This is the heart
and brain of Spring – controlling how objects work together and providing them with the support they need to
survive.

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 Chapter
2

Spring Quick Start Tutorial

Developing Your First Spring Web Application

This chapter is a tutorial on how to write a simple Spring web application using the Struts MVC framework for
the front end, Spring for the middle-tier glue, and Hibernate for the back end. In Chapter 4, this application will
be refactored to use the Spring MVC framework.

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Writing tests to verify functionality.

• Configuring Hibernate and Transactions.

• Loading Spring’s applicationContext.xml file.

• Setting up dependencies between business services and DAOs.

• Wiring Spring into the Struts application.

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Overview 14

Overview

You will create a simple application for user management that does basic CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update and
Delete). This application is called MyUsers, which will be the sample application throughout the book. It’s a 3-
tiered webapp, with an Action that calls a business service, which in turn calls a Data Access Object (DAO). The
diagram below shows a brief overview of how the MyUsers application will work when you finish this tutorial.
The numbers below indicate the order of flow – from the web (UserAction) to the middle tier,
(UserManager), to the data layer (UserDAO) – and back again.

Figure 9.1: MyUsers application flow

This application uses Struts as the MVC framework because most readers are familiar with Struts. The real
power of Spring lies in its declarative transactions, dependency binding and persistence support (for example
Hibernate and iBATIS). Chapter 4 refactors this application to use Spring’s MVC framework.

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Overview 15

Below are the ordered steps you will perform:

1. Download Struts and Spring.

2. Create project directories and an Ant build file.

3. Create a unit test for the persistence layer.

4. Configure Hibernate and Spring.

5. Create Hibernate DAO implementation.

6. Run the unit test and verify CRUD with DAO.

7. Create a Manager and Declare Transactions.

8. Create a unit test for the Struts Action.

9. Create an Action and model (DynaActionForm) for the web layer.

10. Run the unit test and verify CRUD with Action.

11. Create JSPs to allow CRUD through a web browser.

12. Verify the JSPs’ functionality through your browser.

13. Add Validation use Commons Validator.

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Download Struts and Spring 16

Download Struts and Spring1

1. Download and install the following components:

• JDK 1.4.2 (or above)

• Tomcat 5.0+
• Ant 1.6.1+

2. Set up the following environment variables:

• JAVA_HOME
• ANT_HOME
• CATALINA_HOME

3. Add the following to your PATH environment variable:

• JAVA_HOME/bin
• ANT_HOME/bin
• CATALINA_HOME/bin

To develop a Java-based web application, developers download JARs, create a directory structure, and create an
Ant build file. For a Struts-only application, simplify this by using the struts-blank.war, which is part of the
standard Struts distribution. For a webapp using Spring’s MVC framework, use the webapp-minimal application
that ships with Spring. Both of these are nice starting points, but neither simplifies the Struts-Spring integration
nor takes into account unit testing. Therefore, I have made available to my readers Equinox.

Equinox is a bare-bones starter application for creating a Struts-Spring web application. It has a pre-defined
directory structure, an Ant build file (for compiling, deploying and testing), and all the JARs you will need for a
Struts, Spring and Hibernate-based webapp. Much of the directory structure and build file in Equinox is taken
from my open-source AppFuse application. Therefore, Equinox is really just an “AppFuse Light” that allows
rapid webapp development with minimal setup. Because it is derived from AppFuse, you will see many
references to it in package names, database names and other areas. This is done purposefully so you can migrate
from an Equinox-based application to a more robust AppFuse-based application.

In order to start MyUsers, download Equinox from http://sourcebeat.com/downloads and extract it to an

appropriate location.

1. You can learn more about how I set up my development environment on Windows at http://raibledesigns.com/wiki/
Wiki.jsp?page=DevelopmentEnvironment.

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Create Project Directories and an Ant Build File

To set up your initial directory structure and Ant build file, extract the Equinox download onto your hard drive. I
recommend putting projects in C:\Source on Windows and ~/dev on Unix or Linux. For Windows users, now
is a good time set your HOME environment variable to C:\Source. The easiest way to get started with Equinox
is to extract it to your preferred “source” location, cd into the equinox directory and run ant new -
Dapp.name=myusers from the command line.

NOTE
I use Cygwin (www.cygwin.org) on Windows, which allows me to type forward-slashes, just like Unix/Linux.
Because of this, all the paths I present in this book will have forward slashes. Please adjust for your environment
accordingly (that is, use backslashes (\) for Windows’ command prompt).

At this point, you should have the following directory structure for the MyUsers webapp:

Figure 2.2: MyUsers application directory structure

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Create Project Directories and an Ant Build File 18

Equinox contains a simple but powerful build.xml file to deploy, compile and test using Ant. For all the ant
targets available, type “ant” in the MyUsers directory. The return should look like the following:

[echo] Available targets are:

[echo] compile --> Compile all Java files

[echo] war --> Package as WAR file
[echo] deploy --> Deploy application as directory
[echo] deploywar --> Deploy application as a WAR file

[echo] install --> Install application in Tomcat

[echo] remove --> Remove application from Tomcat
[echo] reload --> Reload application in Tomcat
[echo] start --> Start Tomcat application
[echo] stop --> Stop Tomcat application
[echo] list --> List Tomcat applications

[echo] clean --> Deletes compiled classes and WAR

[echo] new --> Creates a new project

Equinox supports Tomcat’s Ant tasks. These tasks are already integrated into Equinox, but showing you how
they were integrated will help you understand how they work.

Tomcat and Ant

Tomcat ships with a number of Ant tasks that allow you to install, remove and reload webapps using its Manager
application. The easiest way to declare and use these tasks is to create a properties file that contains all the
definitions. In Equinox, a tomcatTasks.properties file is in the base directory with the following contents:

deploy=org.apache.catalina.ant.DeployTask
undeploy=org.apache.catalina.ant.UndeployTask
remove=org.apache.catalina.ant.RemoveTask
reload=org.apache.catalina.ant.ReloadTask
start=org.apache.catalina.ant.StartTask
stop=org.apache.catalina.ant.StopTask
list=org.apache.catalina.ant.ListTask

A number of targets are in build.xml for installing, removing and reloading the application:

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<!-- Tomcat Ant Tasks -->

<taskdef file="tomcatTasks.properties">
<classpath>
<pathelement
path="${tomcat.home}/server/lib/catalina-ant.jar"/>
</classpath>
</taskdef>

<target name="install" description="Install application in Tomcat"

depends="war">
<deploy url="${tomcat.manager.url}"
username="${tomcat.manager.username}"
password="${tomcat.manager.password}"
path="/${webapp.name}"
war="file:${dist.dir}/${webapp.name}.war"/>
</target>

<target name="remove" description="Remove application from Tomcat">

<undeploy url="${tomcat.manager.url}"
username="${tomcat.manager.username}"
password="${tomcat.manager.password}"
path="/${webapp.name}"/>
</target>

<target name="reload" description="Reload application in Tomcat">

<reload url="${tomcat.manager.url}"
username="${tomcat.manager.username}"
password="${tomcat.manager.password}"
path="/${webapp.name}"/>
</target>

<target name="start" description="Start Tomcat application">

<start url="${tomcat.manager.url}"
username="${tomcat.manager.username}"
password="${tomcat.manager.password}"
path="/${webapp.name}"/>
</target>

<target name="stop" description="Stop Tomcat application">

<stop url="${tomcat.manager.url}"
username="${tomcat.manager.username}"
password="${tomcat.manager.password}"
path="/${webapp.name}"/>
</target>

<target name="list" description="List Tomcat applications">

<list url="${tomcat.manager.url}"
username="${tomcat.manager.username}"
password="${tomcat.manager.password}"/>
</target>

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In the targets listed above, several ${tomcat.*} variables need to be defined. These are in the build.properties
file in the base directory. By default, they are defined as follows:

# Properties for Tomcat Server

tomcat.manager.url=http://localhost:8080/manager
tomcat.manager.username=admin
tomcat.manager.password=admin

To make sure the “admin” user is able to access the Manager application, open the $CATALINA_HOME/conf/
tomcat-users.xml file and verify that the following line exists. If it does not exist, you must create it. Note that the
“roles” attribute may contain a comma-delimited list of roles.

<user username="admin" password="admin" roles="manager"/>

To test these changes, save all your files and start Tomcat. Then navigate to the “myusers” directory from the
command line and try running “ant list.” You should see a list of currently running applications on your Tomcat
server.

Figure 2.3: Results of the ant list command

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Create Project Directories and an Ant Build File 21

Now you can install MyUsers by running ant deploy. Open your browser and go to http://localhost:8080/
myusers. The “Welcome to Equinox” screen displays, as shown in Figure 2.4:

Figure 9.1: Equinox Welcome page

WARNING
In order for the in-memory HSQLDB to work correctly with MyUsers, start Tomcat from the same directory from
which you run Ant. Type “$CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh” on Unix/Linux and
“%CATALINA_HOME%\bin\startup.bat” on Windows. You can also change the database settings to use an
absolute path.

In the next few sections, you will develop a User object and a Hibernate DAO to persist that object. You will use
Spring to manage the DAO and its dependencies. Lastly, you will write a business service to use AOP and
declarative transactions.

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Create Unit Test for Persistence Layer 22

Create Unit Test for Persistence Layer

In the MyUsers app, you will use Hibernate for your persistence layer. Hibernate is an Object/Relational (O/R)
framework that relates Java Objects to database tables. It allows you to very easily perform CRUD (Create,
Retrieve, Update, Delete) on these objects. Spring makes working with Hibernate even easier. Switching from
Hibernate to Spring+Hibernate reduces code by about 75%. This code reduction is sponsored by the removal of
the ServiceLocator class, a couple of DAOFactory classes, and using Spring’s runtime exceptions instead of
Hibernate’s checked exceptions.

Writing a unit test will help you formulate your UserDAO interface. To create a JUnit test for your UserDAO,
complete the steps below:

1. Create a UserDAOTest.java class in the test/org/appfuse/dao directory. This class should extend
BaseDAOTestCase, which already exists in this package. This parent class initializes Spring's
ApplicationContext from the web/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml file. Below is the code you
will need for a minimal JUnit test:

package org.appfuse.dao;

// use your IDE to handle imports

public class UserDAOTest extends BaseDAOTestCase {

private User user = null;
private UserDAO dao = null;

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

super.setUp();
dao = (UserDAO) ctx.getBean("userDAO");
}

protected void tearDown() throws Exception {

super.tearDown();
dao = null;
}

This class won’t compile yet because you haven’t created your UserDAO interface. Before you do
that, write a couple of tests to verify CRUD works on the User object.

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2. Add the testSave and testAddAndRemove methods to the UserDAOTest class, as shown below:

public void testSaveUser() throws Exception {

user = new User ();
user.setFirstName("Rod");
user.setLastName("Johnson");

dao.saveUser(user);
assertNotNull("primary key assigned", user.getId());
log.info(user);
assertNotNull(user.getFirstName());
}

public void testAddAndRemoveUser() throws Exception {

user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Bill");
user.setLastName("Joy");

dao.saveUser(user);

assertNotNull(user.getID());
assertEquals(user.getFirstName(), "Bill");

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("removing user...");
}

dao.removeUser(user.getId());

assertNull(dao.getUser(user.getId()));
}

From these test methods, you can see that you need to create a UserDAO with the following methods:

• saveUser(User)

• removeUser(Long)

• getUser(Long)

• getUsers() (to return all the users in the database)

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Create Unit Test for Persistence Layer 24

3. Create a UserDAO.java file in the src/org/appfuse/dao directory and populate it with the code
below:

NOTE
If you are using an IDE like Eclipse or IDEA, a “lightbulb” icon will appear to the left of a non-existent class and
allow you to create it on-the-fly.

package org.appfuse.dao;

// use your IDE to handle imports

public interface UserDAO extends DAO {

public List getUsers();
public User getUser(Long userId);
public void saveUser(User user);
public void removeUser(Long userId);
}

Finally, in order for the UserDAOTest and UserDAO to compile, create a User object to persists.

4. Create a User.java class in the src/org/appfuse/model directory and add “id,” “firstName” and
“lastName” as member variables, as shown below:

package org.appfuse.model;
public class User extends BaseObject {
private Long id;
private String firstName;
private String lastName;

/*
Generate your getters and setters using your favorite IDE:
In Eclipse:
Right-click -> Source -> Generate Getters and Setters
*/
}

Notice that you’re extending a BaseObject class. It has the following useful methods:
toString(), equals() and hashCode(). The latter two are required by Hibernate.

NOTE
In a real-world application, these methods should not be in a parent class, but rather in each subclass. Making
them abstract in BaseObject can help to enforce this rule. Commonclipse is an Eclipse plugin that can generate
these methods for you.

After creating the User object, open the UserDAO anda UserDAOTest classes and organize imports
with your IDE.

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Configure Hibernate and Spring 25

Configure Hibernate and Spring

Now that you have the Plain Old Java Object (POJO), create a mapping file so Hibernate can persist it.

1. In the src/org/appfuse/model directory, create a file named User.hbm.xml with the following
contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD 2.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-mapping-2.0.dtd">

<hibernate-mapping>
<class name="org.appfuse.model.User" table="app_user">

<id name="id" column="id" unsaved-value="0">

<generator class="increment" />
</id>
<property name="firstName" column="first_name"
not-null="true"/>
<property name="lastName" column="last_name" not-null="true"/>

</class>
</hibernate-mapping>

2. Add this mapping to Spring’s applicationContext.xml file in the web/WEB-INF directory. Open this
file and look for <property name="mappingResources"> and change it to the following:

<property name="mappingResources">
<list>
<value>org/appfuse/model/User.hbm.xml</value>
</list>
</property>

In the applicationContext.xml file, you can see how the database is set up and Hibernate is configured
to work with Spring. Equinox is designed to work with an HSQL database named “db/appfuse.” It
will be created in your Ant “db” directory. Details of this configuration will be covered in the “How
Spring Is Configured in Equinox” section.

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Configure Hibernate and Spring 26

3. Run ant deploy reload (with Tomcat running) and see the database tables being creating as part
of Tomcat’s console log:

INFO - SchemaExport.execute(98) | Running hbm2ddl schema export

INFO - SchemaExport.execute(117) | exporting generated schema to database
INFO - ConnectionProviderFactory.newConnectionProvider(53) | Initializing
connection provider:
org.springframework.orm.hibernate.LocalDataSourceConnectionProvider
INFO - DriverManagerDataSource.getConnectionFromDriverManager(140) |
Creating new JDBC connection to [jdbc:hsqldb:db/appfuse]
INFO - SchemaExport.execute(160) | schema export complete

TIP
If you’d like to see more (or less) logging, change the log4j settings in the web/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.xml file

4. To verify that the “app_user” table was actually created in the database, run ant browse to bring up
a HSQL console. You should see the HSQL Database Manager as shown below:

Figure 9.1: HSQL Database Manager

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Configure Hibernate and Spring 27

How Spring Is Configured in Equinox

It is very easy to configure any J2EE-based web application to use Spring. At the very least, you can simply add
Spring’s ContextLoaderListener to your web.xml file:

<listener>
<listener-class>
org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
</listener-class>
</listener>

This is a ServletContextListener that initializes when your webapp starts up. By default, it looks for
Spring’s configuration file at WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml. You can change this default value by specifying
a <context-param> element named “contextConfigLocation.” An example is provided below:

<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/sampleContext.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

The <param-value> element can contain a space or comma-delimited set of paths. In Equinox, Spring is
configured using this Listener and its default “contextConfigLocation.”

So, how does Spring know about Hibernate? This is the beauty of Spring: it makes it very simple to bind
dependencies together. Look at the full contents of your applicationContext.xml file:

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Configure Hibernate and Spring 28

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC "-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN"
"http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd">

<beans>

<bean id="dataSource"
class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource">
<property name="driverClassName">
<value>org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver</value>
</property>
<property name="url">
<value>jdbc:hsqldb:db/appfuse</value>
</property>
<property name="username"><value>sa</value></property>
<!-- Make sure <value> tags are on same line - if they’re not,
authentication will fail -->
<property name="password"><value></value></property>
</bean>

<!-- Hibernate SessionFactory -->

<bean id="sessionFactory"
class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate.LocalSessionFactoryBean">
<property name="dataSource">
<ref local="dataSource"/>
</property>
<property name="mappingResources">
<list>
<value>org/appfuse/model/User.hbm.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
<property name="hibernateProperties">
<props>
<prop key="hibernate.dialect">
net.sf.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect
</prop>
<prop key="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto">create</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>

<!-- Transaction manager for a single Hibernate SessionFactory

(alternative to JTA) -->
<bean id="transactionManager"
class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager">
<property name="sessionFactory">
<ref local="sessionFactory"/>
</property>
</bean>
</beans>

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Configure Hibernate and Spring 29

The first bean (dataSource) represents an HSQL database, and the second bean (sessionFactory) has a
dependency on that bean. Spring just calls setDataSource(DataSource) on the
LocalSessionFactoryBean to make this work. If you wanted to use a JNDI DataSource instead, you could
easily change this bean’s definition to something similar to the following:

<bean id="dataSource"
class="org.springframework.jndi.JndiObjectFactoryBean">
<property name="jndiName">
<value>java:comp/env/jdbc/appfuse</value>
</property>
</bean>

Also note the “hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto” property in the “sessionFactory” definition. This property creates the
database tables automatically when the application starts. Other possible values are update and create-drop.

The last bean configured is the “transactionManager” (and nothing is stopping you from using a JTA transaction
manager), which is necessary to perform distributed transactions across two databases. If you want to use a JTA
transaction manager, simply change this bean’s “class” attribute to
org.springframework.transaction.jta.JtaTransactionManager.

Now you can implement the UserDAO with Hibernate.

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Implement UserDAO with Hibernate 30

Implement UserDAO with Hibernate

To create a Hibernate implementation of the UserDAO, complete the following steps:

1. Create a UserDAOHibernate.java class in src/org/appfuse/dao/hibernate (you will need to create

this directory/package). This file extends Spring's HibernateDaoSupport and implements
UserDAO.

package org.appfuse.dao.hibernate;

// use your IDE to handle imports

public class UserDAOHibernate extends HibernateDaoSupport implements

UserDAO {
private Log log = LogFactory.getLog(UserDAOHibernate.class);

public List getUsers() {

return getHibernateTemplate().find("from User");
}

public User getUser(Long id) {

return (User) getHibernateTemplate().get(User.class, id);
}

public void saveUser(User user) {

getHibernateTemplate().saveOrUpdate(user);

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug(“userId set to: “ + user.getID());
}
}

public void removeUser(Long id) {

Object user = getHibernateTemplate().load(User.class, id);
getHibernateTemplate().delete(user);
}
}

Spring’s HibernateDaoSupport class is a convenient super class for Hibernate DAOs. It has
handy methods you can call to get a Hibernate Session, or a SessionFactory. The most
convenient method is getHibernateTemplate(), which returns a HibernateTemplate. This
template wraps Hibernate checked exceptions with runtime exceptions, allowing your DAO
interfaces to be Hibernate exception-free.

Nothing is in your application to bind UserDAO to UserDAOHibernate, so you must create that relationship.

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Implement UserDAO with Hibernate 31

2. With Spring, add the following lines to the web/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml file.

<bean id="userDAO"
class="org.appfuse.dao.hibernate.UserDAOHibernate">
<property name="sessionFactory">
<ref local="sessionFactory"/>
</property>
</bean>

This sets a Hibernate SessionFactory on your UserDAOHibernate (which inherits

setSessionFactory() from HibernateDaoSupport). Spring detects if a Session already
exists (that is, it was opened in the web tier), and it uses that one instead of creating a new one. This
allows you to use Hibernate’s popular “Open Session in View” pattern for lazy loading collections.

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Run Unit Test and Verify CRUD with DAO 32

Run Unit Test and Verify CRUD with DAO

Before you run this first test, tune down your default logging from informational messages to warnings.

1. Change <level value="INFO"/> to <level value="WARN"/> in the log4j.xml file (in web/
WEB-INF/classes).

2. Run UserDAOTest using ant test. If this wasn’t your only test, you could use ant test -
Dtestcase=UserDAO to isolate which tests are run. After running this, your console should have a
couple of log messages from your tests, as shown below:

Figure 2.6: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO command

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Create Manager and Declare Transactions 33

Create Manager and Declare Transactions

A recommended practice in J2EE development is to keep your layers separated. That is to say, the data layer
(DAOs) shouldn’t be bound to the web layer (servlets). Using Spring, it’s easy to separate them, but it’s useful to
further separate these tiers with a business service class.

The main reasons for using a business service class are:

• Most presentation tier components execute a unit of business logic. It’s best to put this logic in a
non-web class so a web-service or rich platform client can use the same API as a servlet.

• Most business logic can take place in one method, possibly using more than one DAO. Using a
business service class allows you to use Spring’s declarative transactions feature at a higher
“business logic” level.

The UserManager interface in the MyUsers application has the same methods as the UserDAO. The main
difference is the Manager is more web-friendly; it accepts Strings where the UserDAO accepts Longs, and it
returns a User object in the saveUser() method. This is convenient after inserting a new user (for example, to
get its primary key). The Manager (or business service) is also a good place to put any business logic that your
application requires.

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Create Manager and Declare Transactions 34

1. Start the “services” layer by first creating a UserManagerTest class in test/org/appfuse/service

(you have to create this directory). This class extends JUnit’s TestCase and contains the following
code:

package org.appfuse.service;

// use your IDE to handle imports

public class UserManagerTest extends TestCase {

private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(UserManagerTest.class);
private ApplicationContext ctx;
private User user;
private UserManager mgr;

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

String[] paths = {"/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml"};
ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(paths);
mgr = (UserManager) ctx.getBean("userManager");
}

protected void tearDown() throws Exception {

user = null;
mgr = null;
}

// add testXXX methods here

In the setUp() method above, you are loading your applicationContext.xml file into the
ApplicationContext variable using ClassPathXmlApplicationContext. Several methods
are available for loading the ApplicationContext: from the classpath, the file system or within a
web application. These methods will be covered in the Chapter 3: The BeanFactory and How It
Works.

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2. Code the first test method to verify that adding and removing a User object with the UserManager
completes successfully:

public void testAddAndRemoveUser() throws Exception {

user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Easter");
user.setLastName("Bunny");

user = mgr.saveUser(user);

assertNotNull(user.getId());

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("removing user...");
}

String userId = user.getId().toString();

mgr.removeUser(userId);

user = mgr.getUser(userId);
assertNull("User object found in database", user);
}

This test is really an integration test rather than a unit test because it uses all the real components it
depends on. To be more like a unit test, you would use EasyMock or a similar tool to “fake” the DAO.
Using this, you could even get away from loading Spring’s ApplicationContext and depending
on any of Spring’s APIs. I recommend the test we created because it tests all the internals that our
project depends on (Spring, Hibernate, our classes), including the database. Chapter 8 discusses
refactoring the UserManagerTest to use mocks for its DAO dependency.

3. To compile the UserManagerTest, create the UserManager interface in the src/org/appfuse/service

directory. Use the code below to create this class in the org.appfuse.service package:

package org.appfuse.service;

// use your IDE to handle imports

public interface UserManager {

public List getUsers();
public User getUser(String userId);
public User saveUser(User user);
public void removeUser(String userId);
}

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4. Now create a new sub-package called org.appfuse.service.impl and create an implementation

class of the UserManager interface.

package org.appfuse.service.impl;

// use your IDE to handle imports

public class UserManagerImpl implements UserManager {

private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(UserManagerImpl.class);
private UserDAO dao;

public void setUserDAO(UserDAO dao) {

this.dao = dao;
}

public List getUsers() {

return dao.getUsers();
}

public User getUser(String userId) {

User user = dao.getUser(Long.valueOf(userId));

if (user == null) {
log.warn("UserId '" + userId + "' not found in database.");
}

return user;
}

public User saveUser(User user) {

dao.saveUser(user);

return user;
}

public void removeUser(String userId) {

dao.removeUser(Long.valueOf(userId));
}
}

This class has no indication that you’re using Hibernate. This is important if you ever want to switch
your persistence layer to use a different technology.

This class has a private dao member variable, as well as a setUserDAO() method. This allows
Spring to perform its “dependency binding” magic and wire the objects together. Later, when you
refactor this class to use a mock for its DAO, you’ll need to add the setUserDAO() method to the
UserManager interface.

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Create Manager and Declare Transactions 37

5. Before running this test, configure Spring so getBean("userManager") returns the

UserManagerImpl class. In web/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml, add the following lines:

<bean id="userManager"
class="org.appfuse.service.UserManagerImpl">
<property name="userDAO"><ref local="userDAO"/></property>
</bean>

The only problem with this is you’re not leveraging Spring’s AOP and, specifically, declarative
transactions.

6. To do this, change the “userManager” bean to use a ProxyFactoryBean. A ProxyFactoryBean

creates different implementations of a class, so that AOP can intercept and override method calls. For
transactions, use TransactionProxyFactoryBean in place of the UserManagerImpl class. Add
the following bean definition to the context file:

<bean id="userManager"
class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionProxy
FactoryBean">
<property name="transactionManager">
<ref local="transactionManager"/>
</property>
<property name="target">
<ref local="userManagerTarget"/>
</property>
<property name="transactionAttributes">
<props>
<prop key="save*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED</prop>
<prop key="remove*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED</prop>
<prop key="*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED,readOnly</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>

You can see from this XML fragment that the TransactionProxyFactoryBean must have a
“transactionManager” property set, and “transactionAttributes” defined.

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7. Tell this Transaction Proxy the object you’re mimicking: userManagerTarget. As part of this new
bean, change the old “userManager” bean to have an id of “userManagerTarget.”

<bean id="userManagerTarget"
class="org.appfuse.service.impl.UserManagerImpl">
<property name="userDAO"><ref local="userDAO"/></property>
</bean>

After editing applicationContext.xml to add definitions for “userManager” and “userManagerTarget,”

run ant test -Dtestcase=UserManager to see the following console output:

Figure 2.7: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserManager command

8. If you’d like to see the transactions execute and commit, add the XML below to the log4j.xml file:

<logger name="org.springframework.transaction">
<level value="DEBUG"/> <!-- INFO does nothing -->
</logger>

Running the test again will give you a plethora of Spring log messages as it binds objects, creates
transactions, and then commits them. You’ll probably want to remove the above logger after running
the test.

Congratulations! You’ve just implemented a Spring/Hibernate solution for the backend of a web application.
You’ve also configured a business service class to use AOP and declarative transactions. This is no small feat;
give yourself a pat on the back!

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Create Unit Test for Struts Action 39

Create Unit Test for Struts Action

The business service and DAO are now functional, so let’s slap an MVC framework on top of this sucker! Whoa,
there – not just yet. You can do the C (Controller), but not the V (View). Continue your Test-Driven
Development path by creating a Struts Action for managing users.

The Equinox application is configured for Struts. Configuring Struts requires putting some settings in web.xml
and defining a struts-config.xml file in the web/WEB-INF directory. Since there is a large audience of Struts
developers, this chapter deals with Struts way first. Chapter 4 deals with the Spring way. If you’d prefer to skip
this section and learn the Spring MVC way, please refer to Chapter 4: Spring’s MVC Framework.

To develop your first Struts Action unit test, create a UserActionTest.java class in test/org/appfuse/web.
This class extends MockStrutsTestCase and contains the following code:

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to handle imports

public class UserActionTest extends MockStrutsTestCase {

public UserActionTest(String testName) {

super(testName);
}

public void testExecute() {

setRequestPathInfo("/user");
addRequestParameter("id", "1");
actionPerform();
verifyForward("success");
verifyNoActionErrors();
}
}

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Create Action and Model (DynaActionForm) for Web Layer 40

Create Action and Model (DynaActionForm) for Web Layer

1. Create a UserAction.java class in src/org/appfuse/web. This class extends DispatchAction,

which you will use in a few minutes to dispatch to the different CRUD methods of this class.

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to handle imports

public class UserAction extends DispatchAction {

private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(UserAction.class);

public ActionForward execute(ActionMapping mapping,

ActionForm form,
HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception {
request.getSession().setAttribute("test", "succeeded!");

log.debug("looking up userId: " + request.getParameter("id"));

return mapping.findForward("success");
}
}

2. To configure Struts so that the “/user” request path means something, add an action-mapping to web/
WEB-INF/struts-config.xml. Open this file and add the following as an action-mapping:

<action path="/user" type="org.appfuse.web.UserAction">

<forward name="success" path="/index.jsp"/>
</action>

3. Execute ant test -Dtestcase=UserAction and you should get the lovely “BUILD
SUCCESSFUL” message.

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Create Action and Model (DynaActionForm) for Web Layer 41

4. Add a form-bean definition to the struts-config.xml file (in the <form-beans> section). For the
Struts ActionForm, use a DynaActionForm, which is a JavaBean that gets created dynamically
from an XML definition.

<form-bean name="userForm"
type="org.apache.struts.action.DynaActionForm">
<form-property name="user" type="org.appfuse.model.User"/>
</form-bean>

You’re using this instead of a concrete ActionForm because you only need a thin wrapper around
the User object. Ideally, you could use the User object, but you’d lose the ability to validate
properties and reset checkboxes in a Struts environment. Later, I’ll show you how Spring makes this
easier and allows you to use the User object in your web tier.

5. Modify your <action> definition to use this form and put it in the request:

<action path="/user" type="org.appfuse.web.UserAction"

name="userForm" scope="request">
<forward name="success" path="/index.jsp"/>
</action>

6. Modify your UserActionTest to test the different CRUD methods in your Action, as shown below:

public class UserActionTest extends MockStrutsTestCase {

public UserActionTest(String testName) {

super(testName);
}

// Adding a new user is required between tests because HSQL creates

// an in-memory database that goes away during tests.
public void addUser() {
setRequestPathInfo("/user");
addRequestParameter("method", "save");
addRequestParameter("user.firstName", "Juergen");
addRequestParameter("user.lastName", "Hoeller");
actionPerform();
verifyForward("list");
verifyNoActionErrors();
}

public void testAddAndEdit() {

addUser();

// edit newly added user

addRequestParameter("method", "edit");
addRequestParameter("id", "1");
actionPerform();

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Create Action and Model (DynaActionForm) for Web Layer 42

verifyForward("edit");
verifyNoActionErrors();
}

public void testAddAndDelete() {

addUser();

// delete new user

setRequestPathInfo("/user");
addRequestParameter("method", "delete");
addRequestParameter("user.id", "1");
actionPerform();
verifyForward("list");
verifyNoActionErrors();
}

public void testList() {

addUser();
setRequestPathInfo("/user");
addRequestParameter("method", "list");
actionPerform();
verifyForward("list");
verifyNoActionErrors();

List users = (List) getRequest().getAttribute("users");

assertNotNull(users);
assertTrue(users.size() == 1);
}
}

7. Modify the UserAction so your tests will pass and it can handle CRUD requests. The easiest way to
do this is to write edit, save and delete methods. Be sure to remove the existing “execute” method
first. Below is the modified UserAction.java:

public class UserAction extends DispatchAction {

private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(UserAction.class);
private UserManager mgr = null;

public void setUserManager(UserManager userManager) {

this.mgr = userManager;
}

public ActionForward delete(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,

HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception {
if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("entering 'delete' method...");
}

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Create Action and Model (DynaActionForm) for Web Layer 43

mgr.removeUser(request.getParameter("user.id"));

ActionMessages messages = new ActionMessages();

messages.add(ActionMessages.GLOBAL_MESSAGE,
new ActionMessage("user.deleted"));

saveMessages(request, messages);

return list(mapping, form, request, response);

}

public ActionForward edit(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,

HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception {
if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("entering 'edit' method...");
}

DynaActionForm userForm = (DynaActionForm) form;

String userId = request.getParameter("id");

// null userId indicates an add

if (userId != null) {
User user = mgr.getUser(userId);

if (user == null) {
ActionMessages errors = new ActionMessages();
errors.add(ActionMessages.GLOBAL_MESSAGE,
new ActionMessage("user.missing"));
saveErrors(request, errors);

return mapping.findForward("list");
}

userForm.set("user", user);
}

return mapping.findForward("edit");
}

public ActionForward list(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,

HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception {
if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("entering 'list' method...");
}

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Create Action and Model (DynaActionForm) for Web Layer 44

request.setAttribute("users", mgr.getUsers());

return mapping.findForward("list");
}

public ActionForward save(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,

HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception {
if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("entering 'save' method...");
}

DynaActionForm userForm = (DynaActionForm) form;

mgr.saveUser((User)userForm.get("user"));

ActionMessages messages = new ActionMessages();

messages.add(ActionMessages.GLOBAL_MESSAGE,
new ActionMessage("user.saved"));
saveMessages(request, messages);

return list(mapping, form, request, response);

}
}

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Create Action and Model (DynaActionForm) for Web Layer 45

Now that you’ve modified this class for CRUD, perform the following steps:

8. Modify struts-config.xml to use the ContextLoaderPlugin and configure Spring to set the
UserManager. To configure the ContextLoaderPlugin, simply add the following to your struts-
config.xml file:

<plug-in
className="org.springframework.web.struts.ContextLoaderPlugIn">
<set-property property="contextConfigLocation"
value="/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml,
/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml"/>
</plug-in>

This plug-in will load the action-servlet.xml file by default. Since you want your Test Actions to
know about your Managers, you must configure the plug-in to load applicationContext.xml as well.

9. For each action that uses Spring, define the action mapping to
type="org.springframework.web.struts.DelegatingActionProxy" and declare a
matching Spring bean for the actual Struts action. Therefore, modify your action mapping to use this
new class.

10. Modify your action mapping to work with DispatchAction.

In order for the DispatchAction to work, add parameter="method" to the mapping. This
indicates (in a URL or hidden field) which method should be called. At the same time, add forwards
for the “edit” and “list” forwards that are referenced in your CRUD-enabled UserAction class:

<action path="/user"
type="org.springframework.web.struts.DelegatingActionProxy"
name="userForm" scope="request" parameter="method">
<forward name="list" path="/userList.jsp"/>
<forward name="edit" path="/userForm.jsp"/>
</action>

Be sure to create the userList.jsp and userForm.jsp files in the “web” directory of MyUsers. You
don’t need to put anything in them at this time.

11. As part of this plug-in, configure Spring to recognize the “/user” bean and to set the UserManager
on it. Add the following bean definition to web/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml:

<bean name="/user" class="org.appfuse.web.UserAction"

singleton="false">
<property name="userManager">
<ref bean="userManager"/>
</property>
</bean>

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In this definition you’re using singleton="false". This creates new Actions for every request,
alleviating the need for thread-safe Actions. Since neither your Manager nor your DAO contain
member variables, this should work without this attribute (defaults to singleton=”true”).

12. Configure messages in the messages.properties ResourceBundle.

In the UserAction class are a few references to success and error messages that will appear after
operations are performed. These references are keys to messages that should exist in the
ResourceBundle (or messages.properties file) for this application. Specifically, they are:

• user.saved

• user.missing

• user.deleted

Add these keys to the messages.properties file in web/WEB-INF/classes, as in the example below:

user.saved=User has been saved successfully.

user.missing=No user found with this id.
user.deleted=User successfully deleted.

This file is loaded and made available to Struts via the <message-resources> element in struts-
config.xml:

<message-resources parameter="messages"/>

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Run Unit Test and Verify CRUD with Action

Run the ant test -Dtestcase=UserAction. It should result in the following output:

Figure 2.8: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserAction command

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Complete JSPs to Allow CRUD through a Web Browser

1. Add code to your JSPs (userForm.jsp and userList.jsp) so that they can render the results of your
actions. If you haven’t already done so, create a userList.jsp file in the web directory. Now add some
code so you can see the all the users in the database. In the code below, the first line includes a
taglibs.jsp file. This file contains all the JSP Tag Library declarations for this application, mostly for
Struts Tags, JSTL and SiteMesh (which is used to “pretty up” the JSPs).

<%@ include file="/taglibs.jsp"%>

<title>MyUsers ~ User List</title>

<button onclick="location.href='user.do?method=edit'">Add User</button>

<table class="list">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>User Id</th>
<th>First Name</th>
<th>Last Name</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<c:forEach var="user" items="${users}" varStatus="status">
<c:choose>
<c:when test="${status.count % 2 == 0}"><tr class="even"></c:when>
<c:otherwise><tr class="odd"></c:otherwise>
</c:choose>
<td><a href="user.do?method=edit&amp;id=${user.id}">${user.id}</a></
td>
<td>${user.firstName}</td>
<td>${user.lastName}</td>
</tr>
</c:forEach>
</tbody>
</table>

You can see a row of headings (in the <thead>). JSTL’s <c:forEach> tag iterates through the
results and displays the users.

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2. Populate the database so you can see some actual users. You have a choice: you can do it by hand,
using ant browse, or you can add the following target to your build.xml file:

<target name="populate">
<echo message="Loading sample data..."/>
<sql driver="org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver"
url="jdbc:hsqldb:db/appfuse"
userid="sa" password="">
<classpath refid="classpath"/>

INSERT INTO app_user (id, first_name, last_name)

values (5, 'Julie', 'Raible');
INSERT INTO app_user (id, first_name, last_name)
values (6, 'Abbie', 'Raible');

</sql>
</target>

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Verify JSP’s Functionality through Your Browser

1. With this JSP and sample data in place, view this JSP in your browser. Run ant deploy reload,
then go to http://localhost:8080/myusers/user.do?method=list. The following screen displays:

Figure 2.9: Results of ant deploy reload command

2. This example doesn’t have an internationalized page title or column headings. Do this by adding
some keys to the messages.properties file in web/WEB-INF/classes.

user.id=User Id
user.firstName=First Name
user.lastName=Last Name

The modified, i18n-ized header should now resemble the following:

<thead>
<tr>
<th><bean:message key=”user.id”/></th>
<th><bean:message key=”user.firstName”/></th>
<th><bean:message key=”user.lastName”/></th>
</tr>
</thead>

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Note that JSTL’s <fmt:message key=”...”> tag could also be used. If you wanted to add sorting
and paging to this table, use the Display Tag (http://displaytag.sf.net). Below is an example of using
this JSP tag:

<display:table name="users" pagesize="10" styleClass="list"

requestURI="user.do?method=list">
<display:column property="id" paramId="id" paramProperty="id"
href="user.do?method=edit" sort="true"/>
<display:column property="firstName" sort="true"/>
<display:column property="lastName" sort="true"/>
</display:table>

Please refer to the display tag’s documentation for internationalization of column headings.

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3. Now that you’ve created your list, create the form where you can add/edit data. If you haven’t already
done so, create a userForm.jsp file in the web directory of MyUsers. Below is the code to add to this
JSP to allow data entry:

<%@ include file="/taglibs.jsp"%>

<title>MyUsers ~ User Details</title>

<p>Please fill in user's information below:</p>

<html:form action="/user" focus="user.firstName">

<input type="hidden" name="method" value="save"/>
<html:hidden property="user.id"/>
<table>
<tr>
<th><bean:message key="user.firstName"/>: </th>
<td><html:text property="user.firstName"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th><bean:message key="user.lastName"/>: </th>
<td><html:text property="user.lastName"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
<html:submit styleClass="button">Save</html:submit>
<c:if test="${not empty param.id}">
<html:submit styleClass="button"

onclick="this.form.method.value='delete'">
Delete</html:submit>
</c:if>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</html:form>

NOTE
If you’re developing an application with internationalization (i18n), replace the informational message (at the top)
and the button labels with <bean:message> or <fmt:message> tags. This is a good exercise for you. For
informational messages, I recommend key names like pageName.message (such as, “userForm.message”), and
button names like button.name (such as “button.save”).

4. Run ant deploy and perform CRUD on a user from your browser.

The last thing that most webapps need is validation. In the next section, you’ll configure Struts’ Validator to
make the user’s last name a required field.

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Adding Validation Using Commons Validator

In order to enable validation in Struts, perform the following steps:

1. Add the ValidatorPlugIn to struts-config.xml.

2. Create a validation.xml file that specifies that lastName is a required field.

3. Change the DynaActionForm to be a DynaValidatorForm.

4. Configure validation for the save() method, but not for others.

5. Add validation errors to messages.properties.

Add the Validator Plug-in to struts-config.xml

Configure the Validator plug-in by adding the following XML fragment to your struts-config.xml file (right after
the Spring plug-in):

<plug-in className="org.apache.struts.validator.ValidatorPlugIn">
<set-property
property="pathnames" value="/WEB-INF/validator-rules.xml,
/WEB-INF/validation.xml"/>
</plug-in>

From this you can see that the Validator is going to look for two files in the WEB-INF directory: validator-
rules.xml and validation.xml. The first file, validator-rules.xml, is a standard file that’s distributed as part of
Struts. It defines all the available validators, as well as their client-side JavaScript functions. The second file,
validation.xml, contains the validation rules for each form.

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Edit the validation.xml File to Specify That lastName Is a Required

Field

The validation.xml file has a number of standard elements to match its Document Type Definition (DTD), but
you only need the <form> and <field> elements you see below. Please refer to the Validator’s documentation
for more information. Add the following <formset> between the <form-validation> tags in web/WEB-
INF/validation.xml:

<formset>
<form name="userForm">
<field property="user.lastName" depends="required">
<arg0 key="user.lastName"/>
</field>
</form>
</formset>

Change the DynaActionForm to DynaValidatorForm

Now change the DynaActionForm to a DynaValidatorForm in struts-config.xml.

<form-bean name="userForm"
type="org.apache.struts.validator.DynaValidatorForm">
...

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Configure Validation for save() Method, But Not for Others

One unfortunate side effect of using Struts’ DispatchAction is that validation is turned on at the mapping
level. In order to turn validation off for the list and edit screen, you could create a separate mapping with
validate=”false”. For example, AppFuse’s UserAction has two mappings: “/editUser” and “/saveUser”.
However, there’s an easier way that requires less XML, and only slightly more Java.

1. In the mapping for “/user”, add validate=”false”.

2. In UserAction.java, modify the save() method to call form.validate() and return to the edit
screen if any errors are found.

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("entering 'save' method...");
}

// run validation rules on this form

ActionMessages errors = form.validate(mapping, request);
if (!errors.isEmpty()) {
saveErrors(request, errors);
return mapping.findForward("edit");
}

DynaActionForm userForm = (DynaActionForm) form;

When working with DispatchAction, this is cleaner than having two mappings with one measly
attribute changed. However, the two mappings approach has some advantages:

• It allows you to specify an “input” attribute that indicates where to go when validation fails.

• You can declare a “roles” attribute on your mapping to specify who can access that mapping.
For instance, anyone can see the “edit” screen, but only administrators can save it.

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3. Run ant deploy reload and try to add a new user without a last name. You will see a validation
error indicating that last name is a required field, as in the example below:

Figure 2.10: Result of the ant deploy reload command

Another nice feature of the Struts Validator is client-side validation.

4. To enable this quickly, add an “onsubmit” attribute to the <form> tag (in web/userForm.jsp), and a
<html:javascript> tag at the bottom of the form.

<html:form action="/user" focus="user.firstName"

onsubmit="return validateUserForm(this)">
...
</html:form>

<html:javascript formName="userForm"/>

Now if you run ant deploy and try to save a user with a blank last name, you will get a JavaScript
alert stating that “Last Name is required.” The one issue with the short-form of the
<html:javascript> tag is that it puts all of the Validator’s JavaScript functions into your page.
There is a better way: include the JavaScript from an outside page (which is itself generated). How to
do this will be covered in Chapter 5.

Congratulations! You’ve just developed a webapp that talks to a database, implements validation and even
displays success and error messages. In Chapter 4, you will convert this application to use Spring’s MVC
framework. In Chapter 5, you will add exception handling, file uploading and e-mailing features. Chapter 6 will
explore alternatives to JSP, and in Chapter 7 you’ll add alternative DAO implementations using iBATIS, JDO
and Spring’s JDBC.

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Summary

Spring is a great framework for reducing the amount of code you have to write. If you look at the number of steps
in this tutorial, most of them involved setting up or writing code for Struts. Spring made the DAO and Manager
implementations easy. It also reduced most Hibernate calls to one line and allowed you to remove any Exception
handling that can sometimes be tedious. In fact, most of the time I spent writing this chapter (and the MyUsers
app) involved configuring Struts.

I have two reasons for writing this chapter with Struts as the MVC Framework. The first is because I think that’s
the framework most folks are familiar with, and it’s easier to explain a Struts-to-Spring migration than a JSP/
Servlet-to-Spring migration. Secondly, I wanted to show you how writing your MVC layer with Struts can be a
bit cumbersome. In Chapter 4, you’ll refactor the web layer to use Spring’s MVC Framework. I think you’ll find
it a bit refreshing to see how much easier and more intuitive it is.

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 Chapter
3

The BeanFactory and How It Works

An Introduction to the Bean Definitions, the BeanFactory and
ApplicationContext

The BeanFactory represents the heart of Spring, so it’s important to know how it works. This chapter explains
how bean definitions are written, their properties, dependencies, and autowiring. It also explains the logic
behind making singleton beans versus prototypes. Then it delves into Inversion of Control, how it works, and the
simplicity it brings. This chapter dissects the Lifecyle of a bean in the BeanFactory to show how it works. This
chapter also inspects the applicationContext.xml file for the MyUsers application created in Chapter 2.

Spring is an excellent tool for integrating Inversion of Control (IoC) with your application. It uses a
BeanFactory to manage and configure beans. In most cases, however, you won’t interact with the
BeanFactory; you will use the ApplicationContext, which adds more enterprise-level, J2EE functionality, such
as internationalization (i18n), custom converters (for converting Strings to Object types), and event publication/
notification. This chapter explains how the BeanFactory works, IoC as it relates to the BeanFactory, how to
configure beans for the BeanFactory, and how to use the ApplicationContext.

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About the BeanFactory

The BeanFactory is an internal interface that configures and manages virtually any Java class. The
XMLBeanFactory reads bean definitions from an XML file, while the ListableBeansFactory reads
definitions from properties files. When the BeanFactory is created, Spring validates each bean’s configuration.
However, the properties of each bean are not set until the bean is created. Singleton beans are instantiated by the
BeanFactory at startup time, while other beans are created on demand. According to the BeanFactory’s Javadocs,
“There are no constraints on how the definitions could be stored: LDAP, RDBMS, XML, properties file, etc.” At
the time of this writing, only XML and properties file implementations exist. Since the XMLBeanFactory is the
most commonly used method to configure J2EE applications, this chapter uses XML for all examples.

NOTE
For reading bean definitions from properties files, you can use PropertiesBeanDefinitionReader. For
more information on using this class, see R. J. Lorimer’s article on Alternative Spring Bean Mappings.

The BeanFactory is a workhorse that initializes beans and calls their lifecycle methods. It should be noted that
most lifecycle methods only apply to singleton beans. Spring cannot manage prototype (non-singleton)
lifecycles. This is because, after they’re created, prototypes are handed off to the client and the container loses
track of it. For prototypes, Spring is really just a replacement for the “new” operator.

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A Bean’s Lifecycle in the BeanFactory

Figure 3.1 illustrates a bean’s lifecycle. An outside force controls the bean, which is the Inversion of Control
container. The IoC container defines the rules by which the bean operates. The rules are bean definitions. The
bean is pre-initialized through its dependencies. The bean then enters the ready state where the beans are ready to
go to work for the application. Finally, the IoC container destroys the bean.

Figure 9.1: A Bean’s Lifecycle in the BeanFactory

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Inversion of Control

Inversion of Control is a powerful concept in application development. One form of IoC is Dependency
Injection, as described by Martin Fowler. Dependency Injection uses the Hollywood Principle: “Don’t call me,
I’ll call you.” In other words, your classes don’t look up or instantiate the classes they depend on. The control is
inverted and some form of container sets the dependencies. Using IoC often leads to much cleaner code and
provides an excellent way to de-couple dependent classes. Dependency Injection exists in three forms:

• Setter-based: Classes are typically JavaBeans, with a no-arg constructor, and with setters for the
IoC container to use when wiring dependencies. This is the variant recommended by Spring.
While Spring supports constructor-based injection, a large number of constructor arguments can
be difficult to manage.

• Constructor-based: Classes contain constructors with a number of arguments. The IoC container
discovers and invokes the constructor based on the number of arguments and their object types.
This approach guarantees that a bean is not created in an invalid state.

• Getter-based (or method injection): This is similar to setter-based, except you add a getter to
your class. The IoC container overrides this method when it runs inside, but you can easily use the
getter you specify when testing. This approach has only recently been discussed; more
information is available on TheServerSide.

Below is an example of a class before it’s been made IoC-ready. It is a Struts Action called ListUsers that
depends on a UserDAO, which, in turn, requires a connection as part of its constructor.

public class ListUsers extends Action {

public ActionForward execute(ActionMapping mapping,

ActionForm form,
HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception {
// get a connection from the database
Connection conn = DatabaseUtils.getConnection();
UserDAO dao = DAOFactory.createUserDAO("hibernate", conn);

List users = dao.getUsers();

DatabaseUtils.closeConnection(conn);
return mapping.findForward("success");
}
}

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The above design is ugly. Clean it up by implementing an IoC-ready ListUsers class.

public class ListUsers extends Action {

private UserDAO dao;
public void setUserDAO(UserDAO userDAO) {
this.dao = userDAO;
}

public ActionForward execute(ActionMapping mapping,

ActionForm form,
HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception {
List users = dao.getUsers();

return mapping.findForward("success");
}
}

The above class doesn’t contain any lookup code. This makes it clean and workable for testing. For instance, in
your test you can use a Mock Object for the DAO to eliminate any dependencies on your data tier. A good IoC
container allows you to wire a connection (or DataSource) to the UserDAO. With Spring you can choose to
wire connections in the data layer, or use a filter to open a connection per request.

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The Bean Definition Exposed

A bean definition, or <bean>, is really quite simple, as illustrated by the following example:

<bean id="example" class="org.appfuse.util.Converter"/>

At the very least, a bean has an id (or name) attribute and a class attribute. You don’t have to set any properties
on the bean if you don’t want to, but that’s similar to invoking “new” on an object. Most bean definitions contain
some kind of property setting, unless they’re simply used to bind interfaces to implementations (emulating the
factory pattern).

The first required bean attribute is id. Like any good XML document, the bean definition’s allowed attributes and
child elements are dictated by a Document Type Definition (DTD). The DTD for Spring is appropriately named
spring-beans.dtd and is publicly available on the web. The id attribute of a bean is a real XML ID, which means
it must be unique throughout the XML document. You can only define one id per bean. To add aliases to a bean,
or to use illegal XML characters in a bean’s id, specify the name attribute. This attribute allows one or more bean
ids, each separated by a comma or semicolon. Using an id attribute is the prefered and recommended way to
configure beans.

The second required bean attribute is class. While Spring can manage practically any Java class, the most
common pattern is a default (empty) constructor with setters for dependent properties. The value specified in this
attribute must be a fully-qualified class name (package name + class name). Otherwise, you can use the parent
attribute. This can be useful if you want to duplicate a class and override its properties.

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The table below lists all the attributes that you can define in a <bean> element.

Table 3.1: Bean Definition Attributes as defined by the spring-beans.dtd file

Frequency
Attribute Description of Use
id This XML ID element enables reference checking. To use a name High
that’s illegal as an XML ID (such as 1 or 2), use the optional name
attribute. If you specify neither an id nor a name, Spring assigns
the class name as the id.
name Use this attribute to create one or more aliases illegal as an id. Medium
Multiple aliases can be comma- or space-delimited. Use this
attribute if you use the ContextLoaderPlugin with Struts
and Spring manages your Actions.
class The class and parent attributes are interchangeable. A bean High
definition must specify the fully-qualified name of the class
(package name + class name), or the name of the parent bean.
parent Note: A child bean definition that references a parent can override Low
property values of the singleton attribute. It inherits all of the
parent’s other attributes, such as lazy-init and autowire.
singleton This attribute determines if the bean is a singleton (one shared Low
instance returned by all calls to getBean(id)), or a prototype
(independent instance resulting from each call to
getBean(id)). The default value is true.
lazy-init If true, the bean will be lazily initialized. If false, it will get Low
instantiated on startup by bean factories that perform eager
initialization of singletons.
autowire This attribute controls the autowiring of bean properties. If used, Low
Spring automatically figures out the dependencies using one of
the following modes:

no: (Default) You must define bean references in the XML file
using the <ref> element. Recommended to make
documentation more explicit.

byName: Autowires by property name. If a DAO exposes a

dataSource property, Spring will try to set this to the value of the
“dataSource” bean in the current factory.

byType: Autowires if exactly one bean of the property type is in

the factory.

constructor: same as byType for constructor arguments.

autodetect: chooses the constructor or byType through

inspection of the bean class.

Note: While this attribute reduces the size of your XML file, it
reduces the readability and self-documentation supplied by
declaring properties. For larger applications, autowiring is
discouraged because it removes the transparency and structure
from collaborating classes.

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Table 3.1: Bean Definition Attributes as defined by the spring-beans.dtd file

dependency-check This attribute checks to see if all a bean’s dependencies Low

(expressed in its properties) are satisfied.

None: no depency checking (the default). Properties with no

value specified are not set.

simple: checks type dependencies including primitives and

Strings.

object: checks other beans in the factory.

all: includes both of the above types.

depends-on This attribute names the beans that this bean depends on for Low
initialization. The bean factory will guarantee that these beans are
initialized first.
init-method This is a no-argument method to invoke after setting a bean’s Low
properties.
destroy-method This is a no-argument method to invoke on factory shutdown. Low
Note: This method is only invoked on singleton beans!

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Configuring Properties and Dependencies

The BeanFactory could be compared to EJB’s lifecycle, except Spring is much simpler; you can wire up pretty
much any class, and you don’t need to extend or implement interfaces. With bare-bones EJBs, you’re required to
implement many lifecycle classes that you may never even use. With Spring-managed beans, you can manage
the lifecycle using init-method and destroy-method attributes, and you only need to implement interfaces if you
want to physically talk to the BeanFactory during the initialization process.

A bean property is a member variable of a class. For example, your bean might have a “maxSize” property and a
method to set it:

private int maxSize;

public void setMaxSize(int maxSize) {

this.maxSize = maxSize;
}

You can set the value of “maxSize” by using the following XML fragment on your bean’s definition:

<property name="maxSize"><value>1000</value></property>

A bean dependency is a property the bean depends on in order to operate. Dependencies refer to other classes,
rather than simple values. For instance, the “dataSource” property in the example below refers to another bean.
The “dataSource” is a dependency of the “sessionFactory” bean, whereas the “mappingResources” is just a
property with values.

<bean id="sessionFactory" class="...">

<property name="dataSource">
<ref local="dataSource"/>
</property>
<property name="mappingResources">
<list>
<value>org/appfuse/model/User.hbm.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
...
</bean>

In this example, the reference to the “dataSource” bean is set using a <ref> tag. Let’s take a closer look at this
tag.

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Specifying Dependencies with <ref>

The <ref> tag that points to the dataSource uses a “local” attribute to point to the “dataSource” bean. In addition
to local, other options exist for pointing to dependent beans. The following list shows the available attributes for
the <ref> element:

• Bean: Finds the dependent bean in either the same XML file or another XML file that has been
loaded into the ApplicationContext.

• Local: Finds the dependent bean in the current XML file. This attribute is an XML IDREF so it
must exist or validation will fail.

• External: Finds the bean in another XML file and does not search the current XML file.

From this list, <ref bean="..."/> and <ref local="..."/> are most commonly used. Bean is the most
flexible option, allowing you to move beans between files, but local has the convenience of built-in XML
validation.

In addition to specifying values from String, you can also read values from a .properties file using the
PropertyPlaceHolderConfigurer class. Below is an example using a database.properties file in the
classpath.

<bean id="propertyConfigurer"

class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfig
urer">
<property name="location">
<value>database.properties</value>
</property>
</bean>

<bean id="dataSource"
class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource">
<property name="driverClassName">
<value>${db.driverName}</value>
</property>
<property name="url"><value>${db.url}</value></property>
<property name="username"><value>${db.username}</value></property>
<property name="password"><value>${db.password}</value></property>
</bean>

You can use a special <null/> element to set a property to Java’s null value. An empty value, <value></
value>, will result in setting an empty String ("").

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Pre-Initializing Your Beans

To pre-initialize your beans is to prepare them to work for your application. You do this by configuring their
properties and dependencies. The following sections discuss the most critical steps of this process.

Autowiring

Even though autowiring is not recommended for larger applications as noted below, you may choose to use it for
your smaller ones. If you choose to autowire a bean, I recommend that you use autowire="byName", because
it’s good practice to keep the names of your setters and bean ids in synch.

For example, you could define the UserDAO from Chapter 2 with autowiring, and then you wouldn’t have to
specify the “sessionFactory” property.

<bean id="userDAO" autowire="byName"

class="org.appfuse.dao.hibernate.UserDAOHibernate"/>

If you use autowire="byType", Spring will look for a bean that is a Hibernate SessionFactory. The
problem with this approach is that you may have multiple session factories talking to two databases. With
byName, you can give those beans different names and label your setters appropriately. The constructor and
autodetect options will suffer from the same affliction, since they employ byType under the covers.

NOTE
Autowiring causes you lose the self-documenting features of the XML file. Without autowiring, you’ll know what a
bean’s dependencies are because they’re specified in XML. With autowiring, you might have to look at a class’s
Javadocs or source to figure it out. Also, though rare, the BeanFactory could autowire some dependencies that you
didn’t want set.

Dependency Checks

Defining a dependency-check attribute in your bean’s definition is useful when you want to ensure that all
properties are properly set on a bean. A properly structured bean has default values. Some properties may not be
needed in certain scenarios, limiting this feature’s usefulness. The default is “none,” meaning dependency
checking is not activated, but you can enable this on a per bean basis. A “simple” verifies primitive types and set
collections. An “object” value checks a bean’s dependencies (also called collaborators). The “all” value includes
both “simple” and “object.”

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setXXX()

The setXXX() methods are simply the setters that inject dependencies into a class. These properties are
configured in the context file and can be primitives (that is, int or boolean), object types (Long, Integer), null
values or references to other objects.

To demonstrate how each of these types is set, the Smorgasbord class below has all the previously mentioned
property types:

package org.appfuse.model;

// organize imports with your IDE

public class Smorgasbord extends BaseObject {

private Log log = LogFactory.getLog(Smorgasbord.class);
private int daysToJavaOne;
private boolean attendingJavaOne;
private Integer streetsInDenver;
private Long peopleInDenver;
private DataSource dataSource;

public void setDaysToJavaOne(int daysToJavaOne) {

this.daysToJavaOne = daysToJavaOne;
}

public void setAttendingJavaOne(boolean attendingJavaOne) {

this.attendingJavaOne = attendingJavaOne;
}

public void setStreetsInDenver(Integer streetsInDenver) {

this.streetsInDenver = streetsInDenver;
}

public void setPeopleInDenver(Long peopleInDenver) {

this.peopleInDenver = peopleInDenver;
}

public void setDataSource(DataSource dataSource) {

this.dataSource = dataSource;
}

public String toString() {

log.debug(super.toString());
return super.toString();
}
}

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Rather than writing a Unit Test for this class example, use the dependency-check attribute in the bean’s
definition, as well as the init-method attribute to call its toString() method.

NOTE
For your professional applications, I strongly recommend always writing a Unit Test.

<bean id="smorgasbord" class="org.appfuse.model.Smorgasbord"

dependency-check="all" init-method="toString">
<property name="daysToJavaOne"><value>14</value></property>
<property name="attendingJavaOne"><value>true</value></property>
<property name="streetsInDenver"><value>334</value></property>
<property name="peopleInDenver"><value>3000000</value></property>
<property name="dataSource"><ref local="dataSource"/></property>
</bean>

You can turn on informational logging for the org.springframework.beans package by adding the
following to web/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.xml:

<logger name="org.springframework.beans">
<level value="INFO"/>
</logger>

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Now if you run any tests or deploy and run MyUsers, you should see the following output in your console. This
example uses ant test –Dtestcase=UserDAO.

Figure 9.1: Results of the ant test –Dtestcase=UserDAO command

setBeanFactory()

After the initialization methods are called, the BeanFactory checks for classes implementing the
BeanFactoryAware and BeanNameAware interfaces. These interfaces provide a means for beans to find out
more information about where they came from and who they are. The BeanFactoryAware interface defines
one method:

public void setBeanFactory(BeanFactory beanFactory)

throws BeansException;

If you implement this interface, it references to the BeanFactory, which you can use to look up other beans. It
basically documents a bean’s origins.

In order for a bean to discover its “id”, use the BeanNameAware interface. This interface has a single method:

public void setBeanName(java.lang.String name);

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In most cases, you won’t need access to the BeanFactory because you can talk to other beans by wiring them as
dependencies (using <ref bean=”...”/>). Accessing the bean’s name may be helpful if you want to
configure the same class as two different beans with different dependency implementations. Using this, you can
perform conditional logic based on which “name” is configured.

After calling methods from the BeanFactoryAware and BeanNameAware interfaces, beans enter into a ready
state. This is when your application has completed starting up (in Tomcat, for example).

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afterPropertiesSet()

You can configure your beans for post-initialization processing using one of two approaches: 1) use the “init-
method” attribute as illustrated in the example above, or 2) implement InitializingBean and its
afterPropertiesSet() method. (The diagram shows both methods, but only one is required.) Clearly, using
“init-method” is a much cleaner and simpler way to do this. However, implementing InitializingBean can
be helpful for testing when you’re not using Spring to manage your beans. For instance, you can call this method
in your tests and verify that your mock objects have been set correctly. It’s also useful for guaranteeing that your
bean will be configured correctly; you’re not depending on someone to write the bean’s definition correctly.

The previous example injected property values into the Smorgasbord class. It set primitive values, object
values and even a reference (dataSource) to another bean in the factory. Not only does Spring’s DTD support
simple <value> elements in properties, it also supports setting Properties, Lists and Maps. Below is an example
(from Spring’s documentation) of using these more complex properties:

<!-- results in a setPeople(java.util.Properties) call -->

<property name="people">
<props>
<prop key="HarryPotter">The magic property</prop>
<prop key="JerrySeinfeld">The funny property</prop>
</props>
</property>
<!-- results in a setSomeList(java.util.List) call -->
<property name="someList">
<list>
<value>a list element followed by a reference</value>
<ref bean="dataSource"/>
</list>
</property>
<!-- results in a setSomeMap(java.util.Map) call -->
<property name="someMap">
<map>
<entry key="yup an entry">
<value>just some string</value>
</entry>
<entry key="yup a ref">
<ref bean="dataSource"/>
</entry>
</map>
</property>

init-method

The init-method attribute of a bean definition calls a method after all the properties of a bean have been set. This
has the same functionality as implementing the InitializingBean interface, except that it doesn’t tie your
bean to Spring.

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Ready State

After your beans have been pre-initialized and any setup methods have been called, they enter into a ready state.
The ready state means that your application can get these beans and use them as needed. The entire lifecycle to
enter the ready state is very quick. It increases based on the number of beans in your app. However, it only occurs
at startup.

Destroying Beans

When you shut down (or reload) your application, beans that are singletons once again get lifecycle methods
called on them. First, beans that implement the DisposableBean interface will have their destroy() methods
called. Next, beans with a “destroy-method” specified in their bean definitions will have that method invoked.

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The ApplicationContext: Talking to Your Beans

Understanding the BeanFactory is important when developing with Spring, but you probably won’t need to
interface with it in your application. In most cases, you’ll use the ApplicationContext, which adds more
enterprise-level, J2EE functionality, such as internationalization (i18n), custom converters (for converting
Strings to Object types) and event publication/notification. An ApplicationContext is instantiated with bean
definition files and beans can be easily retrieved using context.getBean("beanId"). Instantiating the
ApplicationContext and loading the bean definition XML files is the hardest part, so let’s look at the different
ways to do this.

Get That Context!

Spring gives you many options for loading its bean definitions. In the current release (1.0.2), bean definitions
must be loaded from files. You could also implement your own ApplicationContext and add support for loading
from other resources (such as a database). While many Contexts are available for loading beans, you’ll only need
a few, which are listed below. The others are internal classes that are used by the framework itself.

• ClassPathXmlApplicationContext: Loads context files from the classpath (that is, WEB-INF/
classes or WEB-INF/lib for JARs) in a web application. Initializes using a new
ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(path) where path is the path to the file. The path
argument can also be a String array of paths. This is a good context for using in unit tests.

• FileSystemXmlApplicationContext: Loads context files from the file system, which is nice for
testing. Initializes using a new FileSystemXmlApplicationContext (path) where path
is a relative or absolute path to the file. The path argument can also be a String array of paths.

• XmlWebApplicationContext: Loads context files internally by the ContextLoaderListener,

but can be used outside of it. For instance, if you are running a container that doesn’t load
Listeners in the order specified in web.xml, you may have to use this in another Listener. Below is
the code to use this Loader.

XmlWebApplicationContext context =
new XmlWebApplicationContext();
context.setServletContext(ctx);
context.refresh();

Once you’ve obtained a reference to a context, you can get references to beans using
ctx.getBean("beanId"). You will need to cast it to a specific type, but that’s the easy part. Of the above
contexts, ClassPathXmlApplicationContext is the most flexible. It doesn’t care where the files are, as
long as they’re in the classpath. This allows you to move files around and simply change the classpath.

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Tips for Unit Testing and Loading Contexts

Writing unit tests with Spring is generally pretty easy. Spring-ready beans can be instantiated and tested sans-
container with mocks put into the setters. Testing is also easy because of Spring’s interface-based design, which
allows you to choose how to test implementing classes. Testing with the least amount of setup can be achieved by
using a ClassPathXmlApplicationContext, getting a reference to your bean, and calling methods on it.
This method allows you to write your tests to interfaces, not to implementation classes. If you decide to swap out
implementations (by changing the “class” attribute of your bean), you don’t have to change anything in your test.

However, one issue with using this is the ApplicationContext can take a few seconds to initialize. As your
application grows, the time-to-initialize will increase. Furthermore, if you load the context in a setUp()
method, the context will be instantiated each time before a testXXX() method is called. Luckily, a couple of
simple solutions exist to load the context only once per TestCase. The first is to use JUnit’s TestSetup class in a
suite, or you can put the context-loading code in a static block of your test.

protected static ApplicationContext ctx = null;

static {
ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("/appContext.xml");
}

The second solution is to directly test the implementation classes, without ever using Spring’s BeanFactory or
ApplicationContext. This generally involves creating an instance with the “new” operator, setting its
dependencies manually, and invoking methods to test. Using this technique allows you to replace dependent
classes with mock objects, which can speed up your tests and isolate them from their environment dependency.

More information on unit testing will be given in Chapter 8: Testing Spring Applications.

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Internationalization and MessageSource

Internationalization, or i18n, is an important concept in application development, particularly in web

applications. It’s likely that your users will originate from other countries and will speak different languages.
They’ll probably have their browsers set to show sites in their native language first.

The ApplicationContext interface extends the MessageSource interface, which gives it messaging (i18n)
functionality. In conjunction with the HeirarchicalMessageSource, capable of hierarchical message
resolving, these are the basic interfaces Spring provides to resolve messages. When loading an
ApplicationContext, it searches for a bean with the name “messageSource” defined in its context. If no such bean
is found in the current or parent contexts, a StaticMessageSource will be created so that getMessage()
calls don’t fail.

Two MessageSource implementations exist in the current Spring code base. They are
ResourceBundleMessageSource (which reads from a .properties file) and StaticMessageSource (hardly
used, but allows for adding messages programmatically). Below is an example “messageSource” bean definition
that will load messages.properties from the classpath:

<bean id="messageSource"
class="org.springframework.context.support.ResourceBundleMessage
Source">
<property name="basename"><value>messages</value></property>
</bean>

If you want to specify multiple ResourceBundles, you can set the “basenames” property instead of the single-
value “basename” property.

<property name="basenames">
<list>
<value>messages</value>
<value>errors</value>
</list>
</property>

The next chapter defines a “messageSource” bean and interacts with it to get error and success messages.

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Event Publishing and Subscribing

The ApplicationContext supports Event Handling via the ApplicationEvent class and
ApplicationListener interface. If you’d like to use this functionality, you can implement
ApplicationListener in a bean and when an ApplicationEvent is published to the context, your bean will be
notified. See the Spring Events table for the three standard events.

Table 3.2: Spring Events

Event Description
ContextRefreshedEvent Event published when the ApplicationContext is initialized or refreshed.
Initialized here means that all beans are loaded, singletons are pre-
instantiated and the ApplicationContext is ready for use.
ContextClosedEvent Event published when the ApplicationContext is closed, using the close()
method on the ApplicationContext. Closed here means that singletons are
destroyed.
RequestHandledEvent A web-specific event telling all beans that a HTTP request has been
serviced (this will be published after the request has been finished). Note
that this event is only applicable for web applications using Spring's
DispatcherServlet.

You can also implement custom events by calling the publishEvent() method on the ApplicationContext. See
Spring’s Reference Documentation for an example.

A Closer Look at MyUser’s applicationContext.xml

In the MyUsers application from Chapter 2, you loaded your bean definitions from web/WEB-INF/
applicationContext.xml. In this file, several beans are defined. Of the seven beans defined in this file, only three
of them (userDAO, userManagerTarget and /user) refer to classes that you created. This really shows the power
of Spring: four of the classes you used (dataSource, sessionFactory, transactionManager and userManager) are
internal Spring classes upon which you set properties.

Now that you understand how a bean definition XML file is composed, I encourage you to take a closer look at
the applicationContext.xml file from MyUsers. I think you will notice that it’s rather simple and easy to
comprehend.

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Summary

In this chapter, you learned about Inversion of Control, which was recently aliased as Dependency Injection by
Martin Fowler. Injecting dependencies using a container like Spring is a clean and powerful way to configure
applications and reduce coupling.

The BeanFactory and Bean Definitions are the driving force behind Spring’s IoC container, allowing you to
specify dependencies and control your class’s lifecycles in XML. Knowing how the BeanFactory works and how
bean definitions are specified will help you to become an extremely efficient developer with Spring. Knowing
how properties are set – whether they’re Strings, Objects, or references to other beans – is a tremendous asset.
You can also define more complex properties like Properties, Lists and Maps. This is where you will be wiring
up your entire application, rather than in code itself. Now, your code is loosely coupled, and can take care of its
concerns, and you can think of the ApplicationContext/BeanFactory as the container that couples everything
together.

In the next chapter, you will convert the MyUsers application from Chapter 2 to use Spring’s MVC framework. I
think you’ll be amazed at how simple web development with Spring is, once you’ve gotten the internals set up
and configured.

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 Chapter
4

Spring’s MVC Framework

Spring MVC: A Web Framework with a Lifecycle

This chapter describes the many features of Spring’s MVC framework. It shows you how to replace the Struts
layer in MyUsers with Spring. It covers the DispatcherServlet, various Controllers, Handler Mappings, View
Resolvers, Validation and Internationalization. It also briefly covers Spring’s JSP Tags.

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Chapter 3 explored Spring’s BeanFactory and its lifecycle, which you can use to control how your beans are
invoked and used. Spring carries this concept into the web tier and has some pretty neat concepts in its MVC
Framework. In popular frameworks like Struts and WebWork, controllers usually contain a single method:
execute(). The framework, regardless of whether a GET or POST request is sent, will call this method. It’s up
to the developer to code any logic needed in this method; for example, you may populate drop downs, handle
validation errors and set up the view to add a new record. Of course, you can code multiple methods in a Struts or
WebWork Action and then dispatch to them based on request parameters or button names. But it doesn’t change
the fact that the method call doesn’t care which request method (GET vs. POST) is used.

Spring’s MVC is a bit friendlier. The simplest way to look at it is that it offers two controllers: a Controller
interface and a SimpleFormController class. The Controller is best suited for displaying read-only data
(such as list screens), while the SimpleFormController is designed to handle forms (such as edit, save,
delete). The Controller interface shown below is quite simple, containing a single
handleRequest(request, response) method.

package org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc;

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

import org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView;

public interface Controller {

/**
* Process the request and return a ModelAndView object which the
* DispatcherServlet will render. A null return is not an error:
* It indicates that this object completed request processing
* itself, thus there is no ModelAndView to render.
*/
ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception;
}

The handleRequest() method returns a ModelAndView class. This class holds both the model and the view,
which are both very distinct. The model is the information that you intend to display, and the view is the logical
name where you want to display it. The model can be a single object with a name, or it can be a
java.util.Map containing several objects. The view can be a View object (which is an interface for the
different view types) or it can be a String name that is determined by a ViewResolver. The rich set of Views
available in Spring is discussed meticulously in Chapter 6.

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The SimpleFormController, on the other hand, is a concrete class with several methods that are invoked
while processing a data-entry form. is the reason one is an interface and the other super-class is primarily for
flexibility. The Controller interface is used by all Controllers in Spring, whereas the
SimpleFormController is an implementation with default settings for many of its methods. If you don’t need
all the rich functionality of a FormController, you can extend the AbstractCommandController to populate
your command beans from an HTTPServletRequest. Spring’s MVC has a deep hierarchy for its
FormControllers that is out of the scope of this chapter. In most cases, you simply won’t need them and
SimpleFormController will fulfill most requirements.

With SimpleFormController, certain methods are called on GET requests, while others are called on POST
requests. This corresponds with how most web applications work: a GET signifies an “edit,” while a POST
signifies a “save” or “delete.” This allows for easy isolation of the two operations. In Struts, you can achieve
similar functionality using a DispatchAction (or one of its subclasses). We used a DispatchAction in
Chapter 2 to separate the different CRUD operations into different methods. Spring’s approach is better; you can
re-use methods for all CRUD actions. This chapter discusses the different SimpleFormController methods
(and when they’re called) in Section in the Method Lifecyle Review towards the end.

This chapter covers only what you need to know to develop a simple webapp with validation, including the
following topics:

• Unit Testing Spring Controllers

• Configure DispatcherServlet and ContextLoaderListener

• Create Unit Test for UserController (used to display a list of users)

• Create UserController and configure it in action-servlet.xml

• Create userList.jsp to display list of users

• Create Unit Test for UserFormController (edits, saves and deletes users)

• Create UserFormController and configure it in action-servlet.xml

• Create userForm.jsp to allow editing user's information

• Configure Commons Validator for Spring

• SimpleFormController - Method Lifecycle Review

• Spring’s JSP Tags

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As previously mentioned, Spring’s MVC framework is a bit different than traditional frameworks like Struts and
WebWork. With Spring, I tend to use two controllers for my master/detail screens. With Struts, I tend to use one
Action for deleting, editing, saving and listing rows in a database table. By “listing,” I mean the process of
getting all the rows from a particular table. This satisfies most of what I tend to do in web applications. With
Spring MVC, rather than having one Controller do all the work, it’s simpler to create a controller for the listing
(master) and another for the delete/edit/save (detail).

NOTE
If you don’t feel like creating a new Controller for every list screen, you could create a MultiActionController that
has separate methods for each list screen.

Chapter 11 will conduct a detailed analysis of Spring MVC versus the more popular MVC Frameworks
available: Struts, WebWork, Tapestry and JSF. It will explain the strengths and weaknesses of each, as well as
demonstrate how Spring’s middle tier can integrate with each of them.

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Unit Testing Spring Controllers

When I first started working with Spring’s MVC Framework, I found it somewhat difficult to test. I was
surprised, because one of Spring’s advertised benefits is “Applications built using Spring are very easy to unit
test.”1 While it was easy to test Controllers (those classes that drive list screens), it was a bit more difficult to test
SimpleFormControllers. The main problem I had was that none of the recommended solutions (such as Mock
Objects) had APIs to handle the stuff you normally do in a webapp: setting request parameters/attributes,
grabbing stuff from application scope, etc. With Struts, you can use StrutsTestCase, which does a very nice job of
providing mock implementations of most Struts and Servlet API classes.

Because Spring is open-source, I was able to dig in and see what the developers were using internally to test the
Controllers. It turned out they had a number of home-grown Mocks, which covered most of the Servlet APIs that
I needed. Shortly after discovering that, the Spring team cleaned up these mocks for public consumption and
added them to the Spring distribution. You’ll be using these classes when you write your unit tests. If you’d like
to use similar mocks in your project, be sure to include spring-mock.jar in your classpath.

In this chapter, like previous ones, you can follow along and do the examples as you go. The easiest way to do
this is to download the MyUsers Chapter 4 bundle from http://sourcebeat.com/downloads. This download is
similar to the Equinox package you downloaded for Chapter 2. However, it has all Struts-related components
removed and is designed to be a pure Spring (with Hibernate) application. It contains all the JARs you will need
in this chapter in its web/WEB-INF/lib directory.

You can also use the application you developed in Chapter 2. If you go this route, download Chapter 4 JARs
from http://sourcebeat.com/downloads. The next section discusses how Spring is configured in the downloaded
bundle. It also shows what you need to modify if you're converting the Struts-based application from the last
chapter.

1. From Rod Johnson’s Introducing the Spring Framework on TheServerSide.com.

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Configure DispatcherServlet and ContextLoaderListener

Spring’s MVC framework is similar to Struts in that it uses a single instance of a controller by default. You can
change your Controllers to create new instances for every request as well, by adding singleton=”false” to your
controller’s bean definition. This way, if you prefer WebWork’s “new action per request,” you can still get that
functionality.

Spring MVC has a single servlet than handles all requests, similar to most Java web frameworks2. It’s called the
DispatcherServlet and is responsible for “dispatching” request to handlers, which have mappings to tell it
where to go next. In the Chapter 4 download, the DispatcherServlet is already configured in the web/WEB-INF/
web.xml file. Its mapping is set to "*.html" - which means that any URLs ending in ".html" will be handled by
this servlet.

If you're modifying the application created in Chapter 2, you’ll need configure the MyUsers application to use
the DispatcherServlet for its front controller, rather than Struts’ ActionServlet. Instructions for doing
this are in the section below.

Modify web.xml to Use Spring’s DispatchServlet

At this point, you should have the “myusers” project setup on your hard drive. To begin, open web/WEB-INF/
web.xml and modify the “action” servlet’s <servlet-class> from:

<servlet>
<servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>
org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet
</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
to:

<servlet>
<servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>
org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet
</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

2. This is a Core J2EE Pattern called Front Controller.

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In addition, change the action’s <servlet-mapping> from *.do to *.html. You’re serving up HTML, so it
makes sense to use this instead of .do. Also, there’s no point in advertising the web framework you’re using.

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.html</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

By default, the DispatcherServlet looks for an XML file named servlet-name-servlet.xml in the WEB-INF
directory. In this case, it'll find and load the action-servlet.xml once you create it. This file contains all of the web
controllers and settings used in MyUsers.

In Chapter 2, you used the Spring Plugin for Struts (ContextLoaderPlugin) to load the bean configuration
files. However, the ContextLoaderListener was also configured in your web.xml. This caused the
applicationContext.xml file to be loaded twice. This was so you could unit test your Action classes without
loading any context files manually.

NOTE
This Listener will only work with Servlet 2.3 containers, so if you’re on an older container, use the
ContextLoaderServlet.

Since the ContextLoaderListener is already configured in web.xml, no further configuration is needed on your
part. If you have more than one file with bean definitions, you must add a contextConfigLocation context
parameter to indicate the different files. For example, to do this in MyUsers, you would add the following XML
fragment to web.xml, directly after the “sitemesh” filter and before its <filter-mapping>.

<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>
/WEB-INF/applicationContext1.xml
/WEB-INF/applicationContext2.xml
</param-value>
</context-param>

NOTE
Notice that the paths to the two files are space-delimited. These paths can also be comma-delimited.

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Those are the basic steps to configure a Java webapp to use Spring’s MVC Framework. Here’s a review of the
steps:

1. In web.xml, add a <servlet> definition for DispatcherServlet and configure its <servlet-
mapping>.

2. If you have more than one context file, define a contextConfigLocation <context-param>
with the paths to your bean configuration files.

3. Add a <listener> definition for ContextLoaderListener.

Remove Struts and add Spring Files

Remove UserAction and UserActionTest Struts classes, as well as a few Struts JARs in web/WEB-INF/lib.
Here are a couple commands to accomplish this quickly:

rm src/org/appfuse/web/UserAction.java
rm test/org/appfuse/web/UserActionTest.java
rm web/WEB-INF/lib/struts*
rm web/WEB-INF/struts-config.xml

Now remove the definition for the UserAction class from action-servlet.xml. Delete the following lines from
the file:

<bean name="/user" class="org.appfuse.web.UserAction"

singleton="false">
<property name="userManager">
<ref bean="userManager"/>
</property>
</bean>

Download Chapter 4 JARs to your hard drive. Put the JAR files in the web/WEB-INF/lib directory. The
spring.jar file contains Spring 1.1.1 (Equinox 1.0 ships with Spring 1.0.2), the spring-mock.jar file contains
mocks for the Servlet API, and the spring-sandbox.jar file is used for its Commons Validator support. Another
file, validation-rule.xml is also contained in the download - put this file in the web/WEB-INF directory.
Configuring validation will be covered later in this chapter.

Now you’re ready to begin developing your Controllers.

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Create Unit Test for UserController

To practice Test-Driven Development (TDD), start by writing a unit test for the UserController. This class
returns a list of all the users from a business service class (UserManager). If you’re not familiar with TDD,
here’s a good definition from Dave Thomas’s weblog:

“For me, test-driven development is an important way of thinking about coding. It’s about using tests
to gain perspective on your design and implementation. You listen to what the tests are telling you,
and alter to code accordingly. Finding it hard to test something in isolation? Refactor your code to
reduce coupling. Is it impossible to mock out a particular subsystem? Look at adding facades or
interfaces to make the separation cleaner. Tests drive the design, and tests verify the implementation.”

To create a JUnit Test for the Controller, create a UserControllerTest.java file in test/org/appfuse/web (you might
need to create this directory/package). This class should extend junit.framework.TestCase and have a
setUp() method defined to load the context files using an XmlWebApplicationContext. The main reason
for using this ContextLoader over a ClassPathXmlApplicationContext is so web-only beans can be
instantiated. By web-only beans, I mean those that require a WebApplicationContext to be present.

public void setUp() {

String[] paths = {"/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml",
"/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml"};
ctx = new XmlWebApplicationContext();
ctx.setConfigLocations(paths);
ctx.setServletContext(new MockServletContext(""));
ctx.refresh();
}

The above code will instantiate any beans defined in their respective XML files. Now write a test method in
order to test your Controller. This is where TDD comes into play. The test will drive the design. Write a test
method to retrieve a list of users, verify the success, and confirm the view returned is the one you expect. Below
is the entire UserControllerTest, so you can easily integrate it into your project. The testGetUsers() is
the method you’re most interested in.

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE (Eclipse and IDEA rock!) to add imports

public class UserControllerTest extends TestCase {

private XmlWebApplicationContext ctx;

public void setUp() {

String[] paths = {"/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml",
"/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml"};
ctx = new XmlWebApplicationContext();

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ctx.setConfigLocations(paths);
ctx.setServletContext(new MockServletContext(""));
ctx.refresh();
}

public void testGetUsers() throws Exception {

UserController c = (UserController)
ctx.getBean("userController");
ModelAndView mav =
c.handleRequest((HttpServletRequest) null,
(HttpServletResponse) null);
Map m = mav.getModel();
assertNotNull(m.get("users"));
assertEquals(mav.getViewName(), "userList");
}
}

TIP
When writing tests for your own project, I recommend creating a BaseControllerTestCase that extends
TestCase and all your *ControllerTest classes extend. In this class’s setUp() method, you can load the
context for all child tests. If you do this, make sure to call super.setUp() in child classes' setUp() methods.

Stepping through the testGetUsers() method, you’re grabbing the UserController and invoking its
handleRequest() method – which returns a ModelAndView class. This method is common to all Spring
Controllers, so you’ll actually use this same method to test your FormControllers. The ModelAndView class is a
unique concept in web frameworks. It basically contains information about the next page (the view) and what
data to expose to it (the model). With Struts, the model and view are separated. The model is usually put into the
request (or session) scope, and Actions typically return ActionForwards, which are just fancy wrappers around
URLs.

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Create UserController and Configure action-servlet.xml

Now that you’ve written your unit test, it’s time to create the UserController class so you can get it to
compile. First, create a UserController.java file in src/org/appfuse/web (you may need to create this directory/
package). This class should implement the Controller interface and implement its
handleRequest(request, response) method. You’re also going to need to use the UserManager to talk
to get the list of users, so you’ll need to add a private UserManager variable and a setUserManager()
method for Spring’s IoC container to use. When you configure this Controller (a.k.a. bean) in the next section,
you’ll add the UserManager as a dependency. So far, you have the following class structure:

package org.appfuse.web;

// Modern IDEs support easy importing

public class UserController implements Controller {

private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(UserController.class);
private UserManager mgr = null;

public void setUserManager(UserManager userManager) {

this.mgr = userManager;
}

// put handleRequest() method here

}

Now implement the handleRequest() method to get a list of users and route the user to userList.jsp.

public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request,

HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception {
if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("entering 'handleRequest' method...");
}

return new ModelAndView("userList", "users", mgr.getUsers());

}

This method is quite simple; in fact, it would be only one line without the logging statement at the beginning!

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Compiling the UserControllerTest class should work now, but if you try to run the test (using ant test -
Dtestcase=UserController) it will fail.

[junit] Testcase: testGetUsers(org.appfuse.web.UserControllerTest): Caused

an ERROR
[junit] Line 7 in XML document from resource [/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml]
of ServletContext is invalid; nested exception is
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: Element "beans" requires additional
elements.

This error is saying that the web/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml does not validate. This is because it has no beans
defined in it. To make the test pass, edit the action-servlet.xml file in the web/WEB-INF/ directory. The action-
servlet.xml file starts similar to any other Spring configuration file with the DTD at the top and the beginning
<beans> element.

Adding a "userController" bean definition should cause this file to look as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC "-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN"
"http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd">

<beans>
<bean id="userController" class="org.appfuse.web.UserController">
<property name="userManager">
<ref bean="userManager"/>
</property>
</bean>
</beans>

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Now your UserControllerTest should run just fine. You can execute it by running ant test -
Dtestcase=UserController or run it as a JUnit Test in Eclipse or IDEA.

TIP
Instructions for setting up MyUsers in Eclipse and IDEA are available in this book's FAQ.

From the command line, the output should look similar to the following screenshot.

Figure 4.1: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserController test

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Create userList.jsp to Display List of Users

Now that the UserController is working, you must configure Spring so it knows the “userList” view actually points to
the userList.jsp. The simplest way to do this is to use the InternalResourceViewResolver, which resolves
names to files. It allows you to add a prefix and a suffix, so you can easily control where your JSPs reside. Add the
following XML block to action-servlet.xml, after the “userController” bean definition.

<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.

InternalResourceViewResolver">
<property name="viewClass">
<value>org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView</value>
</property>
<property name="prefix"><value>/</value></property>
<property name="suffix"><value>.jsp</value></property>
</bean>

In the above “viewResolver” definition, notice that you’re specifying a JstlView class for the “viewClass”
property. This is so you can use JSTL’s <fmt:message> tag, which requires a bit of preparation to use its i18n
features with Spring MVC. The prefix is “/” and the suffix is “.jsp”. If you need to move your JSPs to “/WEB-
INF/pages,” all you’ll need to change is the prefix.

NOTE
If you’re developing a production application, I highly recommend placing your JSPs under WEB-INF. If you’re
using a Servlet 2.3+ container, any files under WEB-INF will not be accessible from the browser. This can be very
useful during development because it enforces MVC and requires you to use a controller to access your views.

By adding “viewResolver” definition, the “userList” view name in UserController will be resolved to “/
userList.jsp”. You can use several other ViewResolvers depending on your view technology of choice. These will
be discussed in Chapter 6: View Options.

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Now configure URLs in the application so that the “/users.html” URL invokes the UserController class. To
do this, Spring MVC requires you to define a HandlerMapping bean and define which URLs go to which
controllers. In most cases, the SimpleUrlHandlerMapping is all you’ll need. It allows you to specify url-
patterns to bean names. In order to map “/users.html” to the “userController” bean, add the following to web/
WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml:

<bean id="urlMapping"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.Simple
UrlHandlerMapping">
<property name="mappings">
<props>
<prop key="/users.html">userController</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>

NOTE
You could also use BeanNameUrlHandlerMapping instead of the SimpleUrlHandlerMapping. This handler simply
looks for bean names (not ids) that match the URL. So if you gave UserController a name of “/users.html”, then this
hander would resolve it correctly. The BeanNameUrlHandlerMapping is the default handler if you don’t define one.

If you're modifying the application you created in Chapter 2, modify a couple of JSPs. The web/taglibs.jsp file
should contain the following:

<%@ page language="java" errorPage="/error.jsp" %>

<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core_rt" prefix="c" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/fmt" prefix="fmt" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/commons-validator"
prefix="html" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags" prefix="spring" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://www.opensymphony.com/sitemesh/decorator"
prefix="decorator"%>

And the web/messages.jsp file should have the code below:

<%-- Success Messages --%>

<c:if test="${not empty message}">
<div class="message">${message}</div>
<c:remove var="message"/>
</c:if>

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1. Create a userList.jsp file in the web directory. This file may already exist.

2. Add code so you can see the all the users in the database. In the code below, the first line includes a
taglibs.jsp file. This file contains all the JSP Tag Library declarations for this application, mostly for
JSTL and SiteMesh (which is used to “pretty up” the JSPs).

<%@ include file="/taglibs.jsp"%>

<title>MyUsers ~ User List</title>

<button onclick="location.href='editUser.html'">Add User</button>

<table class="list">
<thead>
<tr>
<th><fmt:message key="user.id"/></th>
<th><fmt:message key="user.firstName"/></th>
<th><fmt:message key="user.lastName"/></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<c:forEach var="user" items="${users}" varStatus="status">
<c:choose>
<c:when test="${status.count % 2 == 0}"><tr class="even"></c:when>
<c:otherwise><tr class="odd"></c:otherwise>
</c:choose>
<td><a href="editUser.html?id=${user.id}">${user.id}</a></td>
<td>${user.firstName}</td>
<td>${user.lastName}</td>
</tr>
</c:forEach>
</tbody>
</table>

3. To enable i18n message lookups (for the <fmt:message> tag), add a “messageSource” bean to action-
servlet.xml.

<bean id="messageSource" class="org.springframework.context.support.

ResourceBundleMessageSource">
<property name="basename"><value>messages</value></property>
</bean>

The “basename” property refers to “messages,” which means look for messages.properties at the root of the
classpath. If you’d like to use more than one .properties file, you can use the “basenames” property with a
<list> of <values>.

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NOTE
The ResourceBundleMessageSource depends on Java’s ResourceBundle, which caches loaded bundles
indefinitely. With this class, reloading a bundle during VM executing is not possible. If you need such functionality,
refer to ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource.

To test that you’ve configured Spring’s handlers and resolvers correctly, as well as modified userList.jsp
successfully, start Tomcat, deploy MyUsers (ant deploy) and view http://localhost:8080/myusers/users.html in
your browser. To add a couple of users to the database, run ant populate.

NOTE
If running ant populate doesn't cause users to show up in the list, see this FAQ.

Figure 4.2: Results of the ant populate test

If your screen looks like the one above, congratulations! If not, send e-mail to the Equinox users’ mailing list
([email protected]) to get help.

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Create Unit Test for UserFormController

The list screen was the easy part since it simply retrieves and displays data. Now you must create a Controller
and JSP to handle editing database records. Since you are practicing TDD, start by creating a unit test for the
UserFormController (that you haven’t created yet). To do this, create a UserFormControllerTest.java file in
the test/org/appfuse/web directory. This file extends JUnit’s TestCase class and has the following setUp() and
tearDown() methods.

package org.appfuse.web;

// resolve imports using your IDE

public class UserFormControllerTest extends TestCase {

private static Log log =
LogFactory.getLog(UserFormControllerTest.class);
private XmlWebApplicationContext ctx;
private UserFormController c;
private MockHttpServletRequest request;
private ModelAndView mv;
private User user;

public void setUp() throws Exception {

String[] paths = {"/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml",
"/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml"};
ctx = new XmlWebApplicationContext();
ctx.setConfigLocations(paths);
ctx.setServletContext(new MockServletContext(""));
ctx.refresh();
c = (UserFormController) ctx.getBean("userFormController");
// add a test user to the database
UserManager mgr = (UserManager) ctx.getBean("userManager");
user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Matt");
user.setLastName("Raible");
user = mgr.saveUser(user);
}

public void tearDown() {

ctx = null;
c = null;
user = null;
}
// put testXXX methods here
}

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The setUp() method in this class is very similar to the setUp() method in UserManagerTest from Chapter
2, except that it also loads action-servlet.xml. Separating your business components and data layer classes
between the two files allows you to easily switch out the MVC framework without even touching
applicationContext.xml. This is very powerful for decoupling your different tiers and allows for easy refactoring.

Now add a few methods to test your CRUD actions (edit, save and delete). The test methods below use Spring’s
Servlet API mocks to allow for easy testing of Controllers.

public void testEdit() throws Exception {

log.debug("testing edit...");
request = new MockHttpServletRequest("GET", "/editUser.html");
request.addParameter("id", user.getId().toString());
mv = c.handleRequest(request, new MockHttpServletResponse());
assertEquals("userForm", mv.getViewName());
}

public void testSave() throws Exception {

request = new MockHttpServletRequest("POST", "/editUser.html");
request.addParameter("id", user.getId().toString());
request.addParameter("firstName", user.getFirstName());
request.addParameter("lastName", "Updated Last Name");
mv = c.handleRequest(request, new MockHttpServletResponse());
Errors errors =
(Errors) mv.getModel()
.get(BindException.ERROR_KEY_PREFIX + "user");
assertNull(errors);
assertNotNull(request.getSession().getAttribute("message"));
}

public void testRemove() throws Exception {

request = new MockHttpServletRequest("POST", "/editUser.html");
request.addParameter("delete", "");
request.addParameter("id", user.getId().toString());
mv = c.handleRequest(request, new MockHttpServletResponse());
assertNotNull(request.getSession().getAttribute("message"));
}

In the previous methods, you should probably review a couple of classes. The first is Spring’s
MockHttpServletRequest. This class makes it easy to call GET and POST methods on a given URI (Uniform
Resource Indicator). It has a number of constructors, each listed below.

public MockHttpServletRequest(ServletContext servletContext)

public MockHttpServletRequest(ServletContext servletContext,
String method, String URI)
public MockHttpServletRequest()
public MockHttpServletRequest(String method, String URI)

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This is a very flexible class and is useful for testing Controllers. Originally, it was only used by Spring
developers internally for testing Controllers. As of the 1.0.2 release, it’s included in the spring-mock.jar.

The second class is the Errors interface. This is an interface that is implemented by an object to store and
expose information about data binding errors. In the UserFormController that you will create, you must
register a data binder to handle the java.lang.String java.lang.Long conversion for user.setId().

The UserFormControllerTest class will not compile until you create the UserFormController class. If
you’re using an IDE like IDEA or Eclipse, it will actually prompt you with an icon on the left to auto-create the
new class.

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Create UserFormController and Configure It in action-servlet.xml

Start by creating a UserFormController.java file in src/org/appfuse/web. This class should extend

SimpleFormController, which is a concrete FormController implementation that provides configurable form
and success views. It automatically resubmits to the form view when validation errors occur, and displays the
success view when a submission is valid. This class provides many methods to override in the lifecycle of a
displaying a form, as well as submitting a form.

This is one of the unique things about Spring’s MVC framework versus others like Struts or WebWork. The latter
frameworks typically only provide one method for you to override, and you don’t have as much control over
what happens when. Of course, with Spring’s MVC you don’t have to override its lifecycle methods; it’s simply
an option if you need it. Towards the end of this chapter is a detailed overview of the different lifecycle methods
and when they’re called.

The UserFormController is designed to be simple so you can easily grasp how Spring MVC works. In fact,
you only need to override two methods: onSubmit() and formBackingObject(). The onSubmit() method
handles form posts and the formBackingObject() method gives the request an Object that matches the fields
in your HTML form. This method is a convenient location to fetch existing records, as well as good place to
instantiate empty objects (for example, to display an empty form). This method’s default implementation simply
creates a new empty object. In Spring’s terminology, this object is called a “Command class.” Now that you’re
familiar with the guts of a SimpleFormController, take a look at the code. Below are the contents of the
UserFormController class, minus the imports.

package org.appfuse.web;

// resolve imports using your IDE

public class UserFormController extends SimpleFormController {

private static Log log =
LogFactory.getLog(UserFormController.class);
private UserManager mgr = null;

public void setUserManager(UserManager userManager) {

this.mgr = userManager;
}

public UserManager getUserManager() {

return this.mgr;
}

/**
* Set up a custom property editor for converting Longs
*/
protected void initBinder(HttpServletRequest request,

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ServletRequestDataBinder binder) {
NumberFormat nf = NumberFormat.getNumberInstance();
binder.registerCustomEditor(Long.class, null,
new CustomNumberEditor(Long.class, nf, true));
}

public ModelAndView onSubmit(HttpServletRequest request,

HttpServletResponse response,
Object command, BindException errors)
throws Exception {
if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("entering 'onSubmit' method...");
}

User user = (User) command;

if (request.getParameter("delete") != null) {
mgr.removeUser(user.getId().toString());
request.getSession().setAttribute("message",
getMessageSourceAccessor()
.getMessage("user.deleted",
new Object[] {user.getFirstName() +
' ' + user.getLastName()}));

} else {
mgr.saveUser(user);
request.getSession().setAttribute("message",
getMessageSourceAccessor().getMessage("user.saved",
new Object[] {user.getFirstName() +
' ' + user.getLastName()}));
}

return new ModelAndView(new RedirectView(getSuccessView()));

}

protected Object formBackingObject(HttpServletRequest request)

throws ServletException {
String userId = request.getParameter("id");

if ((userId != null) && !userId.equals("")) {

return mgr.getUser(request.getParameter("id"));
} else {
return new User();
}
}
}

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From this code, you can see how the formBackingObject() method simply creates an empty object for adds,
and a populated object for edits. You can also see how simple the onSubmit() method is; it calls the
UserManager to save/delete the User object. The onSubmit() method returns a ModelAndView, but wraps
the successView with a RedirectView. This is to fix the "double submit" problem that often exists in web
applications.

You might notice a lack of exception handling. This is primarily to keep things simple. An exception handling
strategy will be covered in Chapter 5.

Now configure this Controller in the action-servlet.xml file. In this bean’s definition, you will set a fair amount of
declarative values: the “successView”, the “formView” and the command class and its name. This is also where
you will inject its dependency on the UserManager. Below is the definition you need to add to web/WEB-INF/
action-servlet.xml.

<bean id="userFormController"
class="org.appfuse.web.UserFormController">
<property name="commandName"><value>user</value></property>
<property name="commandClass">
<value>org.appfuse.model.User</value>
</property>
<property name="formView"><value>userForm</value></property>
<property name="successView"><value>users.html</value></property>
<property name="userManager"><ref bean="userManager"/></property>
</bean>

In this definition, the commandName property is optional. If you choose not to specify this property, it will
default to “command.” In the next section, when you create the JSP for this controller, you’ll see where the
commandName property is used. It is not by any code in this controller, nor in its Test class.

Since you’re editing action-servlet.xml, add a URL mapping so that “editUser.html” resolves to use the
“userFormController” bean. Do this by adding an additional line to the “mappings” property of the “urlMapping”
bean.

<property name="mappings">
<props>
<prop key="/users.html">userController</prop>
<prop key="/editUser.html">userFormController</prop>
</props>
</property>

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Now you should be able to run the UserFormControllerTest in your IDE or from the command line. Figure
4.3 shows the output on the command line from running ant test –Dtestcase=UserForm.

Figure 9.1: Results of the ant test –Dtestcase=UserForm test

If you see something similar to the output above, nice work! Next create the JSP to interact with the
UserFormController.

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Create userForm.jsp to Allow Editing User's Information

In the Struts version of this application, the userForm.jsp was pretty simple: relying on Struts’ <html:form>
and <html:text> JSP tags to make things easy. Unfortunately, Spring doesn’t have similar simplistic form-
specific tags. However, they have good reasons. The main premise behind the lack of rich form tags is to give the
user maximum control over the HTML. Since Spring’s form-handling tags do not generate any HTML, the user
has complete control over it. Since several Struts folks are migrating to Spring, there have been some discussions
on the mailing list of producing something similar. At the time of this writing, an enhancement request is in
Spring's JIRA to add JSP 2.0 tag files for easier form syntax.

Besides unobtrusive form-handling tags, Spring also allows you to configure your form’s action URL to
whatever you like. This may be annoying because it requires more typing, as though you’re hard-coding the URL
to the controller.

Struts will prepend the contextPath, and append the suffix you defined in web.xml (such as *.do).

<html:form action="/user">

With Spring, an equivalent action declaration looks like the following:

<form action="<c:url value="/user.html"/>">

You could also use relative paths, which makes the Spring version less typing than the Struts version:

<form action="user.html">

The <c:url> version prepends your application’s contextPath (for example, /myusers), allowing you to easily
move the JSP to a sub-folder. Furthermore, it gives you full control over the extension you want to use. This
works very nicely if you want to have secure and unsecure sections of your application. You can define servlet-
mappings in web.xml (such as *.html and *.secure) and then protect any *.secure URLs. You cannot do this with
Struts, since the form action’s URL is always filled in for you.

The next difference between a Struts JSP and a Spring JSP is how Spring binds object values to form input fields.
Struts’ input tags look up information from the <html:form> tag and match properties to getters in the
ActionForm. Spring’s <spring:bind> tag allows you to bind getters (properties) in your command object
with input fields. Let’s compare the differing syntax for the firstName input field. If you were using Struts, you’d
use an <html:text> tag:

<html:text property="user.firstName"/>

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Using Spring, the syntax is a bit more verbose.

<spring:bind path="user.firstName">
<input type="text" name="firstName" value="${status.value}"/>
<span class="fieldError">${status.errorMessage}</span>
</spring:bind>

Struts' ActionForm and Spring's Command objects are very similar in their functionality. However, Spring
allows easier binding to your domain objects, eliminating the need (in many cases) to develop a form just to
handle web input. One case where you may still need a “web-only form object” is when you want to combine
two domain objects into one form, or if you want to put two forms on one page.

Below you will find the full code for web/userForm.jsp.

<%@ include file="/taglibs.jsp"%>

<title>MyUsers ~ User Details</title>

<p>Please fill in user's information below:</p>

<form method="post" action="<c:url value="/editUser.html"/>"

onsubmit="return validateUser(this)">
<spring:bind path="user.id">
<input type="hidden" name="id" value="${status.value}"/>
</spring:bind>
<table>
<tr>
<th><fmt:message key="user.firstName"/>:</th>
<td>
<spring:bind path="user.firstName">
<input type="text" name="firstName" value="${status.value}"/>
<span class="fieldError">${status.errorMessage}</span>
</spring:bind>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th><fmt:message key="user.lastName"/>:</th>
<td>
<spring:bind path="user.lastName">
<input type="text" name="lastName" value="${status.value}"/>
<span class="fieldError">${status.errorMessage}</span>
</spring:bind>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>

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<input type="submit" class="button" name="save" value="Save"/>

<c:if test="${not empty param.id}">
<input type="submit" class="button" name="delete" value="Delete"/>
</c:if>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>

<html:javascript formName="user"/>

The last thing you need to do is add validation.

Configure Commons Validator for Spring

At the time of this writing, Spring 1.1.1 has been released, and it does not contain a built-in declarative validation
framework. The core validation framework requires that you create classes to validate other classes. While this is
rather simple, I prefer the way I learned with Struts: using Commons Validator and declaring rules in an XML
file. Daniel Miller recently added support for using Commons Validator with Spring.

For Struts users, using the validation framework they’re familiar with should make Spring MVC even easier. To
migrate the validation.xml file from Struts to Spring MVC, you only need to change a few attribute values – the
formName (userForm user) and the field names (removing user. since you’re not wrapping it with a
DynaActionForm). The modified-for-Spring version is as follows:

<form-validation>
<formset>
<form name="user">
<field property="lastName" depends="required">
<arg0 key="user.lastName"/>
</field>
</form>
</formset>
</form-validation>

The download for this chapter has a validation-rules.xml file (in web/WEB-INF) that is different from the one
that ships with Struts. This file defines all of the Spring-specific classes and methods to use for validation, as
well as defining JavaScript methods for client-side validation.

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At the bottom of userForm.jsp is a JSP tag that renders the JavaScript for client-side validation.

<html:javascript formName="user"/>

NOTE
The above one-line JavaScript tag is not the recommended way to configure client-side validation with Commons
Validator. The above method results in all the JavaScript functions being included in the final HTML. Chapter 5
discusses a cleaner way, where the functions are referenced from an external JavaScript file.

To notify Spring that you want to use Commons Validator as your validation engine, add a couple of <bean>
definitions to web/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml:

<bean id="validatorFactory"
class="org.springframework.validation.commons.DefaultValidatorFactory"

init-method="init">
<property name="resources">
<list>
<value>/WEB-INF/validator-rules.xml</value>
<value>/WEB-INF/validation.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

<bean id="beanValidator"
class="org.springframework.validation.commons.BeanValidator">
<property name="validatorFactory">
<ref local="validatorFactory"/>
</property>
</bean>

The first bean (validatorFactory) loads the Validator’s methods and class mappings (validation-rules.xml), as
well as the application-specific validation rules (validation.xml). The second bean (beanValidator) applies
validation to any Plain ol' Java Object (POJO). To configure your UserFormController to use the
beanValidator for validation, you simply need to add a “validator” property to the “userFormController”
definition.

<property name="validator"><ref bean="beanValidator"/></property>

NOTE
The developers of Spring plan to add their own declarative validation framework in the coming months. However,
Commons Validator is currently the only Spring-compatible declarative validation framework. Commons Validator
support is currently in Spring’s sandbox, and there’s talk of integrating it into the core at a future date.

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Now if you run ant deploy reload, open your browser to http://localhost:8080/myusers/editUser.html and
try to add a new user without specifying his last name; you should see the following JavaScript alert:

Figure 9.1: Results of the ant deploy reload test with JavaScript disabled

If you want to make sure things are really working as expected, turn off JavaScript and ensure that server-side
validation is working. This is easy in Mozilla Firefox; just go to Tools > Options > Web Features and uncheck
“Enable JavaScript.” Now if you clear the lastName field and save the form, you should see the following:

Figure 9.1: Results of the ant deploy reload test with JavaScript enabled

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To capture all the errors at the top of your JSP (like Struts), add the following code block to the top of the JSP,
just after the <title>.

<spring:bind path="user.*">
<c:if test="${not empty status.errorMessages}">
<div class="error">
<c:forEach var="error" items="${status.errorMessages}">
<c:out value="${error}" escapeXml="false"/><br/>
</c:forEach>
</div>
</c:if>
</spring:bind>

If you add this code, run ant deploy and click “Save” without adding a lastName (with JavaScript turned off).
Your screen should resemble the following screenshot:

Figure 9.1: Results of the ant deploy test with JavaScript disabled

You’ve just created a web application that uses Spring for its MVC layer. Congratulations!

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SimpleFormController: Method Lifecyle Review

The SimpleFormController is one of many CommandControllers in Spring’s MVC package. These

controllers are designed to interact with domain objects and dynamically bind parameters from the request to the
objects. In comparison to Struts, Spring is much cleaner because it doesn’t require your domain objects to
implement an interface or extend a superclass. Rather than describing each command controller and its
functionality, I’m simply going to point out that there are only two that you’ll likely need:
SimpleFormController and AbstractWizardFormController.

• SimpleFormController is a concrete FormController that provides configurable form and

success views, and an onSubmit chain for convenient overriding. It automatically resubmits to the
form view in case of validation errors, and renders the success view in case of a valid submission.

• AbstractWizardFormController is a FormController for typical wizard-style workflows. In

contrast to classic forms, wizards have more than one page view. Because of this, various methods
allow the user to go next, back, cancel or finish.

SimpleFormController can be a bit overwhelming at first. I recommend that you read its JavaDocs, which
describe the lifecycle (that is, workflow) of its methods. Figure 4.7 illustrates the lifecycle for a GET request, and
Figure 4.8 shows a POST request’s lifecycle.

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Figure 9.1: GET request lifecycle

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Figure 9.1: POST request lifecycle

These diagrams should give you a better understanding of the Spring’s FormController’s lifecycle. Knowing
these methods and when they’re called can be helpful when developing apps with Spring MVC.

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Spring’s JSP Tags

We briefly touched on the <spring:bind> tag when modifying userForm.jsp; now let’s look at the other JSP
tags available. Below is a list of current tags that ship with Spring by default.

• spring:hasBindErrors provides support for binding the errors for an object. This tag seems
to be most useful for checking a command object if it has bind errors.

• spring:bind binds command object properties to form fields. This tag exposes a “status”
variable in the pageContext. This variable can be grabbed with JSP’s EL; ${status.value}
will give you a properties value, and ${status.errorMessage} will display any errors
associated with a property. This is the most useful tag in Spring’s taglib.

• spring:transform provides support for transforming properties not contained by a command

object using PropertyEditors associated with the command object. This can be useful if you need
to transform data from the referenceData() method (for example, drop-downs). It must be
used inside a spring:bind tag. It’s not currently used in any of Spring’s sample apps.

• spring:message is similar to JSTL’s <fmt:message> tag, but supports Spring’s

MessageSource concept. It also works with Spring’s locale support. JSTL’s <fmt:message>
tag has fulfilled all my i18n needs with Spring MVC. It’s not currently used in any of Spring’s
sample apps.

• spring:htmlEscape sets the default HTML escape value for the current page. The default is
“false.” You can also set a defaultHtmlEscape web.xml context-param. Using the tag in a JSP
overrides any settings in web.xml. Its not currently used in any of Spring’s sample apps.

• spring:theme looks up the theme message in the scope of the current page. This tag will be
covered in greater detail in Chapter 5 when we talk about Templating.

From the above list, you can see that many of the core tags are not used. Therefore, you’ve already seen the most
important one: spring:bind.

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Summary 114

Summary

This chapter covered a lot of material. It discussed unit testing and using spring-mock.jar to test Controller
classes. Then it demonstrated how to convert the MyUsers app to use Spring MVC instead of Struts. Through
this process, you learned how to create a Controller unit test and how to configure action-servlet.xml for
Controllers, Handlers and Resolvers. You saw how to modify a Struts JSP to use Spring tags, and how to add
declarative validation with Commons Validator. Lastly, it discussed the SimpleFormController’s lifecycle and
Spring’s JSP tags.

This chapter was designed to show you the basics of developing webapps with Spring MVC. My favorite part of
Spring MVC is its method lifecycles. Chapter 5 will cover more advanced validation and website page
decoration (also called templating). You’ll also learn how to handle exceptions in Controllers and how to do a
simple file upload.

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 Chapter
5

Advanced MVC: Templates, Validation, Exceptions

and Uploading Files
How to Integrate Tiles and SiteMesh for Page Decoration, Implementing
Validation, Handling Exceptions, Uploading Files and Sending E-mail

This chapter covers advanced topics in web frameworks, particularly validation and page decoration. It shows
the user how to use Tiles or SiteMesh to decorate a web application. It also explains how the Spring framework
handles validation, and shows examples of using it in the web business layers. Finally, it explains a strategy for
handling exceptions in the controllers, how to upload files and how to send e-mail.

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Several years ago, web developers didn’t have frameworks to help them develop Java/JSP-based applications.
They were more concerned with getting it done than doing it right. Today, numerous frameworks are available to
accelerate a developer’s efficiency. They have built-in page decoration, validation engines, exception handling
and file upload. Some even support interceptors, which can interrupt a web request and perform logic on-the-fly.

Spring supports all of these features as well. This chapter explores how to configure page decoration frameworks
like SiteMesh and Tiles in your Spring-based webapp. It then shows how you can build from your Struts
Validator knowledge and use the Commons Validator with Spring (which nicely supports client-side validation
with JavaScript). After validation, this chapter covers exception handling, applying interceptors and uploading
files. Lastly, it briefly covers sending e-mail.

This may sounds like a lot to accomplish in one chapter, but it will be simple and easy to understand.
Furthermore, all of these technologies and concepts will be viewed in the context of the MyUsers application. At
the end of this chapter, you’ll have a reference application that employs all of these features.

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Templating with SiteMesh

SiteMesh is an open-source layout and page decoration framework from the OpenSymphony project. It was
originally created over 5 years ago, when Joe Walnes downloaded the first Sun servlet engine and wrote it using
servlet chains. Over the years, the basic design has stayed the same; content is intercepted and parsed, and a
decorator mapper finds a decorator and merges everything together. The diagram below shows a simplistic
example of how this works.

Figure 9.1: The SiteMesh process

Skinning is an essential element to every web application. The ability to edit one or two files to change the entire
layout of an app is a must for maintainability. SiteMesh is a simple decoration framework and is very easy to
install and configure.

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Installation and Configuration

If you’re using the application you developed in Chapter 4, SiteMesh is already configured. In order to start from
scratch (without SiteMesh) you must download the MyUsers Chapter 5 bundle from http://sourcebeat.com/
downloads. All of the topics for this chapter have not been configured in the downloaded application. After
downloading it, extract it to “myusers-ch5” and then copy “myusers-ch5” to “myusers-sitemesh.”

NOTE
You will copy “myusers-ch5” to “myusers-tiles” when you install and configure Tiles.

Run ant remove clean install while Tomcat is running; your screen should resemble the one below when
you open http://localhost:8080/myusers. This is much different and quite bland when compared with previous
screens you’ve seen. Installing and configureing SiteMesh will allow you to pretty it up a bit.

Figure 9.1: “Welcome to MyUsers” without decoration

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Step 1: Configure SiteMesh in web.xml

The sitemesh-2.1.jar should already be in the web/WEB-INF/lib directory of “myusers-sitemesh,” so you won’t
have to install that. However, if you were installing SiteMesh from scratch, you would download it from http://
www.opensymphony.com/sitemesh.

1. Open your web.xml file (in web/WEB-INF) to edit.

2. At the top of this file, right after the <display-name> and before the <context-param>, add the
following <filter> definition:

<filter>
<filter-name>sitemesh</filter-name>
<filter-class>
com.opensymphony.module.sitemesh.filter.PageFilter
</filter-class>
</filter>

3. After the <context-param> and before the <listener> element, add the following <filter-
mapping>:

<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>sitemesh</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
<dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher>
<dispatcher>FORWARD</dispatcher>
</filter-mapping>

The <dispatcher> elements in the <filter-mapping> above are new to Servlet 2.4. These dispatchers
(as well as ERROR) allow map filters to more than just requested URLs.

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Step 2: Create Configuration Files

1. Create a sitemesh.xml file in web/WEB-INF, as shown below:

<sitemesh>
<page-parsers>
<parser default="true"

class="com.opensymphony.module.sitemesh.parser.FastPageParser"/>
<parser content-type="text/html"

class="com.opensymphony.module.sitemesh.parser.FastPageParser"/>
<parser content-type="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"

class="com.opensymphony.module.sitemesh.parser.FastPageParser"/>
</page-parsers>

<decorator-mappers>
<mapper

class="com.opensymphony.module.sitemesh.mapper.ConfigDecoratorMapper">
<param name="config" value="/WEB-INF/decorators.xml"/>
</mapper>
</decorator-mappers>
</sitemesh>

This file configures page-parsers and decorator-mappers. The page-parsers are configured to parse
certain content-types, and it’s unlikely you’ll ever need to change these values. The
ConfigDecoratorMapper is one of several possible decorator-mappers. Specifically, it tells
SiteMesh to read decorators and mappings from the “config” property, which is /WEB-INF/
decorators.xml by default. Because you’re using the default, you could remove the <param> element
in sitemesh.xml and everything would work the same. The decorators.xml file specifies which URL
patterns will use which decorators.

2. Create a decorators.xml file in web/WEB-INF and put the following XML into it.

<decorators defaultdir="/decorators">
<decorator name="default" page="default.jsp">
<pattern>/*</pattern>
</decorator>
</decorators>

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Step 3: Create a Decorator

Lastly, build a decorator that will act as the template to wrap the pages in your app. If you’re familiar with Tiles,
this is the same thing as creating a base layout.

1. Create a web/decorators/default.jsp file, as was configured in the decorators.xml file.

2. Put the following code into the default.jsp file:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"

"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<%@ include file="/taglibs.jsp"%>

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">

<head>
<title><decorator:title default="MyUsers"/></title>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
<c:set var="ctx" value="${pageContext.request.contextPath}"/>
<link href="${ctx}/styles/global.css" type="text/css"
rel="stylesheet"/>
<link href="${ctx}/images/favicon.ico" rel="SHORTCUT ICON"/>
<decorator:head/>
<!-- HTML & Design contributed by Boer Attila (http://www.calcium.ro)
-->
<!-- Found at http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/083/083.css&page=2
-->
</head>
<body>
<a name="top"></a>
<div id="container">
<div id="intro">
<div id="pageHeader">
<h1><span>Welcome to Equinox</span></h1>
<div id="logo" onclick="location.href='<c:url value="/"/>'"
onkeypress="location.href='<c:url value="/"/>'"></div>
<h2><span>Spring Rocks!</span></h2>
</div>

<div id="quickSummary">
<p>
<strong>Equinox</strong> is a lightweight version of
<a href="http://raibledesigns.com/appfuse">AppFuse</a>
designed
to accelerate starting a webapp with the
<a href="http://www.springframework.org">Spring Framework</
a>.
</p>
<p class="credit">

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<a href="http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/083/
083.css">
Design and CSS</a> donated by <a href="http://
www.calcium.ro">
Bo&eacute;r Attila</a>.
</p>
</div>

<div id="content">
<%@ include file="/messages.jsp"%>
<decorator:body/>
</div>
</div>

<div id="supportingText">
<div id="underground">
<decorator:getProperty property="page.underground"/>
</div>
<div id="footer"></div>

</div>

<div id="linkList">
<div id="linkList2">
</div>
</div>

</div>

</body>
</html>

The important elements to look for are the <decorator:*> tags, which are highlighted in yellow. At
the top of the document, a <decorator:title> grabs the <title> tag from JSP pages that are
wrapped, and the <decorator:head/> tag pulls in anything defined in <head>. In the middle, a
<decorator:body/> tag grabs the “body” of the page. Lastly, the <decorator:getProperty>
tag pulls in a <content> tag that’s defined in your decorated JSPs. Here’s an example from the
index.jsp page:

<content tag="underground">
<h3>Additional Information</h3>
<!-- more content here -->
</content>

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3. Add the <decorator> taglib directive to web/taglibs.jsp. Add the following line at the bottom of
this file:

<%@ taglib uri="http://www.opensymphony.com/sitemesh/decorator"

prefix="decorator" %>

4. Run ant deploy reload, and open your browser to http://localhost:8080/myusers; you should see
a nice and pretty page like the one below.

Figure 5.3: “Welcome to MyUsers” with decoration

This is a clean and simple, yet attractive design. For the most part, your decorated pages can use standard HTML
elements. Yet they don’t need all the elements (such as <html>, <body>) that static pages require. Even better,
SiteMesh doesn’t care what server-side technology you use for your application; it works with CGI, PHP,
Servlets, Velocity and FreeMarker. This makes it very Spring-friendly since Spring supports so many different
view technologies (covered thoroughly in the next chapter).

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Templating with Tiles

Tiles is a templating and document layout engine much like SiteMesh. Tiles is the default layout engine for
Struts, while most SiteMesh users tend to use WebWork (mainly due to the fact that both WebWork and SiteMesh
come from OpenSymphony). Tiles was originally written by Cedric Dumoulin and released shortly after Struts
1.0. Initially, it was a separate add-on to Struts, much like the Validator. Much of the work in Struts 1.1 was
devoted to extracting useful components from Struts into the Jakarta Commons projects. Because no one had the
time to extract it, Tiles did not become a separate project, but became a part of the core Struts (in struts.jar).

The next few sections show you how to configure Tiles to work with Spring’s MVC Framework.

Installation and Configuration

The instructions below are for Struts 1.1, with which Tiles is integrated; hence it does not have its own version
number.

Copy “myusers-ch5” to “myusers-tiles.” If you haven’t downloaded “myusers-ch5” yet, you can download it
from http://sourcebeat.com/downloads. At this point, if you run ant remove clean install, your screen
will look like it did before the SiteMesh section (Figure 5.2).

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Step 1: Configure Spring to Recognize Tiles

1. In order for Spring to recognize Tiles and use it for rendering views, create a “tilesConfigurer” bean
definition in the action-servlet.xml file in web/WEB-INF, as shown below:

<bean id="tilesConfigurer"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles.
TilesConfigurer">
<property name="factoryClass">
<value>org.apache.struts.tiles.xmlDefinition.I18nFactorySet</
value>
</property>
<property name="definitions">
<list>
<value>/WEB-INF/tiles-config.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

2. Change the “viewClass” property of the “viewResolver” bean from JstlView to TilesJstlView.
You can also delete the “prefix” and “suffix” values in this bean definition. Below is the replacement
“viewResolver” bean definition:

<bean id="viewResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResource
ViewResolver">
<property name="requestContextAttribute">
<value>rc</value>
</property>
<property name="viewClass">

<value>org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles.TilesJstlView</value>
</property>
</bean>

The TilesJstlView class will now resolve any view names to definition names. For instance, in
UserController, it returns the “userList” view from the handleRequest() method. This will
now render the “userList” definition.

return new ModelAndView("userList", "users", mgr.getUsers());

Another example is the “formView” property of the UserFormController class. In action-servlet.xml, it’s set
to “userForm,” which will render the “userForm” definition.

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Step 2: Create a Base Layout

Now you must create a base layout JSP. This is basically a template (equivalent to SiteMesh’s decorator) that
controls the layout of the page and where certain components are inserted.

1. Create a web/layouts/baseLayout.jsp file. Fill this file with the code below:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"

"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<%@ include file="/taglibs.jsp"%>

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">

<head>
<title><tiles:getAsString name="title"/></title>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
<c:set var="ctx" value="${pageContext.request.contextPath}"/>
<link href="${ctx}/styles/global.css" type="text/css"
rel="stylesheet"/>
<link href="${ctx}/images/favicon.ico" rel="SHORTCUT ICON"/>
<!-- HTML & Design contributed by Boer Attila (http://www.calcium.ro)
-->
<!-- Found at http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/083/083.css&page=2
-->
</head>
<body>
<a name="top"></a>
<div id="container">
<div id="intro">
<div id="pageHeader">
<h1><span>Welcome to Equinox</span></h1>
<div id="logo" onclick="location.href='<c:url value="/"/>'"
onkeypress="location.href='<c:url value="/"/>'"></div>
<h2><span>Spring Rocks!</span></h2>
</div>

<div id="quickSummary">
<p>
<strong>Equinox</strong> is a lightweight version of
<a href="http://raibledesigns.com/appfuse">AppFuse</a>
designed
to accelerate starting a webapp with the
<a href="http://www.springframework.org">Spring Framework</
a>.
</p>
<p class="credit">
<a href="http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/083/
083.css">

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Design and CSS</a> donated by <a href="http://

www.calcium.ro">
Bo&eacute;r Attila</a>.
</p>
</div>

<div id="content">
<%@ include file="/messages.jsp"%>
<tiles:insert attribute="content"/>
</div>
</div>

<div id="supportingText">
<div id="underground">
<c:out value="${underground}" escapeXml="false"/>
</div>
<div id="footer"></div>

</div>

<div id="linkList">
<div id="linkList2">
</div>
</div>

</div>

</body>
</html>

This file is very similar to the web/decorators/default.jsp that you created for SiteMesh, except that it
uses the “tiles” JSP tag instead of the “decorator” tag.

2. Because of this, you must add the “tiles” tag to the web/taglibs.jsp file. Here’s what this file should
look like after making this change:

<%@ page language="java" errorPage="/error.jsp" %>

<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core_rt" prefix="c" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/fmt" prefix="fmt" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/commons-validator"
prefix="html" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags" prefix="spring" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/tags-tiles"
prefix="tiles" %>

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Step 3: Create Page Definitions

Tiles supports two methods of configuring page definitions: configure a page’s definition in a JSP, and configure
each page definition in an XML file. The second method gives a cleaner separation of concerns and allows your
JSPs to be agnostic of the fact that Tiles is using them.

1. To create page definitions for MyUsers, create a tiles-config.xml file in web/WEB-INF and populate
it with the XML below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<!DOCTYPE tiles-definitions PUBLIC
"-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Tiles Configuration 1.1//EN"
"http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/dtds/tiles-config_1_1.dtd">

<tiles-definitions>
<!-- base layout definition -->
<definition name="baseLayout" path="/layouts/baseLayout.jsp">
<put name="title" value="MyUsers"/>
</definition>

<!-- index definition -->

<definition name="index" extends="baseLayout">
<put name="title" value="MyUsers ~ Welcome"/>
<put name="content" value="/index.jsp"/>
</definition>

<!-- user list definition -->

<definition name="userList" extends="baseLayout">
<put name="title" value="MyUsers ~ User List"/>
<put name="content" value="/userList.jsp"/>
</definition>

<!-- user form definition -->

<definition name="userForm" extends="baseLayout">
<put name="title" value="MyUsers ~ User Details"/>
<put name="content" value="/userForm.jsp"/>
</definition>
</tiles-definitions>

The above file defines the page titles here instead of in the JSPs.

2. To produce clean HTML in your application, delete the <title> elements from userList.jsp and
userForm.jsp in the web directory. There is no easy way to control the title in the JSP as with
SiteMesh.

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3. Configure Spring so it can resolve URLs to Tiles definitions by adding a bean definition. The
UrlFilenameViewController is declared in the action-servlet.xml as follows:

<bean id="filenameController"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.UrlFilenameViewController"/>

4. In order to render the index page (/index.html) of MyUsers, configure the “urlMapping” bean with an
additional mapping:

<prop key="/index.html">filenameController</prop>

5. Run ant remove clean install to see a similar view to the SiteMesh result (Figure 5.3) when
you go to http://localhost:8080/myusers/users.html.

The problem that you’ll experience now is that if you go to http://localhost:8080/myusers, it shows the index.jsp
page with no decoration.

6. Solve this by renaming index.jsp to welcome.jsp and create a new index.jsp with the following
contents:

<%@ include file="/taglibs.jsp"%>

<tiles:insert definition="index"/>

7. Change tiles-config.xml to use the welcome.jsp for the content page:

<definition name="index" extends="baseLayout">

<put name="title" value="MyUsers ~ Welcome"/>
<put name="content" value="/welcome.jsp"/>
</definition>

While the previous solution works, it can be a real pain to create two JSPs to solve problems like this
one. Therefore, I recommend using a servlet filter to redirect certain URLs to others. Using this
solution, you must configure your application so that the root URL invokes the “/index.html” URL.
You cannot do this using the <welcome-file-list> in web.xml, so use Paul Tuckey’s URL
Rewrite Filter to make it happen.

NOTE
Paul Tuckey’s Rewrite Filter is modeled after mod_rewrite for the Apache HTTP Server. It redirects or forwards
requested URLs in order to create tidy URLs, do browser detection, or gracefully handle moved content.

The urlrewrite-1.2.jar is already in web/WEB-INF/lib, so you only need to configure it in web.xml

and add its configuration file.

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8. Open web.xml and add the following <filter> definition:

<filter>
<filter-name>UrlRewriteFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>
org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.UrlRewriteFilter
</filter-class>
</filter>

9. Add its mapping:

<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>UrlRewriteFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
<dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher>
<dispatcher>FORWARD</dispatcher>
</filter-mapping>

10. Configure this filter’s rules by creating an urlrewrite.xml file in the web/WEB-INF directory:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE urlrewrite PUBLIC "-//tuckey.org//DTD UrlRewrite 1.0//EN"
"http://tuckey.org/res/dtd/urlrewrite1.dtd">

<urlrewrite>
<rule>
<from>/$</from>
<to type="forward">index.html</to>
</rule>
<rule>
<from>/index.jsp</from>
<to type="forward">index.html</to>
</rule>
</urlrewrite>

This configuration will route both http://localhost:8080/myusers and http://localhost:8080/myusers/

index.jsp to http://localhost:8080/myusers/index.html, thereby invoking Spring’s
DispatcherServlet. The “/index.html” mapping will call the “filenameController” bean, which
will use the URL to figure out it needs to render the “index” definition.

Finally, you must fix index.jsp so it sets the “underground” content as a request variable for the definition to pick
up. With SiteMesh, you were able to set content from the JSP using the <content> tag and the
<decorator:getProperty> tag in your decorator. Tiles does not have similar functionality, but you can
mimic this pattern by setting a request attribute with JSTL.

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11. Open web/index.jsp and change the <content tag="...">...</content> to the following:

<c:set var="underground" scope="request">

...
</c:set>

This text will then be picked up and rendered by the following line in layouts/baseLayout.jsp:

<c:out value="${underground}" escapeXml="false"/>

NOTE
This solution also works with SiteMesh if you’d prefer not to use its proprietary <content> tags.

The last couple of sections have given you the knowledge you need to configure the two most popular page
layout and decoration engines. They both work with Spring’s MVC framework and they’re both relatively easy
to configure (especially now that you have this guide). I recommend SiteMesh, because it is easier to work with,
especially with new applications. However, it’s up to you to choose the one you prefer.

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Validating the Spring Way

Currently, Spring does not ship with the Commons Validator setup that the MyUsers app uses. It does, however,
have a fairly simple validation system you can use, if you don’t want to use Commons Validator. All you need to
do is create a class that implements org.springframework.validation.Validator, which has the
following methods:

/**
* Return whether or not this object can validate objects
* of the given class.
*/
boolean supports(Class clazz);

/**
* Validate an object, which must be of a class for which
* the supports() method returned true.
* @param obj Populated object to validate
* @param errors Errors object we're building. May contain
* errors for this field relating to types.
*/
void validate(Object obj, Errors errors);

1. Disable Commons Validator in your userForm.jsp file. Simply remove the onsubmit attribute of the
<form> tag:

<form method="post" action="<c:url value="/editUser.html"/>">

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2. Create a new class named UserValidator in the src/org/appfuse/web directory:

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserValidator implements Validator {

private Log log = LogFactory.getLog(UserValidator.class);
public boolean supports(Class clazz) {
return clazz.equals(User.class);
}

public void validate(Object obj, Errors errors) {

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("entering 'validate' method...");
}
User user = (User) obj;

ValidationUtils.rejectIfEmptyOrWhitespace(errors,
"lastName", "errors.required", "Value required."); }
}
}

In the preceding code, this Validator only supports the User class and its validate() method will
return an error if the lastName variable is empty.

3. To configure this Validator in action-servlet.xml, simply add the following bean definition:

<bean id="userValidator" class="org.appfuse.web.UserValidator"/>

4. Change the “validator” property of the “userFormController” bean to use “userValidator” instead of
“beanValidator”:

<property name="validator"><ref bean="userValidator"/></property>

5. Run ant deploy reload and try to add a new user without a last name. To prove the
UserValidator is being invoked, check your logs for the debug message when entering the
validate method. Using this validation mechanism can be very powerful when you want to do more
sophisticated validation (such as comparing properties against database values).

The next section reviews setting up Commons Validator for a Spring application and using it to verify the
lastName field is not empty. Then it will show you how you can use both Commons Validator’s declarative
validation and the Validator interface to create a validation chain.

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Using Commons Validator

Chapter 4 explained in detail how to use Commons Validator’s declarative validation framework, so I won’t go
through all the particulars again. However, since this is the chapter on validation, here is a step-by-step overview
of what you need to do:

1. Create a validation.xml file in web/WEB-INF and define your validation rules in it.

2. Download the Spring-specific validation-rules.xml file and install it in web/WEB-INF. This file is
included in the downloadable bundle for this chapter.

3. Add “validatorFactory” and “beanValidator” bean definitions to web/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml.

4. Configure your FormController bean to use “beanValidator” for its “validator” property.

These steps enable server-side validation, but what about client-side validation? The method from Chapter 4
works, but it includes all of the JavaScript validation functions in the page. A better way is to refer to a
standalone JavaScript file that the user’s browser can cache. The following instructions assume you have no
client-side validation configured on your form.

1. Add an onsubmit attribute to the <form> on which you want to enable validation.

<form method="post" action="<c:url value="/editUser.html"/>"

onsubmit="return validateUser(this)">

2. At the bottom of the form, add the following lines of code to write JavaScript function calls for the
form’s rules and to include the standalone JavaScript file. If you try this in MyUsers, make sure to
replace the existing <html:javascript> tag.

<html:javascript formName="user"
staticJavascript="false" xhtml="true" cdata="false"/>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="<c:url value="/scripts/validator.jsp"/>"></script>

3. Create a validator.jsp file in web/scripts (you must create the scripts directory) with the following
code:

<%@ page language="java" contentType="javascript/x-javascript" %>

<%@ taglib uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/commons-validator"
prefix="html" %>

<html:javascript dynamicJavascript="false" staticJavascript="true"/>

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The hardest part about using Commons Validator is the setup and configuration process. Once you have that in
place, creating the rules is fairly simple. You can even use XDoclet to generate the rules from your POJOs.

XDoclet

XDoclet is an open source code generation engine. It enables Attribute-Oriented Programming for Java. This
means that you can add more significance to your code by adding metadata (attributes) to your java sources. This
is done in special JavaDoc tags. For more information, please refer to the XDoclet website. The metadata
attributes that XDoclet uses are also called annotations. This concept has received such praise and use that
annotations have been added as a new feature in J2SE 5.

At the time of this writing, this functionality doesn’t exist in an XDoclet release, but it is checked into XDoclet’s
CVS.

1. To generate your validation rules from your POJOs, define a <webdoclet> task that uses the
<springvalidationxml> task. An example is given below:

<target name="webdoclet"
description="Generate web deployment descriptors">
<taskdef name="webdoclet"
classname="xdoclet.modules.web.WebDocletTask">
<classpath>
<path refid="xdoclet.classpath"/>
</classpath>
</taskdef>
<webdoclet destdir="${webapp.target}/WEB-INF"
force="${xdoclet.force}"
mergedir="metadata/web"
excludedtags="@version,@author"
verbose="true">
<fileset dir="src"/>
<springvalidationxml/>
</webdoclet>
</target>

2. Add @spring.validator tags to your POJO’s setters as follows:

/**
* @spring.validator type="required"
*/
public void setLastName(String lastName) {
this.lastName = lastName;
}

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The above code will generate the same validation.xml file that you are using in MyUsers, which makes the
lastName a required field. This example demonstrates how simple XDoclet can make declarative validation. If
you’d like more information on XDoclet, please refer to AppFuse or build XDoclet from CVS.

Chaining Validators

The previous two examples set a “validator” property on the “userFormController”. The bean referenced in this
property referred to the custom “userValidator” or to Commons Validator’s “beanValidator”, which reads its
rules from an XML file. With Spring MVC you can actually add multiple validators by setting a “validators”
property as follows:

<property name="validators">
<list>
<ref bean="beanValidator"/>
<ref bean="userValidator"/>
</list>
</property>

This creates a sort of validation chain that can do simple validation using Commons Validator and more complex
validation with a custom Validator implementation.

Validating in Business Delegates

While validation in the web tier seems to be the most common practice, there is a demand for validation in the
business layer as well. Below is a simple example of how to use Spring’s validation in your middle tier.

1. In UserManagerImpl.java, you can change the saveUser() method to:

public User saveUser(User user) {

BindException errors = new BindException(user, "user");
new UserValidator().validate(user, errors);
if (errors.hasErrors()) {
throw new RuntimeException("validation failed!", errors);
}
dao.saveUser(user);
return user;
}

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2. Write a unit test to verify that the exception is thrown in UserManagerTest.java:

public void testWithValidationErrors() {

user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Bill");

try {
user = mgr.saveUser(user);
fail("Validation exception not thrown!");
} catch (Exception e) {
log.debug(e.getCause().getMessage());
assertNotNull(e.getCause());
}
}

3. Run the test using ant test -Dtestcase=UserManager; you should see output similar to Figure
5.4.

Figure 9.1: Result of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserManager command

This example has a hard-coded validator, but it is not necessary to hard-code which validator to use. You could
add a setValidator() method to the UserManagerImpl (and its interface), then use dependency injection to
set the “validator” property declaratively in your applicationContext.xml file. To make this work, you would
have to declare your “validator” bean in applicationContext.xml, or load action-servlet.xml in your test. All in all,
it’s much easier to configure and use validation in the web tier.

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Spring’s Future Declarative Validation Framework

Commons Validator is the only declarative validation framework supported by Spring MVC. However, Keith
Donald (a Spring Developer) is working feverishly to develop a more native and robust declarative validation
framework. I asked him to provide me with a few details about it, and here are the key features/differentiators he
sent me:

• A simple, consistent interface for defining new validation rules (rule providers simply implement
a single "boolean test(argument)" method).

• Support for bean property expressions (for example, minProperty must be less than maxProperty).
The property access strategy will be pluggable and not limited to java beans (for example,
allowing map-backed storage, or buffered "form objects" on the rich client side of the house).

• Support for complex nested expressions (and/or/not), and all relational operators (>, >=, <, <=, !=,
==).

• Support for applying different sets of rules based on context or use-case.

• A reporting subsystem capable of iterating over rule structures, performing validation, and
capturing/generating error message results. This allows you to assemble complex rules on-the-fly
without having to hard code a lot of static messages; the reporter is capable of generating rule
messages from the underlying structures automatically.

• Report field typing hints (the rules associated with a field to let the user know what they're
expected to type).

• Integration with Spring Rich Client Platform (RCP) and Spring MVC environments.

From this list, you can see that validation in Spring has a very bright future.

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Exception Handling in Controllers

Exception handling is something that every webapp should have. The Servlet API provides a simple mechanism
for mapping particular exceptions and error-codes to specific views. In Equinox, for example, the following
clause in its web.xml file says that “if a page is not found” go to the 404.jsp page:

<error-page>
<error-code>404</error-code>
<location>/404.jsp</location>
</error-page>

The XML below says that any “500: Internal Server Errors” should go to error.jsp. If you’re seeing a lot of 500
errors when developing your app, you need better exception handling.

<error-page>
<error-code>500</error-code>
<location>/error.jsp</location>
</error-page>

In addition to web.xml error-pages, it’s a good idea to tell your JSP pages to go to an error page when they
encounter an exception. The MyUsers application does this in web/taglibs.jsp, where you specify
errorPage="/error.jsp". In web.xml, you can additionally declare certain Exceptions go to certain pages
using the <exception-type> mapping:

<error-page>
<exception-type>
org.appfuse.service.UserNotFound
</exception-type>
<location>/userNotFound.html</location>
</error-page>

WARNING
SiteMesh has a bug in Tomcat; it will not decorate <error-page> mappings in your web.xml file. If you want to
map exceptions in web.xml, write these pages so they can stand alone, without being decorated.

While the Servlet API provides a nice means of handling exceptions, it’s difficult to extract information from the
exception and perform logic on that information. It’s difficult to put try/catch statements in Controllers because
they take up a fair amount of lines. It’s so much cleaner to simply call a business delegate’s method. An easy way
to avoid try/catching exceptions in your Controllers is by adding throws Exception to the onSubmit()
method in a FormController. In framewords like Struts, you can do this on your Actions and then declaratively
map Exceptions to views. In other words, you can specify (in XML) that when an Exception gets thrown, the
user should be forwarded to an Action, a Tiles’ definition, or a JSP.

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The ability to forward to a particular view for a specific exception is also possible with Spring. The easy way to
do this is to define a SimpleMappingExceptionResolver in your action-servlet.xml and specify which
Exceptions go to which view name.

1. Add the following definition in web/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml.

<bean id="exceptionResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleMappingException
Resolver">
<property name="exceptionMappings">
<props>
<prop
key="org.springframework.dao.DataAccessException">
dataAccessFailure
</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>

In the above code, “dataAccessFailure” refers to the name of a view that the “viewResolver” bean can
determine. To Tiles users, this might refer to a definition in tiles-config.xml.

2. To test that the above mapping works, modify the UserDAOTest (in test/org/appfuse/dao). Near the
bottom of the testAddAndRemoveUser() method, you should have the following line:

assertNull(dao.getUser(user.getId()));

3. Replace this line with the following code to ensure that an exception is thrown when a user isn’t
found:

try {
user = dao.getUser(user.getId());
fail("User found in database");
} catch (DataAccessException dae) {
log.debug("Expected exception: " + dae.getMessage());
assertNotNull(dae);
}

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4. Modify the getUser() method in UserDAOHibernate (in src/org/appfuse/dao) to throw an

exception when a user is not found:

public User getUser(Long id) {

User user = (User) getHibernateTemplate().get(User.class, id);
if (user == null) {
throw new ObjectRetrievalFailureException(User.class, id);
}
return user;
}

5. Verify that everything is working as planned by running ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO.

6. Create a dataAccessFailure.jsp file in the web folder:

<%@ include file="/taglibs.jsp" %>

<h3>Data Access Failure</h3>

<p>
<c:out value="${requestScope.exception.message}"/>
</p>

<!--
<%
Exception ex = (Exception) request.getAttribute("exception");
ex.printStackTrace(new java.io.PrintWriter(out));
%>
-->

<a href="<c:url value='/'/>">&#171; Home</a>

If you’re using the “myusers” project with SiteMesh, this is all you need to do. Tiles users must complete one
more step:

7. Add a “dataAccessFailure” definition in tiles-config.xml.

<definition name="dataAccessFailure" extends="baseLayout">

<put name="title" value="Data Access Failure"/>
<put name="content" value="/dataAccessFailure.jsp"/>
</definition>

TIP
You can mix and match view classes, such as using JSTL for one view and Tiles for the next. You can do this by
using a ResourceBundleViewResolver for the “viewResolver” and specifying a properties file with the
view’s names and paths. You can see an example of this in the Petclinic sample app that ships with Spring.
However, this won’t help you mix SiteMesh and Tiles.

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8. Run ant deploy reload and open http://localhost:8080/myusers/editUser.html?id=100; you

should see an error page stating that this user doesn’t exist.

Figure 5.5: Error page stating that the user does not exist

If you need more robust functionality than the SimpleMappingExceptionResolver gives you, look at
implementing the HandlerExceptionResolver for a more customized ExceptionResolver.

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Uploading Files

Every so often, you might run into a requirement to upload files in your web application. The good news is that
Spring MVC provides support for uploading files. Better yet, you get a choice of file upload implementations:
Commons FileUpload or COS FileUpload.

NOTE
If you’re using a Servlet 2.2 container, you will not be able to use Spring’s built-in file upload support. However,
Commons FileUpload has excellent support for doing file uploads with a 2.2 container.

1. Define a bean with an id of “multipartResolver” in web/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml.

<bean id="multipartResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.multipart.commons.
CommonsMultipartResolver"/>

This bean provides multipart support to the DispatcherServlet. A multipart request is an

HttpServletRequest that contains both binary and text data. You indicate that you want a form to
submit a multipart request by adding an enctype="multipart/form-data" attribute to an
HTML <form>. When Spring detects a multipart request, it simply wraps the current request with its
MultipartHttpServletRequest, which allows you to access normal HttpServletRequest
methods, as well as a few new ones (like getFile(String name)).

2. To implement a file upload feature in MyUsers, add the preceding bean definition, as well as two
classes: a FileUpload command class and a SimpleFormController to handle the uploading
process. Create the command class for this example in src/org/appfuse/web with the following
contents:

package org.appfuse.web;

public class FileUpload {

private byte[] file;

public void setFile(byte[] file) {

this.file = file;
}

public byte[] getFile() {

return file;
}
}

3. In the same directory, create a FileUploadController class that extends

SimpleFormController. In the code below, the most important part is the initBinder()

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method, which registers a PropertyEditor to grabbing the uploaded file’s bytes. Without this, the
upload process will fail.

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class FileUploadController extends SimpleFormController {

private static Log log =
LogFactory.getLog(FileUploadController.class);

protected void initBinder(HttpServletRequest request,

ServletRequestDataBinder binder)
throws ServletException {
binder.registerCustomEditor(byte[].class,
new ByteArrayMultipartFileEditor());
}

protected ModelAndView onSubmit(HttpServletRequest request,

HttpServletResponse response,
Object command, BindException errors)
throws ServletException, IOException {

FileUpload bean = (FileUpload) command;

byte[] bytes = bean.getFile();

// cast to multipart file so we can get additional information

MultipartHttpServletRequest multipartRequest =
(MultipartHttpServletRequest) request;
CommonsMultipartFile file =
(CommonsMultipartFile) multipartRequest.getFile("file");

String uploadDir = getServletContext().getRealPath("/upload/");

// Create the directory if it doesn't exist

File dirPath = new File(uploadDir);

if (!dirPath.exists()) {
dirPath.mkdirs();
}

String sep = System.getProperty("file.separator");

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("uploading to: " + uploadDir + sep +
file.getOriginalFilename());
}

File uploadedFile = new File(uploadDir + sep +

file.getOriginalFilename());

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FileCopyUtils.copy(bytes, uploadedFile);

// set success message

request.getSession().setAttribute("message", "Upload completed.");

String url = request.getContextPath() + "/upload/" +

file.getOriginalFilename();

Map model = new HashMap();

model.put("filename", file.getOriginalFilename());
model.put("url", url);

return new ModelAndView(getSuccessView(), "model", model);

}
}

4. Put the Controller’s bean definition in action-servlet.xml:

<bean id="fileUploadController"
class="org.appfuse.web.FileUploadController">
<property name="commandClass">
<value>org.appfuse.web.FileUpload</value>
</property>
<property name="formView"><value>fileUpload</value></property>
<property name="successView">
<value>fileUpload</value>
</property>
</bean>

5. Define the URL to access this Controller by adding another <prop> to the “urlMapping” bean:

<prop key="/fileUpload.html">fileUploadController</prop>

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6. Create web/fileUpload.jsp with an upload form and a link to display an uploaded file:

<%@ include file="/taglibs.jsp"%>

<h3>File Upload</h3>

<c:if test="${not empty model.filename}">

<p style="font-weight: bold">
Uploaded file (click to view): <a
href="${model.url}">${model.filename}</a>
</p>
</c:if>

<p>Select a file to upload:</p>

<form method="post" action="fileUpload.html" enctype="multipart/form-
data">
<input type="file" name="file"/><br/>
<input type="submit" value="Upload" class="button"
style="margin-top: 5px"/>
</form>

SiteMesh users are finished at this point. Tiles users continue below.

7. Add a definition for the “fileUpload” view:

<definition name="fileUpload" extends="baseLayout">

<put name="title" value="My Users ~ File Upload"/>
<put name="content" value="/fileUpload.jsp"/>
</definition>

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8. To verify success, open your browser to http://localhost:8080/myusers/fileUpload.html. Your browser

window should resemble the view in Figure 5.6.

Figure 5.6: “File Upload” page

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After uploading a file, you should see a screen like the one below.

WARNING
Some files (such as *.html) will not allow viewing by clicking on the filename, so I recommend choosing
LICENSE.txt in the myusers directory.

Figure 5.7: A successful file upload

If you were able to replicate the screenshots above, congratulations! Now you know how to do File Upload with
Spring. Chapter 8: Unit Testing with Spring covers TDD on the FileUploadController.

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Intercepting the Request

Many MVC Frameworks have the ability to specify Interceptors for Controllers. Interceptors are classes that
intercept the request and perform some sort of logic: controlling flow, setting request attributes, etc. They are
similar to Servlet Filters, the major difference being that Filters are configured in web.xml and Interceptors are
configured in a framework configuration file.

The HandlerInterceptor is an interface that contains methods for intercepting the executing of a handler
before execution (preHandle), after execution (postHandle) and after rendering the view
(afterCompletion). A couple of useful built-in Spring Interceptors are the
OpenSessionInViewInterceptor and the UserRoleAuthorizationInterceptor. The first is
Hibernate-specific, while the second prevents certain roles from accessing certain URLs.

TIP
The OpenSessionInViewInterceptor has a sister filter (OpenSessionInViewFilter) with the same
functionality. Both are used for lazy-loading Hibernate-managed objects when the view renders. The Filter is MVC-
framework agnostic.

Below is an example of configuring and using the UserRoleAuthorizationInterceptor. Configure the

MyUsers application to protect a particular url-pattern. Lock down the entire application so only users with a
“tomcat” role can access it. Then configure the interceptor to allow only users with a “manager” role to upload
files.

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1. Add the following to the very bottom of the web.xml file in web/WEB-INF:

<security-constraint>
<web-resource-collection>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</web-resource-collection>

<auth-constraint>
<role-name>tomcat</role-name>
<role-name>manager</role-name>
</auth-constraint>
</security-constraint>

<login-config>
<auth-method>BASIC</auth-method>
<realm-name>My Users</realm-name>
</login-config>

<security-role>
<role-name>tomcat</role-name>
</security-role>

<security-role>
<role-name>manager</role-name>
</security-role>

2. Run ant deploy reload and go to http://localhost:8080/myusers. You will be prompted to log in.
Use the username “tomcat” and password “tomcat” to log in with the “tomcat” role, and use “admin/
admin” to log in with the “manager” role. These users and roles are configured in Tomcat’s conf/
tomcat-users.xml file (in the $CATALINA_HOME directory).

3. To add an Interceptor to only allow managers to upload files, define

UserRoleAuthorizationInterceptor as a bean in web/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml:

<bean id="managersOnly"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.UserRoleAuthorization
Interceptor">
<property name="authorizedRoles">
<value>manager</value>
</property>
</bean>

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4. Add a new SimpleUrlHandlerMapping that uses this interceptor on the “/fileUpload.html”

mapping:

<bean id="managerMappings"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.SimpleUrlHandler
Mapping">
<property name="interceptors">
<list>
<ref bean="managersOnly"/>
</list>
</property>
<property name="mappings">
<props>
<prop key="/fileUpload.html">
fileUploadController
</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>

5. Close your browser (to logout) and reopen to http://localhost:8080/myusers/fileUpload.html. The

login prompt displays. If you log in as “tomcat/tomcat,” you will see a 403 error page, which means
“access denied.”

TIP
You can easily customize this page by specifying a 403 <error-page> in web.xml.

6. Log in again with “admin/admin,” but remember to close your browser to erase your previous login
credentials.

This is just a simple example of using an Interceptor to control access to a URL. You could easily use this same
configuration with a different class and URL mapping to do other things (for example, to make sure certain
attributes are always in the request).

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Sending E-Mail

E-mail is an excellent notification system; it also can act as a rudimentary workflow system. Spring makes it easy
to send e-mail, and it hides the complexity of the underlying mail system. The main interface of Spring’s mail
support is called MailSender. It also has a SimpleMailMessage class that encapsulates common attributes of
a message (from, to, subject, message). If you want to send e-mails with attachments, you can use the
MimeMessagePreparator to create and send messages.

Create a simple example in the FileUploadController to send an e-mail when the file upload has completed.
In Chapter 9: AOP, you will extract this logic out into a NotificationAdvice class.

1. Add a “mailSender” bean to action-servlet.xml. The “host” property should match an SMTP server
that does not require authentication. If your host requires authentication, you can add “username” and
“password” properties:

<bean id="mailSender"
class="org.springframework.mail.javamail.JavaMailSenderImpl">
<property name="host"><value>localhost</value></property>
</bean>

NOTE
Using the JavaMailSenderImpl class requires that you have activation.jar and mail.jar in your classpath.
These files are included in the Chapter 5 download bundle.

2. Add a property and setter for MailSender in the FileUploadController class. At the same time,
add a property/setter combination for a SimpleMailMessage. Setting the SimpleMailMessage
with dependency injection allows you to configure a default from and subject in action-servlet.xml.

private MailSender mailSender;

private SimpleMailMessage message;

public void setMailSender(MailSender mailSender) {

this.mailSender = mailSender;
}

public void setMessage(SimpleMailMessage message) {

this.message = message;
}

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3. To specify the defaults values for an e-mail, add the XML below to action-servlet.xml:

<bean id="mailMessage"
class="org.springframework.mail.SimpleMailMessage">
<property name="from">
<!-- The <value> and CDATA below must be on the same line -->
<value><![CDATA[Uploader <[email protected]>]]></value>
</property>
<property name="subject">
<value>File finished uploading</value>
</property>
</bean>

4. Modify the “fileUploadController” bean definition to inject the “mailSender” and “message”
properties.

<bean id="fileUploadController"
class="org.appfuse.web.FileUploadController">
<!-- other properties hidden for brevity -->
<property name="mailSender"><ref bean="mailSender"/></property>
<property name="message"><ref bean="mailMessage"/></property>
</bean>

5. Add the following code to the end of the onSubmit() method in FileUploadController (before
returning the ModelAndView):

// Notify user that file has finished uploading

SimpleMailMessage msg = new SimpleMailMessage(this.message);
msg.setTo("[email protected]");
msg.setText("File \"" + file.getOriginalFilename() +
"\" has finished uploading.");
try {
mailSender.send(msg);
} catch (MailException ex) {
log.error(ex.getMessage());
}

TIP
Be sure to change the e-mail address for msg.setTo() or you’ll just be sending the e-mail to me!

This example simply logs exceptions because it’s not critical that this message be sent. If notification
e-mails are critical in your application, handle the exception with a
SimpleMappingExceptionResolver.

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6. To test the previous configuration (you must have access to a SMTP server), run ant deploy
reload, go to http://localhost:8080/myusers/fileUpload.html and login as “admin/admin.” Then
upload a file and wait for the e-mail. You should see a similar result as the e-mail below.

Figure 5.8: Successful e-mail message

TIP
You can also configure the “mailSession” bean to use a MailSession object from JNDI. You can learn more
about this on TheServerSide.com, as well as how to use Velocity templates in the article titled “Sending Velocity-
based E-Mail with Spring.”

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Summary

This chapter covered several advanced Spring MVC topics. You learned how to configure and use the two most
popular page decoration frameworks: SiteMesh and Tiles. Validation is an essential part of a web application,
and you saw how to configure Commons Validator, as well as how to implement a native Spring Validator.
Exception handling is important too, and you should now have a grasp of how to throw and handle exceptions.
Uploading files is fairly easy once you have an example, which you now have from this chapter. Interceptors are
similar to Servlet Filters, but Spring has some built-in ones that can be quite useful, like the
UserRoleAuthorizationInterceptor. Finally, you saw how using e-mail as a notification mechanism is
much easier by using Spring’s JavaMail support.

Chapter 6 explores the different views that Spring supports, including Velocity, FreeMarker, XML/XSL, Excel
and PDF.

If you have any feedback on this chapter, or any of the others, please e-mail me at [email protected].
Remember, this is a dynamic book that will live and breathe for quite some time. I can easily update or clarify
any information between monthly releases. Also, if you’d like some material covered more in-depth, don’t
hesitate to ask!

Spring Live
 Chapter
6

View Options
The Different View Options in Spring

This chapter covers the view options in Spring’s MVC architecture. At the time of this writing, the options are
JSP, Velocity, FreeMarker, XSLT, PDF and Excel. This chapter aims to become a reference for configuring all
Spring-supported views. It also contains a brief overview how each view works and compares constructing a
page in MyUsers with each option. Additionally, it focuses on internationalization for each view option.

In J2EE applications, JSPs have become the de facto standard for constructing the V in MVC because they’re
really the only page-templating option provided by the J2EE (1.4) specification. However, other options are
quickly gaining recognition. Velocity and FreeMarker are templating technologies that use syntax similar to JSP
2.0. XML/XSL is a nice option if you are pulling XML data and want to transform it, or if you want to serve up
different views (via XSL) on-the-fly. XMLC is similar to the templating technologies, except its syntax is plain
HTML and it uses the id attribute to locate and replace dynamic text. Lastly, outputting data as PDF and Excel
formats is great for reporting and producing portable documents. In this chapter, you will learn how to use each
of these technologies with Spring’s MVC framework. Before learning how to configure the different views, it's
important to understand how Spring determines views.

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Views and ViewResolvers

Spring ships with a number of ViewResolvers, which allow you to de-couple your Controllers from your View. In
your Controller, you simply specify a logical name for a view and Spring resolves that name to a specific view
type. The View interface prepares the request and hands it over to whichever view technology you have
configured. In its loose-coupling spirit, Spring makes it easy to configure your view choice in one of your XML
context files.

In Chapter 4, you saw how Controllers return a ModelAndView. This object contains the name of a view that the
specified ViewResolver uses to determine what to show to the user. Throughout this chapter, you will learn how
each ViewResolver works. Below is a list of the ViewResolvers currently available in Spring. The “Useful For”
column indicates how one might use each resolver.

Table 6.1: View Resolvers

View Resolver Description Useful For

AbstractCachingViewResolver Abstract ViewResolver that caches Extending to
views. Lots of views need preparation implement
before you can use them; extending caching in a
from this view resolver enables caching custom resolver.
of views.
ResourceBundleViewResolver Implementation of ViewResolver that Mixing different
uses bean definitions from a Views, such as
ResourceBundle, specified by the JSP and Velocity.
bundle basename. The bundle is
typically defined in a properties file,
located in the classpath.
UrlBasedViewResolver Simple implementation of ViewResolver Resolving
that allows for direct resolution of symbolic view
symbolic view names to URLs, without names to URLs,
an explicit mapping definition. This is without explicit
appropriate if your symbolic names mapping
match the names of your view resources definition.
in a straightforward manner, without the
need for arbitrary mappings.
InternalResourceViewResolver Convenient subclass of Supporting JSPs
UrlBasedViewResolver that supports and Tiles. JstlView
InternalResourceView (such as Servlets and TilesJstlView
and JSPs), and subclasses like JstlView are the most
and TilesView. You can specify the view convenient
class for all views generated by this viewClasses.
resolver via setViewClass.

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Table 6.1: View Resolvers

VelocityViewResolver Convenient subclass of Supporting

AbstractTemplateViewResolver that Velocity Views.
supports VelocityView (that is, Velocity Allows caching
templates) and custom subclasses. and custom
properties.
FreeMarkerViewResolver Convenient subclass of Supporting
AbstractTemplateViewResolver that FreeMarker
supports FreeMarkerView (that is, Views.
FreeMarker templates) and custom
subclasses of it.

In most cases, you won’t need to choose which ViewResolver to use; you will simply use the one that your view
technology requires. The exception is the ResourceBundleViewResolver, which allows you to choose
different view classes for each view name. You will learn how to configure and use each Spring-supported view
technology before using this resolver.

Each view technology section will show you how to configure the view resolver and how to implement pages for
that technology. The best way to learn is to follow along with the exercises in this chapter. To do this, download
the MyUsers Chapter 6 bundle from http://sourcebeat.com/downloads. This project tree contains all the JARs
you will use in this chapter. You can also use the application you’ve been developing in previous chapters. If you
go this route, download Chapter 6 JARs from http://sourcebeat.com/downloads.

TIP
If you choose to use your existing work, you might want to remove the security you added to demonstrate
Interceptors. It’s a pain to login each time you test the view.

Before getting into view options, write a unit test to verify the basic functionality of listing, adding, saving and
deleting a user.

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Testing the View with jWebUnit 159

Testing the View with jWebUnit

jWebUnit is an open-source project hosted on SourceForge. It offers a simple API (on top of HttpUnit) for testing
web applications.

1. If you downloaded the Chapter 6 bundle (or the Chapter 6 JARs), you don't need to add any
additional JARs to your application. Otherwise, download jWebUnit (version 1.2) and put the
following JARs in web/WEB-INF/lib:

• jwebunit-1.2.jar

• httpunit-1.5.4.jar

• Tidy.jar

2. If you're developing with Eclipse or IDEA, modify your project's classpath to include these JARs. For
Eclipse 3.0, this is at Project → Properties → Project Build Path → Libraries Tab. In IDEA 4.5, this is
at File → Settings → Project Settings:Paths → Libraries Tab.

TIP
Instructions are available for building and testing the MyUsers application in Eclipse and IDEA.

3. Create a test by creating a new UserWebTest.java class in test/org/appfuse/web that extends

WebTestCase. The code for this class is listed below:

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserWebTest extends WebTestCase {

public UserWebTest(String name) {

super(name);
getTestContext().setBaseUrl("http://localhost:8080/myusers");
}

public void testWelcomePage() {

beginAt("/");
assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ Welcome");
}

public void testAddUser() {

beginAt("/editUser.html");
assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ User Details");
setFormElement("id", "");

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setFormElement("firstName", "Spring");
setFormElement("lastName", "User");
submit("save");
assertTextPresent("saved successfully");
}

public void testListUsers() {

beginAt("/users.html");

// check that table is present

assertTablePresent("userList");

//check that a set of strings are present somewhere in table

assertTextInTable("userList",
new String[] {"Spring", "User"});
}

public void testEditUser() {

beginAt("/editUser.html?id=" + getInsertedUserId());
assertFormElementEquals("firstName", "Spring");
submit("save");
assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ User List");
}

public void testDeleteUser() {

beginAt("/editUser.html?id=" + getInsertedUserId());
assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ User Details");
submit("delete");
assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ User List");
}

/**
* Convenience method to get the id of the inserted user
* Assumes last inserted user is "Spring User"
*/
public String getInsertedUserId() {
String[] paths = {"/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml"};
ApplicationContext ctx =
new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(paths);
List users = ((UserDAO) ctx.getBean("userDAO")).getUsers();
// assumed that user inserted in testAddUser() is last user
return ""+((User)users.get(users.size()-1)).getId();
}
}

4. In order for jWebUnit to work, modify a bit of the HTML in the existing JSPs. The
testListUsers() method contains the following line:

assertTablePresent("userList");

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This line verifies that a <table> is present in the rendered page. In order for this to work, the table
must have an id attribute with a value of "userList".

5. Open web/userList.jsp and add this attribute so your HTML looks as follows:

<table class="list" id="userList">

6. Change the Hibernate settings so that the database isn’t re-created every time the JVM starts. To do
this, open web/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml and change the "hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto"
setting from create to update.

<prop key="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto">update</prop>

7. Since jWebUnit performs in-container testing (it expects a server to be running), you must run ant
clean deploy and start Tomcat (ant deploy reload if Tomcat is already running).

8. Run this test from your IDE or from the command line using ant test –Dtestcase=UserWeb.

WARNING
You may have to delete the database (stop Tomcat, delete “db” in your working directory) if this test doesn’t pass
on your first attempt.

9. Separate the out-of-container and in-container tests in build.xml. To do this, exclude classes with
“WebTest” in their name from being executed in the “test” target. Locate this target in build.xml
and add this line:

<batchtest todir="${test.dir}/data" unless="testcase">

<fileset dir="${test.dir}/classes">
<include name="**/*Test.class*"/>
<exclude name="**/*WebTest.class"/>
</fileset>
</batchtest>

10. Add a new “test-web” target right after the existing “test” target.

<target name="test-web" depends="compile"

description="Runs tests that required a running server">
<property name="testcase" value="WebTest"/>
<antcall target="test"/>
</target>

11. Run all your out-of-container tests using ant test and all the in-container tests using ant test-
web.

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JSP

The MyUsers sample application you’ve been developing has been using JSP 2.0. This version of JSP is much
simpler than previous versions in that you can use its Expression Language (EL) to retrieve values for display.
This is not only useful for eliminating scriptlets, but its syntax is similar to that used in Velocity and FreeMarker.
JavaServer Faces (JSF is the J2EE standard web application framework) uses JSPs out-of-the-box. Many folks
believe that JSF will quickly become the dominant way of writing Java-based web application, so the
information below is applicable for JSF applications as well.

View Resolver Configuration

In order to use JSP, and the Java Standard Tag Library (JSTL) in particular, you must define an
InternalResourceViewResolver in web/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml.

<bean id="viewResolver"

class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver"
>
<property name="requestContextAttribute"><value>rc</value></property>
<property name="viewClass">
<value>org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView</value>
</property>
<property name="prefix"><value>/</value></property>
<property name="suffix"><value>.jsp</value></property>
</bean>

In the above bean definition, the “requestContextAttribute” exposes Spring’s RequestContext object as the
variable rc. If you’re using JSPs, it’s unlikely that you’ll need to use this variable, but you can use it to grab your
application’s contextPath (that is, /myusers) using ${rc.contextPath}. This object is necessary for views that
do not have access to the servlet request (that is, Velocity and FreeMarker templates). The “prefix” and
“suffix” values are convenient ways to make the view name a friendly name, rather than a hard-coded path.

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As an example, move the JSPs you created from the web directory to web/WEB-INF/jsp (you’ll need to create the
jsp directory). Below is a partial screenshot of what your project tree should look like at this point. Leave the
following JSPs in the web directory since they're either error pages or used in the SiteMesh decorator:

• 404.jsp

• error.jsp

• index.jsp

• messages.jsp

• taglibs.jsp.

Figure 9.1: Sample project tree

In order to configure Spring to recognize the new location of your JSPs, change the "prefix" of the
viewResolver bean to /WEB-INF/jsp/.

<property name="prefix"><value>/WEB-INF/jsp/</value></property>

To test this, make sure Tomcat is running and execute ant remove. Executing the “remove” target will delete
the application from Tomcat, ensuring that your JSPs aren’t left over in the root directory of your application.
Then type ant deploy and wait for Tomcat to re-install your application. Finally, run ant test-web.

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JSTL

In the previous viewResolver bean definition, a "viewClass" property is set.

<property name="viewClass">
<value>org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView</value>
</property>

The value of the property refers to the view class Spring uses to determine the viewable page. In this case, it’s
using JstlView. This class is helpful because it exposes Spring’s local and message bundle to JSTL’s
formatting and message tags. If you’re using JSPs, this is the view class you’ll want to use.

The Display Tag

If you’re using JSP and displaying lists of data, check out the display tag library. The display tag is a JSP tag that
provides paging and sorting tables of data. To show you its functionality, implement it in the MyUsers
application. The JAR file for version 1.0 (RC1) is included in the download for this chapter, as well as any CSS
and images. You can also download it from SourceForge.

1. Change the userList.jsp file (in web/WEB-INF/jsp) to have the following contents:

<%@ include file="/taglibs.jsp"%>

<%@ taglib uri="http://displaytag.sf.net" prefix="display" %>

<head>
<title>MyUsers ~ User List</title>
<link href="styles/displaytag.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"/>
</head>

<button onclick="location.href='editUser.html'">Add User</button>

<c:set var="idKey"><fmt:message key="user.id"/></c:set>

<c:set var="firstNameKey"><fmt:message key="user.firstName"/></c:set>
<c:set var="lastNameKey"><fmt:message key="user.lastName"/></c:set>

<display:table name="${users}" class="list" requestURI="" id="userList"

export="true">
<display:column property="id" sort="true" href="editUser.html"
paramId="id" paramProperty="id" title="${idKey}"/>
<display:column property="firstName" sort="true"
title="${firstNameKey}"/>
<display:column property="lastName" sort="true" title="${lastNameKey}"/>
<display:setProperty name="basic.empty.showtable" value="true"/>
</display:table>

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2. Run ant deploy reload and go to http://localhost:8080/myusers/users.html in your browser. You

should see a table like the one below. The table below is sorted by First Name.

Figure 6.2: Result of using the tag library

You can use the Excel, XML, and CSV links at the bottom of the table to export the table to the indicated format.

TIP
Use this tag library in your next demo. Most people will be impressed by the ability to sort columns in a web
application.

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JSP 166

Tiles

Tiles is a nice page decoration framework that was discussed in Chapter 5. The viewResolver configuration for
Tiles is similar to JSTL: simply set the “viewClass” property to use TilesView or TilesJstlView. I
recommend the JSTL version because it gives you all the features of TilesView, and it gives you access to
JSTL’s formatting tags in your pages.

<property name="viewClass">
<value>org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles.TilesJstlView</value>
</property>

To use Tiles, you must set up a bean in web/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml to read your Tiles configuration file.
The easiest way is to use Spring’s TilesConfigurer class and specify your definition files.

<bean id="tilesConfigurer"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles.TilesConfigurer">
<property name="factoryClass">
<value>org.apache.struts.tiles.xmlDefinition.I18nFactorySet</value>
</property>
<property name="definitions">
<list>
<value>/WEB-INF/tiles-config.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

Using JSPs to code your view is a common way to develop J2EE applications. However, it’s not the only way.
You can use other template frameworks like Velocity or FreeMarker, both of which are lightweight and fast.
Better yet, Spring makes them very easy to use and eliminates the hard part of using them: setup and
configuration.

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Velocity

Velocity is an open-source project hosted at http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity. Its primary use is generating

dynamic web pages for web browsers. However, since it is a templating technology, you can use it wherever you
need templates (for example, sending HTML-based e-mail). Velocity runs the same in any J2EE container,
giving it an advantage over JSPs, which can have quirky behavior and performance issues from one container to
the next. Velocity has a templating language called Velocity Template Language (VTL) that uses syntax similar
to JSP 2.0’s EL. For example, to print out the value of a “lastName” property on a user object, you would use
${user.lastName} in JSP 2.0. In Velocity, the syntax doesn’t have to change at all: ${user.lastName}.
This is known as formal reference notation. You can also use the shorthand syntax: $user.lastName. This
chapter uses the formal notation since it’s the same syntax used by JSP 2.0 and FreeMarker.

Velocity works by grabbing items from a context and displaying them on your page. Of course, you must put
items into the context first. Stuffing items into the context is easy, but Spring makes it even easier.

The next section converts the MyUsers application from JSP to Velocity. You will start by configuring Velocity
with Spring. This chapter requires that you have the following Velocity JARs in your classpath (web/WEB-INF/
lib):

• velocity-1.4.jar

• velocity-tools-view-1.1.jar

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Using Velocity in MyUsers

In the MyUsers application, SiteMesh is the page decorator. SiteMesh allows you to leave the JSP decoration
intact and use a JSP-based decorator to decorate Velocity-powered pages. However, you may want to use
Velocity for its decorator template as well. In this section, you’ll start by configuring Velocity in the action-
servlet.xml file. Then you'll modify SiteMesh to use a Velocity decorator.

View Resolver Configuration

When you add Velocity to a web application, you usually have to add a velocity.properties file to the classpath.
This file has settings in it to tell Velocity which ResourceLoader to use for loading templates. For
convenience, Spring has a VelocityConfigurer class that allows you to specify a path to your templates (that
is, pages) without configuring such a file.

1. Add the XML fragment below to web/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml. This tells Velocity to load
templates from your application’s WEB-INF/velocity directory.

<bean id="velocityConfig"

class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.velocity.VelocityConfigurer">
<property name="resourceLoaderPath">
<value>/WEB-INF/velocity/</value>
</property>
</bean>

2. If you want more control of your ResourceLoader (for example, to load templates from a database),
create a velocity.properties file. To load the file, specify a configLocation property and value on
your velocityConfig bean. You can also specify the properties directly in the bean definition by
replacing configLocation with properties. For more information on using an alternative
ResourceLoader, see Spring’s velocity.properties documentation.

3. Declare the VelocityViewResolver as the view resolver for your application.

TIP
Make sure to comment out the InternalResourceViewResolver used previously for JSPs.

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<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.

velocity.VelocityViewResolver">
<property name="exposeSpringMacroHelpers"><value>true</value></property>
<property name="requestContextAttribute"><value>rc</value></property>
<property name="cache"><value>true</value></property>
<property name="prefix"><value>/WEB-INF/velocity/</value></property>
<property name="suffix"><value>.vm</value></property>
</bean>

The first two properties in this definition, "exposeSpringMacroHelpers" and

"requestContextAttribute", are important. The first exposes macros for easy handling of forms and
validation errors. The "requestContextAttribute" property is an alias to the RequestContext object.
This object is useful for printing localized messages from the messages.properties file.

The VelocityViewResolver inherits a number of optional properties from its parent, the
AbstractTemplateViewResolver. The table below illustrates these properties and their descriptions. These
properties are applicable for any AbstractTemplateViewResolver (such as the
FreeMarkerViewResolver).

Table 6.2: Additional TemplateViewResolver Properties

Property Name Description Default

exposeRequestAttributes Sets whether all request attributes are added to the false
model prior to merging with the template.
exposeSessionAttributes Sets whether all session attributes are added to the false
model prior to merging with the template.
exposeSpringMacroHelpers Sets whether to expose a RequestContext for use false
by Spring’s macro library, under the name
springBindRequestContext.

To use Velocity with Spring, you must specify two bean definitions in your *-servlet.xml file
(VelocityConfigurer and VelocityViewResolver). Of course, there’s a lot more work to do. You must
create your Velocity templates and learn how to render error messages in VTL. In the MyUsers application, you
must also learn how to do page decoration with SiteMesh’s Velocity Decorator.

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SiteMesh and Velocity

The most difficult part of converting MyUsers to use Velocity instead of JSP has been configuring SiteMesh to
use a Velocity Decorator. Fortunately, SiteMesh 2.1 added this functionality and it’s now fairly easy.

1. Create a decorator similar to web/decorators/default.jsp; however, this one should use Velocity
instead of JSP tags to pull in SiteMesh content. SiteMesh ships with a
VelocityDecoratorServlet that pre-populates the context with several useful variables.

Table 6.3: SiteMesh Velocity Context Objects

${request} The HttpServletRequest object

${response} The HttpServletResponse object
${base} request.getContextPath()
${title} Parsed page <title>
${head} Parsed page <head>
${body} Parsed page <body>
${page} SiteMesh’s internal Page object

The VTL syntax is actually quite a bit cleaner than the JSP syntax (for example,
<decorator:title default="MyUsers"/> becomes simply ${title}).

2. Below is the default.jsp decorator re-written as a Velocity decorator. Use these lines as a guide to
create web/decorators/default.vm. Strikethroughs represent text that you must delete. Underlines
represent text that you must change. To save on space, ellipses represent blocks of text that don't
require any changes and therefore are not displayed here.

Notice that the VTL syntax is actually quite a bit cleaner than the JSP syntax (i.e.
<decorator:title default="MyUsers"/> becomes simply ${title}).

TIP
Copy web/decorators/default.jsp to web/decorators/default.vm to prepare for the Velocity conversion below.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"

"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<%@ include file="/taglibs.jsp"%>

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">

<head>
<title>${title}</title>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
<c:set var="ctx" value="${pageContext.request.contextPath}"
scope="request"/>

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<link href="${base}/styles/global.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"/

>
<link href="${base}/images/favicon.ico" rel="SHORTCUT ICON"/>
${head}
...
<h1><span>Welcome to MyUsers</span></h1>
<div id="logo" onclick="location.href='${base}'"
onkeypress="location.href='${base}'"></div>
<h2><span>Spring Rocks!</span></h2>
...
<div id="content">
#parse("/messages.vm")
${body}
</div>
</div>

<div id="supportingText">
<div id="underground">$!{page.getProperty("page.underground")}</div>

<div id="footer">
...
<a href="http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/
bobbyServlet?URL=${request.requestURL}&amp;output=Submit&amp;gl=sec508&am
p;test=" title="Check the accessibility of this site according to U.S.
Section 508">508</a> &middot;
<a href="http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/
bobbyServlet?URL=${request.requestURL}&amp;output=Submit&amp;gl=wcag1-
aaa&amp;test=" title="Check the accessibility of this site according to
WAI Content Accessibility Guidelines 1">aaa</a>
</div>

3. In the middle of this file, it parses and includes the messages.vm file. This file does not exist, so create
it in the web directory.

## Success Messages
#if ($message)
<div class="message">${message}</div>
${request.session.removeAttribute("message")}
#end

4. Once you’ve created the Velocity template, configure SiteMesh to use it. Open web/WEB-INF/
decorators.xml and change the default decorator’s page attribute to refer to the default.vm file you
just created.

<decorators defaultdir="/decorators">
<decorator name="default" page="default.vm">
<pattern>/*</pattern>
</decorator>
</decorators>

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5. Configure the application to use SiteMesh’s VelocityDecoratorServlet to parse the Velocity

templates.

Edit web.xml

In order for SiteMesh to properly parse the Velocity decorator, add a servlet definition and associated mapping to
web/WEB-INF/web.xml. Add the XML below right after the action servlet declaration:

<servlet>
<servlet-name>sitemesh-velocity</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>com.opensymphony.module.sitemesh.velocity.VelocityDecor
atorServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>sitemesh-velocity</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.vm</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

These instructions are also available in SiteMesh’s documentation.

Create Velocity Templates

The last step to converting from JSP to Velocity is to change all the JSP pages to use Velocity’s VTL.

Copy the WEB-INF/jsp directory to WEB-INF/velocity and rename all the files to use a .vm extension. Your
directory structure should be the same as the one in Figure 6.3.

Figure 6.3: Velocity templates directory structure

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Below is a list of the four Velocity templates shown above, and the changes that are necessary to make them
work with Velocity. Special notes for each file are directly after the code. Any VTL code that you’ll need in your
templates is underlined.

userList.vm

<title>MyUsers ~ User List</title>

<button onclick="location.href='editUser.html'">Add User</button>

<table class="list" id="userList">

<thead>
<tr>
<th>${rc.getMessage("user.id")}</th>
<th>${rc.getMessage("user.firstName")}</th>
<th>${rc.getMessage("user.lastName")}</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
#foreach ($user in $users)
#if ($velocityCount % 2 == 0) <tr class="even">
#else <tr class="odd">
#end
<td><a href="editUser.html?id=${user.id}">${user.id}</a></td>
<td>${user.firstName}</td>
<td>${user.lastName}</td>
</tr>
#end
</tbody>
</table>

Notice the ${rc.getMessage()} call to get localized messages from web/WEB-INF/classes/

messages.properties. The $velocityCount variable is an internal Velocity value that’s exposed when iterating.

userForm.vm

<title>MyUsers ~ User Details</title>

#springBind("user.*")
#if ($status.error)
<div class="error">
#foreach ($error in $status.errorMessages)
${error}<br/>
#end
</div>
#end

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<p>Please fill in user's information below:</p>

<form method="post" action="editUser.html">

#springBind("user.id")
<input type="hidden" name="id" value="$!{status.value}"/>
<table>
<tr>
<th>${rc.getMessage("user.firstName")}:</th>
<td>
#springBind("user.firstName")
<input type="text" name="firstName" value="$!{status.value}"/>
<span class="fieldError">${status.errorMessage}</span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>${rc.getMessage("user.lastName")}:</th>
<td>
#springBind("user.lastName")
<input type="text" name="lastName" value="$!{status.value}"/>
<span class="fieldError">${status.errorMessage}</span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
<input type="submit" class="button" name="save" value="Save"/>
#if ($user.id)
<input type="submit" class="button" name="delete" value="Delete"/>
#end
</td>
</table>
</form>

Notice the #springBind macro call that exposes variables for each field. The exclamation point after the dollar
sign ($!{...}) indicates that nothing should be printed if no value is found.

These macros don’t have a closing tag or ending statement like the <spring:bind> JSP tags require. The
#springBind macro becomes available when you set the exposeSpringMacroHelpers property to true on
the viewResolver bean.

Client-side validation with JavaScript and Commons Validator is only supported with JSPs.

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fileUpload.vm

<h3>File Upload</h3>

#if ($model.filename)
<p style="font-weight: bold">
Uploaded file (click to view): <a
href="${model.url}">${model.filename}</a>
</p>
#end

<p>Select a file to upload:</p>

<form method="post" action="fileUpload.html" enctype="multipart/form-
data">
<input type="file" name="file"/><br/>
<input type="submit" value="Upload" class="button"
style="margin-top: 5px"/>
</form>

dataAccessFailure.vm

<h3>Data Access Failure</h3>

<p>
${exception}
</p>

<a href="${rc.contextPath}">&#171; Home</a>

This file does not have the Exception’s stack trace printed out in a comment like the JSP. I tried putting
${exception.printStackTrace()} in a comment, but the stack trace is never printed.

Deploy and Test

Now that you’ve told Spring to configure and use Velocity, configured SiteMesh to use a Velocity Decorator and
converted all the JSPs to Velocity, it's time to test that everything worked. Start Tomcat and run ant clean
deploy reload. Once the new context has restarted, run ant test-web to verify everything works.

WARNING
If the test fails because a user is not found in the database, delete the database (rm -r db), restart Tomcat and
try again. You can also add <delete dir="db"/> to the “delete” target.

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Summary of Velocity

In this section, you learned how to use Velocity as an alternate view technology to JSP. Velocity tends to have a
much cleaner syntax than JSP (though JSP has improved with version 2.0). Compilation is much faster than JSP
when you first access a Velocity-backed template. With JSP, the initial load time can be a couple seconds, which
is slightly painful when developing since you constantly have to wait. It's not something you notice until you've
developed with Velocity and then go back to JSPs. The one downside to Velocity is that you can't use the rich set
of tag libraries (for example, displaytag, oscache, etc.) that are available. However, a fast templating solution that
allows you to use JSP tags is available: FreeMarker.

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FreeMarker

FreeMarker is an open-source project hosted at http://freemarker.sourceforge.net. It is similar to Velocity in that

it’s a template engine, which generates text output based on templates. The major difference between the two
libraries is their template language syntax. FreeMarker is more robust, yet easier to work with. It also supports
using JSP tag libraries in your templates (so you can use displaytag!). For more information on the differences
between the two, see the FreeMarker vs. Velocity web page.

The next section converts the MyUsers application from Velocity to FreeMarker. Start by configuring
FreeMarker with Spring. This chapter requires you to have FreeMarker’s freemarker.jar in your classpath (web/
WEB-INF/lib).

NOTE
Spring requires FreeMarker version 2.3 or higher.

View Resolver Configuration

1. Add a configurer bean definition to web/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml. Comment out the

velocityConfig bean as part of this exercise.

<bean id="freemarkerConfig"

class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.freemarker.FreeMarkerConfigur
er">
<property name="templateLoaderPath"><value>/</value></property>
</bean>

Like the VelocityConfigurer, you can configure this class with a properties file (with a
configLocation property pointing to the file). You can also set properties on the bean itself by
specifying a freemarkerSettings list of properties.

2. Comment out the velocityConfig bean and the viewResolver bean, and add one for
FreeMarker. The properties on this resolver are very similar to the Velocity version, the only
difference being the "prefix" and the "suffix".

<bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.

freemarker.FreeMarkerViewResolver">
<property name="exposeSpringMacroHelpers"><value>true</value><
property>
<property name="requestContextAttribute"><value>rc</value></property>
<property name="prefix"><value>/WEB-INF/freemarker/</value></property>
<property name="suffix"><value>.ftl</value></property>
</bean>

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Keep in mind that you can also expose request and session attributes using the
exposeRequestAttributes and exposeSessionAttributes on this template resolver. This
tutorial doesn't require them, but they have value.

SiteMesh and FreeMarker

Just like Velocity, SiteMesh has a decorator servlet specifically for FreeMarker called
FreeMarkerDecoratorServlet. It pre-populates FreeMarker’s data model with several context attributes,
which are listed in the table below.

Table 6.4: SiteMesh FreeMarker Context Attributes

${base} request.getContextPath()
${title} Parsed page <title>
${head} Parsed page <head>
${body} Parsed page <body>
${page} SiteMesh’s internal Page object

FreeMarker supports getting request parameters, request attributes and session variables, which is why you don’t
see $req and $res like you do with Velocity. These values are available in the templates through the variables
Request, RequestParameters, Session and Application (for example, ${Session["user"]}).

1. Below is the Velocity decorator from the previous section re-written using FreeMarker. The listing
displays only the changed lines, so you don't have to copy the entire contents of the file below. Use
these lines as a guide to create web/decorators/default.ftl. The variable references are the same as
Velocity, but the conditional logic syntax is different.

TIP
Copy web/decorators/default.vm to web/decorators/default.ftl to prepare for the conversion.

<div id="content">
<#include "/messages.ftl"/>
${body}
</div>
</div>

<div id="supportingText">
<div id="underground">
<#if page.getProperty("page.underground")?exists>
${page.getProperty("page.underground")}
</#if>
</div>
...

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<a href="http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/
bobbyServlet?URL=${Request.requestURL}&amp;output=Submit&amp;gl=sec508&am
p;test=" title="Check the accessibility of this site according to U.S.
Section 508">508</a> &middot;
<a href="http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/
bobbyServlet?URL=${Request.requestURL}&amp;output=Submit&amp;gl=wcag1-
aaa&amp;test=" title="Check the accessibility of this site according to
WAI Content Accessibility Guidelines 1">aaa</a>
...

2. Create the web/messages.ftl file with the contents below:

<#-- Success Messages -->

<#if message?exists>
<div class="message">${message}</div>
</#if>

3. Change web/WEB-INF/decorators.xml to use the FreeMarker template as the default.

<decorators defaultdir="/decorators">
<decorator name="default" page="default.ftl">
<pattern>/*</pattern>
</decorator>
</decorators>

Notable differences between Velocity and FreeMarker are listed below:

• To check for a null value in Velocity, you simply write #if (object.property) to test for the
existence of a value. With FreeMarker, you must append ?exists to test for nulls.

• Velocity exposes the actual HttpServletRequest object, so you can call

${request.contextPath} and ${request.requestURL}. FreeMarker only exposes
scoped attributes. Because of this, you can’t simply remove messages from the session in the
messages.ftl file.

FreeMarker has some limitations, which arguably make it a cleaner MVC implementation. The easiest and
cleanest way to solve the issues above is to create a ServletFilter that searches for messages in the session, and if
it finds them, it stuffs them in the request. This way, you can forget about removing them in a view page and let
the filter do the work.

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Below is a MessageFilter.java class to put in src/org/appfuse/web. The logic to set the "requestURL" in the
request is to provide full links back to your application as part of the project’s footer page.

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class MessageFilter implements Filter {

private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(MessageFilter.class);

public void doFilter(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res,

FilterChain chain)
throws IOException, ServletException {
HttpServletRequest request = (HttpServletRequest) req;

// grab messages from the session and put them into request
// this is so they're not lost in a redirect
Object message = request.getSession().getAttribute("message");
if (message != null) {
request.setAttribute("message", message);
request.getSession().removeAttribute("message");
}

// set the requestURL as a request attribute for templates

// particularly freemarker, which doesn't allow
// request.getRequestURL()
request.setAttribute("requestURL", request.getRequestURL());

chain.doFilter(req, res);
}

public void init(FilterConfig filterConfig) {}

public void destroy() {}

}

4. Using this filter, you can eliminate any session removal logic in the all the messages templates (at
web/messages.*). To enable it, add a <filter> and <filter-mapping> to web/WEB-INF/
web.xml. Put the following <filter> declaration just above the sitemesh filter.

<filter>
<filter-name>messageFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.appfuse.web.MessageFilter</filter-class>
</filter>

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5. Add the <filter-mapping> just above SiteMesh’s filter-mapping.

<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>messageFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>

Edit web.xml

To edit web.xml for SiteMesh, comment out the sitemesh-velocity servlet and its mapping and add the
following sitemesh-freemarker servlet and mapping.

<servlet>
<servlet-name>sitemesh-freemarker</servlet-name>
<servlet-
class>com.opensymphony.module.sitemesh.freemarker.FreemarkerDecoratorServ
let</servlet-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>TemplatePath</param-name>
<param-value>/</param-value>
</init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>default_encoding</param-name>
<param-value>ISO-8859-1</param-value>
</init-param>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>sitemesh-freemarker</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.ftl</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

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Create FreeMarker Templates

The last step for implementing FreeMarker is to create page templates using FreeMarker’s template language.

1. Copy the WEB-INF/velocity directory to WEB-INF/freemarker and rename all the files to use an FTL
extension. Your directory structure should be the same as the one in Figure 6.4.

Figure 6.4: FreeMarker Templates directory structure

2. Below is a list of the four FreeMarker templates shown above, and the changes that are necessary to
make them work with Velocity. Special notes for each file are directly after the code. Any lines where
the FreeMarker code is different from Velocity’s VTL are underlined.

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userList.ftl

<title>MyUsers ~ User List</title>

<button onclick="location.href='editUser.html'">Add User</button>

<table class="list" id="userList">

<thead>
<tr>
<th>${rc.getMessage("user.id")}</th>
<th>${rc.getMessage("user.firstName")}</th>
<th>${rc.getMessage("user.lastName")}</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<#list users as user>
<#if user_index % 2 == 0> <tr class="even">
<#else> <tr class="odd">
</#if>
<td><a href="editUser.html?id=${user.id}">${user.id}</a></td>
<td>${user.firstName}</td>
<td>${user.lastName}</td>
</tr>
</#list>
</tbody>
</table>

Similar to Velocity, the ${rc.getMessage()} call gets localized messages from web/WEB-INF/classes/
messages.properties.

userForm.ftl

<#import "/spring.ftl" as spring/>

<title>MyUsers ~ User Details</title>

<@spring.bind "user.*"/>
<#if spring.status.error>
<div class="error">
<#list spring.status.errorMessages as error>
${error}<br/>
</#list>
</div>
</#if>

<p>Please fill in user's information below:</p>

<form method="post" action="editUser.html">

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<@spring.bind "user.id"/>
<input type="hidden" name="id"
value="${spring.status.value?default('')}"/>
<table>
<tr>
<th>${rc.getMessage("user.firstName")}:</th>
<td>
<@spring.bind "user.firstName"/>
<input type="text" name="firstName"
value="${spring.status.value?default('')}"/>
<span class="fieldError">${spring.status.errorMessage}</span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>${rc.getMessage("user.lastName")}:</th>
<td>
<@spring.bind "user.lastName"/>
<input type="text" name="lastName"
value="${spring.status.value?default('')}"/>
<span class="fieldError">${spring.status.errorMessage}</span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>
<input type="submit" class="button" name="save" value="Save"/>
<#if user.id?exists>
<input type="submit" class="button" name="delete" value="Delete"/>
</#if>
</td>
</table>
</form>
The most important thing to notice in this file is the first line where spring.ftl is imported. This file contains the
spring.bind macro needed to expose a properties value.

You may also notice that each field is given a default by adding ?default('') to the end of its expression.

These macros don’t have a closing tag or ending statement like the <spring:bind> JSP tags require. The
<@spring.bind> macro becomes available when you set the exposeSpringMacroHelpers property to
“true” on the viewResolver bean.

Client-side validation with JavaScript and Commons Validator is only supported with JSPs.

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fileUpload.ftl

<h3>File Upload</h3>

<#if model?exists>
<p style="font-weight: bold">
Uploaded file (click to view): <a
href="${model.url}">${model.filename}</a>
</p>
</#if>

<p>Select a file to upload:</p>

<form method="post" action="fileUpload.html" enctype="multipart/form-
data">
<input type="file" name="file"/><br/>
<input type="submit" value="Upload" class="button"
style="margin-top: 5px"/>
</form>

dataAccessFailure.ftl

<h3>Data Access Failure</h3>

<p>
${exception}
</p>

<a href="${rc.contextPath}">&#171; Home</a>

The code for this file is the same for FreeMarker and Velocity.

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Deploy and Test

Now that you’ve told Spring to configure and use FreeMarker, configured SiteMesh to use a FreeMarker
Decorator and converted all the pages to use FreeMarker, it's time to test that everything worked. Start Tomcat
and run ant clean deploy. Once everything has started, run ant test-web to verify everything works.

Figure 6.5: FreeMarker test results

JSP, Velocity and FreeMarker are the dominant view choices when using Spring MVC. However, a few others
can be quite useful. They are XSTL (for displaying and transforming XML), PDF and Excel. In the next sections,
you’ll implement these to generate reports of the user list screen.

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XSLT

XSLT describes the process of combining XML and XSL to transform XML to another output. In most cases,
this output is text-based, but you can also use XSL-FO to generate PDFs. Spring’s XSLT views can be helpful if
you’re loading and presenting XML documents, or you can easily convert your model to XML.

Before creating an XSLT View, prepare the UserController class to handle rendering report views.

1. Open UserControllerTest.java (in test/org/appfuse/web) and add the following test:

public void testGetUsersAsXML() throws Exception {

UserController c =
(UserController) ctx.getBean("userController");
MockHttpServletRequest request = new MockHttpServletRequest();
request.addParameter("report", "XML");
ModelAndView mav =
c.handleRequest(request, (HttpServletResponse) null);
assertEquals(mav.getViewName(), "userListXML");
}

2. Open UserController.java (in src/org/appfuse/web) and add some logic to render a different view
name if a report parameter is passed in. This logic will also render the Excel and PDF views
covered later in this chapter.

public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request,

HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception {
if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("entering 'handleRequest' method...");
}

String viewName = "userList";

if (request != null &&
request.getParameter("report") != null) {
viewName += request.getParameter("report");
}
return new ModelAndView(viewName, "users", mgr.getUsers());
}

3. The reports you're about to produce are simply going to contain the user’s full name in a list format.
To make this easier, add a getFullName() method the User class (in src/org/appfuse/model).

public String getFullName() {

return firstName + ' ' + lastName;
}

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Create the View Class

Before creating the class to convert the list of users to XML, create a class to test it.

1. In test/org/appfuse/web, create a UserXMLViewTest class that extends JUnit’s TestCase.

package org.appfuse.web;

// user your IDE to organize imports

public class UserXMLViewTest extends TestCase {

private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(UserXMLViewTest.class);

public void testXMLCreation() throws Exception {

// setup a user to print out as XML
User user = new User();
user.setFirstName("James");
user.setLastName("Strachan");
List users = new ArrayList();
users.add(user);
Map model = new HashMap();
model.put("users", users);

// invoke the XsltView and call its 'createDomNode' method

UserXMLView feed = new UserXMLView();
org.w3c.dom.Node node = feed.createDomNode(model, "users",
new MockHttpServletRequest(),
new MockHttpServletResponse());
assertEquals(node.getFirstChild().toString(),
"<users><user>James Strachan</user></users>");
}
}

2. In src/org/appfuse/web, create a UserXMLView class that extends AbstractXsltView and has the
following contents.

NOTE
The XML classes used are from dom4j, which should be in your classpath. Also, the Node return type (from
createDomNode()) is from the W3C’s DOM (org.w3c.dom.Node).

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserXMLView extends AbstractXsltView {

protected Node createDomNode(Map model, String rootName,

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HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception {
Document doc = DocumentHelper.createDocument();
Element root = doc.addElement(rootName);
doc.setRootElement(root);

List users = (List) model.get("users");

for (Iterator it = users.iterator(); it.hasNext();) {
User user = (User) it.next();
root.addElement("user").addText(user.getFullName());
}

response.setContentType("text/xml");

return new DOMWriter().write(doc);

}
}

3. Run ant test -Dtestcase=UserXML to verify this class is working as expected.

NOTE
In this example, you’re going to modify this XML document to produce another XML document (that’s why the
response is set to be content type "text/xml"). If you were going to produce HTML in your XSL stylesheet, you
could eliminate this line.

4. Create a users.xsl file in web/WEB-INF/xsl. Add the following XSL to this document.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="no"/>

<xsl:template match="/">
<users>
<xsl:for-each select="users/user">
<user><xsl:value-of select="."/></user>
</xsl:for-each>
</users>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

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5. Now that you have created all the view files, configure Spring to know about the userListXML view
name. The easiest way to do this is to create a second viewResolver that uses
ResourceBundleViewResolver to resolve its views. Since you already have a viewResolver
bean for FreeMarker, you must give the new resolver a different id. Using reportViewResolver
is a good solution:

<bean id="reportViewResolver"
class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ResourceBundleView
Resolver">
<property name="order"><value>1</value></property>
</bean>

6. The “order” property specifies priorities of view resolvers. Add this same property to the
viewResolver bean with a value of 0. The ResourceBundleViewResolver allows you to configure
your view names, their classes, and their properties in a ResourceBundle (or properties file). By
default, this file name is views.properties, and it should exist in your WEB-INF/classes directory. If
you want to override the name of this file, specify a “basename” property on the
reportViewResolver bean.

7. Create a view.properties file in web/WEB-INF/classes and fill it with the following text:

userListXML.class=org.appfuse.web.UserXMLView
userListXML.stylesheetLocation=/WEB-INF/xsl/users.xsl
userListXML.root=users

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Deploy and Test

You are now ready to deploy and test the application. Run ant deploy reload populate and load http://
localhost:8080/myusers/users.html?report=XML into your browser. You should see something similar to the
screenshot below.

Figure 6.6: View class test result

One report is working; add reports for PDF and Excel too. To make things easier, add a set of links to the current
userlist page. If you’re still using FreeMarker, the filename is userList.ftl and it’s located in web/WEB-INF/
freemarker. Open it and add the following HTML to the top of the file, between the <button> and the
<table>:

<p style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: -10px">

<strong>Export Options:</strong>
<a href="?report=XML">XML</a> &middot;
<a href="?report=Excel">Excel</a> &middot;
<a href="?report=PDF">PDF</a>
</p>

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Excel

Excel documents are a useful way to export data for manipulation by users. If you simply need to output a list
screen in Excel, I recommend using the Display Tag Library (described earlier). If you need something more
robust, then this section is for you. The next few steps show you how to build and send an Excel spreadsheet
using Jakarta’s POI library.

NOTE
If you downloaded and installed the chapter6-jars.zip file, you will already have poi-2.5-final-20040302.jar in your
classpath. This JAR contains classes that are necessary to complete this exercise.

Create the View Class

1. Create a UserExcelView class in src/org/appfuse/web. This class should extend

AbstractExcelView and contain the following code:

package org.appfuse.web;

//use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserExcelView extends AbstractExcelView {

protected void buildExcelDocument(Map model, HSSFWorkbook wb,

HttpServletRequest req,
HttpServletResponse resp)
throws Exception {

HSSFSheet sheet = wb.createSheet("My Users");

sheet.setDefaultColumnWidth((short) 12);

List users = (List) model.get("users");

for (int i = 0; i < users.size(); i++) {

HSSFCell cell = getCell(sheet, i, 0);
setText(cell, ((User) users.get(i)).getFullName());
}
}
}

Notifying Spring that the userListExcel view exists is quite easy using the ResourceBundleViewResolver.

2. Open web/WEB-INF/classes/views.properties and add the following line:

userListExcel.class=org.appfuse.web.UserExcelView

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Deploy and Test

1. Run ant deploy reload and point your browser to http://localhost:8080/myusers/users.html.

Figure 6.7: Excel view class test results

2. Click on the Excel link at the top-right of the table. If you have Excel installed, it starts Excel and
brings up a list of the current users.

Figure 6.8: Results displayed in Excel

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PDF

PDF documents are an excellent way to produce printable reports. In most MVC frameworks, you’re required to
use something like JasperReports to produce PDF output. With Spring, you simply create a subclass of
AbstractPdfView and override the buildPdfDocument() method. This method returns an iText document
that can be easily rendered in your browser.

NOTE
If you downloaded and installed the chapter6-jars.zip file, you will already have itext-1.02b.jar in your classpath.
This JAR contains classes that are necessary to complete this exercise.

Create the View Class

1. Create a UserPDFView class in src/org/appfuse/web. Populate this class with the code below.

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserPDFView extends AbstractPdfView {

protected void buildPdfDocument(Map model, Document doc,
PdfWriter writer,
HttpServletRequest req,
HttpServletResponse resp)
throws Exception {
List users = (List) model.get("users");

for (int i = 0; i < users.size(); i++) {

String fullName = ((User) users.get(i)).getFullName();
doc.add(new Paragraph(fullName));
}
}
}

2. To notify Spring where the userListPDF view is, open web/WEB-INF/classes/views.properties and
add the following line:

userListPDF.class=org.appfuse.web.UserPDFView

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Deploy and Test

1. Run ant deploy reload and point your browser to http://localhost:8080/myusers/users.html.

2. Click on the PDF link at the top-right of the table. This opens a PDF containing a list of the user’s
names.

Figure 6.9: Results displayed in PDF

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Summary

This chapter explored the rich functionality offered in Spring’s MVC framework. It showed you how to easily
change from using JSP to Velocity without changing a single line of Java code. Then it showed you how to
change that to FreeMarker by simply altering some XML files and re-working the templates a bit. You also
learned how to use SiteMesh with Velocity and FreeMarker. The ability to use all of these J2EE templating
engines with a highly configurable page decoration engine like SiteMesh is a very powerful solution for quickly
developing web applications. Spring makes it easy to switch from one to the other, so your templating
technology of choice is not a hard-and-fast decision.

The ability to produce reports in PDF and Excel is another powerful and easy-to-use feature of Spring MVC. It’s
even nicer that these features are powered by solid and well-supported open-source projects like iText and POI.
The reporting examples in this chapter are simple, but the main goal is to show you how to get the ball rolling -
not how to win the game.

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 Chapter
7

Persistence Strategies: Hibernate, iBATIS, JDBC,

JDO and OJB
How to Integrate 5 Popular Persistence Frameworks into Your Application

Hibernate is quickly becoming a popular choice for persistence in Java applications, but sometimes it doesn’t fit.
If you have an existing database schema, or even pre-written SQL, sometimes it’s better to use JDBC or iBATIS
(which supports externalized SQL in XML files). This chapter refactors the MyUsers application to support both
JDBC and iBATIS as persistence framework options. It also implements the UserDAO using JDO and OJB to
showcase Spring's excellent support for these frameworks.

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Overview

Most modern applications talk to a database to load and store their information. Persistence is the process of
retrieving, saving and deleting data from a data store (usually a relational database). Persistence is a critical
feature in web applications, if only for loading and displaying information. For many years, this has been the
ugly part of Java. You could use JDBC, and it usually works across database vendors. After all, the point of the
JDBC API is to provide a standard for accessing databases from Java. However, JDBC is difficult to write,
especially for a newcomer. It requires developers to catch exceptions and close connections in a final block,
which many Java rookies forget to do. Additionally, the exceptions thrown by different JDBC Driver vendors are
not standard, so an error code on one server might mean something completely different on another server.

With the advent of Spring's persistence support, many of the issues with JDBC disappear. Its JDBC framework
converts JDBC's checked exceptions to a common hierarchy of RuntimeExceptions. These exceptions provide
precise information about what went wrong, which is much better than SQLException reports. It uses closures
to handle closing database connections, and it includes a set of common SQL error codes for numerous database
types.

NOTE
A closure is an object that's represented as a block of code (within a method). You can use this object like any Java
object, such as parameter, variable, etc. For more information, see the Java Glossary. Charles Miller also has a
tutorial on Closures and Java.

Spring provides support classes for numerous other persistence frameworks, including Hibernate, iBATIS, JDO
and OJB. It even uses a common methodology in its support, further simplifying the learning curve from one
framework to the other. If you learn how to use Spring's Hibernate support, it's very easy to use Spring's iBATIS
or JDO APIs.

In this chapter, you will learn more about Spring's Hibernate support and how MyUsers uses Hibernate. From
there, you will implement DAOs using iBATIS, Spring JDBC, JDO and OJB. By the end of this chapter, you will
know how to use these technologies and configure them with the Spring Framework. The purpose of this chapter
is to briefly introduce persistence options with Spring and how to configure them. You will not learn how to
solve complicated persistence problems with each framework. Please consult the framework's perspective
project page for that information.

NOTE
Transactions will be covered in Chapter 10.

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Spring has a common theme when it comes to persistence:

• Provide easy configuration using dependency injection.

• Provide base DaoSupport classes for the popular persistence frameworks, including Hibernate,
JDBC, iBATIS, JDO and OJB.
• Convert the checked exceptions for the different frameworks to a common exception hierarchy,
relieving your upper-level classes of the specifics of the persistence layer. Figure 7.11 illustrates
this hierarchy.
• Provide easy-to-use Template classes that reduce many DAO methods to one-liners. These
templates can be used standalone or obtained from the DaoSupport parent classes.
• Open and close any necessary resources (such as database connections) for you.

Figure 9.1: Common Exceptions Hierarchy

The code in this chapter should be easy to test since you already have a UserDAOTest that does not contain any
Hibernate-specific code. This test will verify your implementations. Each persistence framework section will
show you how to configure the respective framework with Spring, and how to implement the UserDAO.

1. Diagram modeled from the one found at http://www.springframework.org/docs/reference/dao.html.

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Preparing for the Exercises

The best way to learn is to follow along with the exercises in this chapter. The easiest way to do this is to
download the MyUsers Chapter 7 bundle from http://sourcebeat.com/downloads. This project tree is the result
of Chapter 6 exercises, and contains all the JARs you will use in this chapter. You can also use the application
you've been developing in previous chapters. If you go this route, download Chapter 7 JARs from http://
sourcebeat.com/downloads. The Configuration sub-topic of each section describes the dependencies each project
needs. You can use this chapter as a reference for integrating these principles into your own applications.

If you're using a MyUsers application from a previous chapter, you must change the way that it loads context
files. Rather than just loading applicationContext.xml, change tests and web.xml to load
applicationContext*.xml. This is for convenience. When creating context files for each persistence option, it's
easier to specify a wildcard to match the filename. Otherwise, you'd have to change the tests and web.xml each
time you switched persistence layers.

The following files are affected by this change:

• test/org/appfuse/dao/BaseDAOTestCase.java

• test/org/appfuse/service/UserManagerTest.java

• test/org/appfuse/web/UserControllerTest.java

• test/org/appfuse/web/UserFormControllerTest.java

• web/WEB-INF/web.xml

Because you'll be isolating all the database configurations to one file, you must also change any <ref local>
directives in applicationContext.xml to <ref bean>, so other files can contain bean definitions. The baseline
applicationContext.xml file for this chapter should not contain references to the following beans: dataSource,
sessionFactory, transactionManager, and userDAO. If they exist in your version, please delete them.
Making the above changes will allow you to create different context files for each DAO implementation.

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Hibernate

Hibernate is an open-source Object/Relational Mapping (ORM) solution. ORM is the technique of mapping an
Object model to a Relational model (usually represented by a SQL database). Hibernate was created in late 2001
by Gavin King and a handful of other developers. Since then, Hibernate has become a very popular persistence
framework in the Java Community. It's become so popular in fact, that the next versions of EJB and JDO are
using Hibernate as a source of good ideas. The reasons for its popularity are mainly due to its good
documentation, ease of use, excellent features and smart project management. Hibernate's license is LGPL,
which means you can use it for free as long as you don't modify its source code. More information on its license
is available on the Hibernate website.

Hibernate frees you from hand-coding JDBC. Rather than using SQL and JDBC, you can use domain objects
(which are usually POJOs) and simply create XML-based mapping files. These files indicate which fields (in an
object) map to which columns (in a table). Hibernate has a powerful query language called Hibernate Query
Language (HQL). This language allows you to write SQL, but also use object-oriented semantics. One of the best
parts about its query language is you can literally guess at its syntax and get it right.

Hibernate's Session interface is similar to a database connection in that it must be opened and closed at
appropriate times to avoid errors and memory leaks. In my opinion, the biggest advantage of using Spring with
Hibernate is that you don't have to manage opening and closing these Sessions – everything just works.

NOTE
Spring's Hibernate support classes are located in the org.springframework.orm.hibernate and
org.springframework.orm.hibernate.support packages.

Although Chapter 2 covers integrating Hibernate into MyUsers, this chapter covers it as well to provide a single
chapter describing Spring's persistence support. If you downloaded the myusers-ch7 bundle, the Hibernate
configurations are eliminated so you can start with a clean slate.

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Dependencies

Hibernate has a number of third-party libraries it depends on. All of these are available as part of the Hibernate
download. Below are the JARs included in the MyUsers download as part of Hibernate 2.1.6. They are all
required, except for the one marked optional. Spring requires Hibernate 2.1 or above for its support classes.

• hibernate2.jar – Hibernate core

• c3p0-0.8.4.5.jar – Basic connection pool for running unit tests

• cglib-full-2.0.2.jar – Code Generation Library for generating proxies for persistent classes

• dom4j-1.4.jar – XML library for parsing configuration and mapping files

• ehcache-0.9.jar – A pure Java, in-process cache; the default cache for Hibernate

• jta.jar – Java Transaction API

• odmg-2.0.1.jar – Standard for object-relational mapping products; superseded by JDO

• (optional) oscache-2.0.1.jar and (cluster-aware) swarmcache-1.0rc2.jar – Alternative caching

implementations

TIP
While Spring does not support Hibernate 3 (now in beta), a patch is available.

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Configuration

To make your objects persistable with Hibernate, first create a mapping file. (This chapter assumes you have
already created a User POJO in src/org/appfuse/model, with id, firstName and lastName properties.

1. In the src/org/appfuse/model directory, create a User.hbm.xml file with the following contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD 2.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-mapping-2.0.dtd">

<hibernate-mapping>
<class name="org.appfuse.model.User" table="app_user">

<id name="id" column="id" unsaved-value="0">

<generator class="increment"/>
</id>
<property name="firstName" column="first_name"
not-null="true"/>
<property name="lastName" column="last_name" not-null="true"/>

</class>
</hibernate-mapping>

In the above mapping, the <id> element uses "increment" to indicate max value + 1 for the
generated primary key. The generator type of "increment" is not recommended for a cluster.
Fortunately, Hibernate has many other options.

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2. Create an applicationContext-hibernate.xml file in the web/WEB-INF directory and add a bean

definition for a DataSource. You can use an existing applicationContext*.xml as a template. This
file should have the spring-beans.dtd and root <beans> element defined before the bean definition.

The "dataSource" bean in this example uses an HSQL database, which is a pure Java database that
runs from a simple hsqldb.jar file in the web/WEB-INF/lib directory. Later, you'll change this to use
MySQL to see how easy it is to change databases.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC "-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN"
"http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd">

<beans>
<bean id="dataSource"
class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource">
<property name="driverClassName">
<value>org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver</value>
</property>
<property name="url">
<value>jdbc:hsqldb:db/appfuse</value>
</property>
<property name="username"><value>sa</value></property>
<property name="password"><value></value></property>
</bean>

<!-- Add additional bean definitions here -->

</beans>

The DriverManagerDataSource is a simple DataSource that configures a JDBC Driver via bean
properties. You can also configure a JNDI DataSource if you'd rather use your container's pre-
configured DataSource. For example, a common strategy is to use the DriverManagerDataSource
for testing, and the JNDI DataSource (below) for production.

NOTE
Chapter 8 shows how to mock the JNDI DataSource and use the configuration below for both testing and
production.

<bean id="dataSource"
class="org.springframework.jndi.JndiObjectFactoryBean">
<property name="jndiName">
<value>java:comp/env/jdbc/appfuse</value>
</property>
</bean>

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3. Add a "sessionFactory" bean definition, which depends on the previous "dataSource" bean
and the mapping file. The "dialect" property will change based on the database, and the
"hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" property creates the database on-the-fly when the application starts.
You might notice that the "dataSource" reference has changed (from previous chapters) to use
<ref bean> rather than <ref local>. This is so you can configure the "dataSource" bean in
separate file, possibly switching a testing version with an in-container version.

<bean id="sessionFactory"
class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate.LocalSessionFactoryBean">
<property name="dataSource"><ref bean="dataSource"/></property>
<property name="mappingResources">
<list>
<value>org/appfuse/model/User.hbm.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
<property name="hibernateProperties">
<props>
<prop key="hibernate.dialect">
net.sf.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect
</prop>
<prop key="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto">update</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>

As an alternative to mapping each individual .hbm.xml file, use the "mappingJarLocations" or

"mappingDirectoryLocations" properties to refer to a JAR file or directory. You can also use a
hibernate.cfg.xml file to specify your settings and point to it using a "configLocation" property.

4. Add a "transactionManager" bean definition that uses Spring's

HibernateTransactionManager class. This class's javadocs explain it best: "This class binds a
Hibernate Session from the specified factory to the thread, potentially allowing for one thread Session
per factory." SessionFactoryUtils and HibernateTemplate are aware of thread-bound
Sessions and will participate in such transactions automatically. Using either is required for Hibernate
access code that needs to support a transaction handling mechanism.

<bean id="transactionManager"
class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate.HibernateTransactionManager">
<property name="sessionFactory">
<ref local="sessionFactory"/>
</property>
</bean>

The UserHibernateDAO or UserDAOTest do not use this bean specifically, but the
"userManager" bean's definition references it. The JDO section shows you how to utilize
transactions in your DAO Tests.

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5. Create a UserDAOHibernate.java class in src/org/appfuse/dao/hibernate (you may need to create

this directory/package). This file extends HibernateDaoSupport and implements UserDAO.

NOTE
If you're continuing development on a MyUsers application from the previous chapters, change the saveUser()
method in UserDAO to take a User (rather than an object) as a parameter.

package org.appfuse.dao.hibernate;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserDAOHibernate extends HibernateDaoSupport implements

UserDAO {

public List getUsers() {

return getHibernateTemplate().find("from User");
}

public User getUser(Long id) {

User user = (User) getHibernateTemplate().get(User.class, id);
if (user == null) {
throw new ObjectRetrievalFailureException(User.class, id);
}
return user;
}

public void saveUser(User user) {

getHibernateTemplate().saveOrUpdate(user);
}

public void removeUser(Long id) {

Object user = getHibernateTemplate().load(User.class, id);
getHibernateTemplate().delete(user);
}
}

6. Add a bean definition for the "userDAO" to applicationContext-hibernate.xml.

<bean id="userDAO" class="org.appfuse.dao.hibernate.UserDAOHibernate">

<property name="sessionFactory">
<ref local="sessionFactory"/>
</property>
</bean>

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In the UserDAOHibernate class, HibernateTemplate does most of the work. Using templates to
handle persistence calls is a common theme among Spring DAO support classes. Also note the
following items in the UserDAOHibernate.java class:

• The getUser() method uses HibernateTemplate().get(), which returns null if it finds no

matching objects. The alternative is to use HibernateTemplate().load(), which throws an
exception if it finds no objects. HibernateTemplate.load() is used in the removeUser()
method, but you could easily use get() instead.

• The getUser() method throws an ObjectRetrievalFailureException when it finds no

user.

• It has no checked exceptions. You will likely end up writing a fair amount of try/catch statements
with Hibernate.

A logger variable is already defined in HibernateDaoSupport, allowing for easy logging in

subclasses. For example, add the following to the end of the saveUser() method.

if (logger.isDebugEnabled()) {
logger.debug("User's id set to: " + user.getId());
}

Test It!

If you're developing from a previous MyUsers application, you must make a couple of changes to the
UserDAOTest.testGetUsers() method before you can successfully run it. The new method is below. It
removes assertions that checked for an empty database table before the test and a single record after the test. The
reason for this is that you set the "hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" property (on the "sessionFactory" bean)
to update. This changes Hibernate's behavior and updates the schema when the JVM starts (rather than creating
it each time). The primary motivation for this is other frameworks don't easily create/delete tables, and you want
to have a consistent unit test.

public void testGetUsers() {

// add a record to the database so we have something to work with
user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Rod");
user.setLastName("Johnson");
dao.saveUser(user);

List users = dao.getUsers();

assertTrue(users.size() >= 1);
assertTrue(users.contains(user));
}

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Run ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO. Your results should be similar to Figure 7.2.

Figure 7.2: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO test

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MySQL Configuration

Switching from HSQL to MySQL is quite easy. Thanks to Spring, it's just a matter of configuration settings.

1. Make sure MySQL is installed and running. If you're using MyUsers from a previous chapter, install
the additional JARs for this chapter or download MySQL's JDBC Driver and copy it to web/WEB-
INF/lib.

2. In applicationContext-hibernate.xml, change the "dataSource" bean's properties to the following:

<property name="driverClassName">
<value>com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</value>
</property>
<property name="url">
<value>jdbc:mysql://localhost/myusers</value>
</property>
<property name="username"><value>root</value></property>
<property name="password"><value></value></property>

A username of root and empty password are the default installation settings. You may need to adjust
them for your installation.

TIP
You can use a PropertyPlaceHolderConfigurer bean to set the above property values from a properties
file. This is covered in Chapter 8.

3. Change the "sessionFactory" bean's "hibernate.dialect" property to MySQL:

<prop key="hibernate.dialect">
net.sf.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect
</prop>

4. Create the myusers database before running unit tests or starting Tomcat:

mysqladmin -u root -p create myusers

Optionally, change the driver, url and userid properties in the "browser" target of build.xml if
you want to use that target with MySQL.

Run ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO. The results should be the same as in Figure 7.2.

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Caching

A powerful feature in persistence frameworks is the ability to cache data and avoid constant trips to the database.
The Hibernate Session object is a transaction-level cache of persistent data, but it doesn't handle per-class or
collection-by-collection caching at the JVM or cluster level. However, it does support plugging in both JVM or
clustered caches (also called second level caches). For a complete list of supported caches, see Hibernate's
Second Level Cache documentation.

The following example shows how to configure the EHCache for JVM-level caching.

NOTE
EHCache is the default cache, so you don't need to configure a hibernate.cache.provider_class
setting in applicationContext-hibernate.xml.

1. The simplest way to enable caching for an object is to add a <cache> tag to its mapping file. To do
this with the User object, add a <cache> element to the User.hbm.xml file in src/org/appfuse/model.
Optional values are "read-write" and "read-only". You should use the second option only if
you're referring to an object or table that rarely changes.

<class name="org.appfuse.model.User" table="app_user">

<cache usage="read-write"/>
<id name="id" column="id" unsaved-value="0">

2. (Optional) Create settings in EHCache's configuration file for this class. Create an ehcache.xml file in
web/WEB-INF/classes and fill it with the following XML:

<ehcache>
<!-- Only needed if overFlowToDisk="true" -->
<diskStore path="java.io.tmpdir"/>
<!-- Required element -->
<defaultCache
maxElementsInMemory="10000"
eternal="false"
timeToIdleSeconds="120"
timeToLiveSeconds="120"
overflowToDisk="true"/>

<!-- Cache settings per class -->

<cache name="org.appfuse.model.User"
maxElementsInMemory="1000"
eternal="false"
timeToIdleSeconds="300"
timeToLiveSeconds="600"
overflowToDisk="true"/>
</ehcache>

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3. To prove that your User object is being cached, turn on debug logging for EHCache in web/WEB-
INF/classes/log4j.xml:

<logger name="net.sf.ehcache">
<level value="DEBUG"/>
</logger>

4. Run ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO. Your results should be similar to Figure 7.3.

Figure 7.3: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO test

The Hibernate reference documentation has more information on using and configuring Second Level Caches. In
general, caching is something that you shouldn't configure for your application until you've tuned your database
(that is, with indexes). This cache implementation is for demonstration purposes only.

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Lazy-Loading Dependent Objects

One of Hibernate's many features is the ability to lazy-load dependent objects. For example, if a list of users
refers to a collection of roles objects, you probably don't need the roles loaded to display the list of users. By
marking the roles collection with lazy-load="true", they won't be loaded until you try to do something with them
(usually in the UI).

To use this feature with Spring, configure the OpenSessionInViewFilter in your application. This will open
a session when a particular URL is first requested, and close it when the page finishes loading. To enable this
feature, add the XML below to web.xml:

<filter>
<filter-name>hibernateFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.springframework.orm.hibernate.support.OpenSession
InViewFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>hibernateFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>*.html</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>

Using this feature may cause the following error when running DAO unit tests:

[junit] net.sf.hibernate.LazyInitializationException: Failed to lazily

initialize a collection - no session or session was closed

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To fix this, add the following code to the setUp() and tearDown() methods of your test.

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

// the following is necessary for lazy loading
sf = (SessionFactory) ctx.getBean("sessionFactory");
// open and bind the session for this test thread.
Session s = sf.openSession();
TransactionSynchronizationManager
.bindResource(sf, new SessionHolder(s));

// setup code here

}

protected void tearDown() throws Exception {

// unbind and close the session.
SessionHolder holder = (SessionHolder)
TransactionSynchronizationManager.getResource(sf);
Session s = holder.getSession();
s.flush();
TransactionSynchronizationManager.unbindResource(sf);
SessionFactoryUtils.closeSessionIfNecessary(s, sf);

// teardown code here

}

While using this open-session-in-view pattern is a well-known Hibernate session handling idiom, some Spring
developers advocate initializing all necessary data in the service layer. Loading everything at once is more
efficient and guarantees the same data for all clients.

Other tips and tricks for Hibernate are available on the Hibernate website.

Community and Support

The Hibernate community is a vibrant one. In addition to having good documentation and well-supported user
forums, it is very popular with tens of thousands of developers. It releases early and often, and downloads
average 30,000 per release.

The Hibernate website has a list of Who Uses Hibernate. Commercial Support and Training are available.
Additionally, Gavin King and Christian Bauer recently authored Hibernate in Action. I recommend this book for
learning Hibernate.

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iBATIS

iBATIS SQL Maps is an open-source persistence framework that allows you to use your model objects with a
relational database. In contrast to Hibernate, you write SQL, much like you would with JDBC. You do this in a
very simple XML file, allowing abstraction of SQL from Java classes. iBATIS is not an O/R Mapper (ORM).
Rather, it is a Data Mapper. In Martin's Fowler's Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, he describes
two patterns: Data Mapper and Metadata Mapping. The difference is that ORMs (Metadata Mappers) map
classes to tables; iBATIS (Data Mapper) maps inputs and outputs to an interface (for example, SQL interface to
an RDBMS). An ORM solution works well when you have control of your database. A Data Mapper like iBATIS
works well when the database is heavily normalized and you need to pull from several tables to populate an
object.

iBATIS is the name of a open-source project started by Clinton Begin in 2001. Clinton had a few products, but
none of them gained much recognition until the .NET Pet Shop was released, claiming that .NET was superior to
Java in developer productivity and performance. Microsoft published a paper claiming that .NET's version of
Sun's PetStore was 10 times faster and 4 times more productive. Knowing this wasn't the case, Clinton responded
with JPetStore 1.0 in July 2002. Not only did this application have fewer lines of code and a better design than its
.NET counterpart, but Clinton implemented it over a few weeks in his spare time!

Clinton's goals while writing JPetStore were to argue the points of 1) Good Design, 2) Code Quality and 3)
Productivity. The original .NET Pet Shop had a horrible design with much of the business logic contained in
stored procedures, whereas JPetStore had a clean and efficient persistence framework.

This framework quickly drew the attention of the open-source community. Today, iBATIS refers to the "iBATIS
Database Layer," which consists of a DAO framework and a SQL Map framework. Spring supports the iBATIS
SQL Maps by providing helper classes to easily configure and use them. Furthermore, the Spring project
includes JPetStore as one of its sample applications, rewriting many of its pieces to use Spring features.

In my opinion, iBATIS is a "sleeper project" in the open-source community. Not many folks know about it, but
those who do, really like it. Perhaps the Spring supporting classes will boost its popularity.

iBATIS's license is Apache, which means you can use it freely as long as your end-user documentation states that
your product contains software developed by the Apache Software Foundation. You can modify the code, but
then you can no longer distribute it under the Apache name without permission.

NOTE
iBATIS recently applied to become an Apache top-level project. If accepted, it will likely be renamed iBATIS Data
Mapper.

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iBATIS is an excellent persistence framework to use with existing or legacy databases. You can easily migrate a
JDBC-based application to iBATIS (most of the work involves extracting the SQL out of Java classes and into
Java files). Not only is iBATIS fast and efficient, but it doesn't hide SQL, which is one of the most powerful and
oldest languages today. Using iBATIS's SQL Maps, developers write SQL in XML files and populates objects
based on the results of those queries. Much like the Spring/Hibernate combination, iBATIS DAOs require very
few lines of code in each method.

In my experience, I've found the following qualities to be true of iBATIS:

• Easy to learn

• Queries are extremely efficient

• Easy transition because of pre-existing SQL

• Just as fast (if not faster) than Hibernate

• Writing iBATIS DAOs is similar to writing Hibernate DAOs

NOTE
iBATIS's SqlMapClient is similar to Hibernate's Session and JDBC's Connection. Spring's iBATIS
support classes are located in the org.springframework.orm.ibatis and
org.springframework.orm.ibatis.support packages.

Dependencies

For J2SE 1.4, iBATIS has only one third-party dependency: Commons Logging. For J2SE 1.3, see the jar-
dependencies.txt file included in the download. Below are the JARs included in the MyUsers download as part of
iBATIS 2.0.5. Spring supports both iBATIS 1.x and 2.x; the main difference is the word "Client" on the 2.x
classes. This section only covers 2.x.

• ibatis-common-2.jar – common classes

• ibatis-sqlmap-2.jar - required for SQL Maps 2.0

• commons-logging.jar – Logging framework that provides ultra-thin bridge between different

logging libraries

• (optional) cglib-full-2.0.2.jar – Code Generation Library that enables runtime byte-code

enhancement for optimized JavaBean property access and enhanced lazy loading.

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Configuration

To integrate iBATIS you must create a SQL Map for the User object. A SQL Map is an XML file that contains
SQL statements to map a query's inputs and outputs to objects. In order to avoid conflicts among bean names,
rename the applicationContext-hibernate.xml file (in web/WEB-INF) to applicationContext-hibernate.xml.txt.
This will prevent Spring from loading it.

1. In the src/org/appfuse/model directory, create a file named UserSQL.xml with the following contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE sqlMap PUBLIC "-//iBATIS.com//DTD SQL Map 2.0//EN"
"http://www.ibatis.com/dtd/sql-map-2.dtd">

<sqlMap namespace="UserSQL">
<insert id="addUser" parameterClass="org.appfuse.model.User">
insert into app_user (id, first_name, last_name)
values (#id#, #firstName#, #lastName#);
<selectKey resultClass="java.lang.Long" keyProperty="id" >
select last_insert_id();
</selectKey>
</insert>

<update id="updateUser" parameterClass="org.appfuse.model.User">

update app_user set first_name = #firstName#,
last_name = #lastName#
where id = #id#;
</update>

<select id="getUser" parameterClass="java.lang.Long"

resultClass="org.appfuse.model.User">
select id, first_name as firstName, last_name as lastName
from app_user where id=#id#;
</select>

<select id="getUsers" resultClass="org.appfuse.model.User">

select id, first_name as firstName, last_name as lastName
from app_user;
</select>

<delete id="deleteUser" parameterClass="java.lang.Long">

delete from app_user where id = #id#;
</delete>
</sqlMap>

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In this file, you can see that different elements (<insert>, <update>, <select>, <delete>) indicate
database operations. Note that each element can optionally specify a parameterClass or
resultClass attribute. Dynamic variables are enclosed in #value# and indicate properties in the
parameterClass.

2. Create a sql-maps-config.xml file in src/org/appfuse/dao/ibatis (you must create this directory) that
indicates the location of the UserSQL.xml SQL Map.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE sqlMapConfig PUBLIC
"-//iBATIS.com//DTD SQL Map Config 2.0//EN"
"http://www.ibatis.com/dtd/sql-map-config-2.dtd">

<sqlMapConfig>
<settings enhancementEnabled="true" maxTransactions="5"
maxRequests="32" maxSessions="10"/>

<sqlMap resource="org/appfuse/dao/ibatis/UserSQL.xml" />

</sqlMapConfig>

See iBATIS's Documentation (PDF) for more information on the <settings> element. The values
shown here should be sufficient for most applications.

3. Create an applicationContext-ibatis.xml file (using applicationContext-empty.txt as a template) in the

web/WEB-INF directory and add a bean definition for a javax.sql.DataSource. The
"dataSource" bean in this example uses the MySQL database you configured in the last section.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC "-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN"
"http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd">

<beans>
<bean id="dataSource"

class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource">
<property name="driverClassName">
<value>com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</value>
</property>
<property name="url">
<value>jdbc:mysql://localhost/myusers</value>
</property>
<property name="username"><value>root</value></property>
<property name="password"><value></value></property>
</bean>
<!-- Add bean definitions here -->
</beans>

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4. Create a "sqlMapClient" bean definition to integrate iBATIS with Spring.

<bean id="sqlMapClient"
class="org.springframework.orm.ibatis.SqlMapClientFactoryBean">
<property name="configLocation">
<value>classpath:/org/appfuse/dao/ibatis/sql-map-config.xml
</value>
</property>
</bean>

5. Add a "transactionManager" bean definition that uses a DataSourceTransactionManager.

This PlatformTransactionManager implementation binds a JDBC connection from the
specified DataSource to the thread, potentially allowing for one thread connection per data source.

NOTE
The primary reason you need a bean named "transactionManager" is that the "userManager" bean
references a bean with that name.

<bean id="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.

DataSourceTransactionManager">
<property name="dataSource"><ref bean="dataSource"/></property>
</bean>

6. Create a UserDAOiBatis.java class in src/org/appfuse/dao/ibatis. This file extends

SqlMapClientDaoSupport and implements UserDAO.

package org.appfuse.dao.ibatis;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserDAOiBatis extends SqlMapClientDaoSupport

implements UserDAO {

public List getUsers() {

return getSqlMapClientTemplate()
.queryForList("getUsers", null);
}

public User getUser(Long id) {

User user = (User) getSqlMapClientTemplate()
.queryForObject("getUser", id);

if (user == null) {
throw new ObjectRetrievalFailureException(User.class, id);
}

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return user;
}

public void saveUser(User user) {

if (user.getId() == null) {
// Use iBatis's <selectKey> feature, which is db-specific
Long id = (Long) getSqlMapClientTemplate()
.insert("addUser", user);
user.setId(id);
logger.info("new User id set to: " + id);
} else {
getSqlMapClientTemplate().update("updateUser", user);
}
}

public void removeUser(Long id) {

getSqlMapClientTemplate().update("deleteUser", id);
}
}

7. Add a "userDAO" bean definition to applicationContext-ibatis.xml. The example below uses the
autowire attribute rather than specifying dataSource and sqlMapClient properties. When
using autowire, it's a good idea to specify the injected dependencies in a comment.

<bean id="userDAO" autowire="byName"

class="org.appfuse.dao.ibatis.UserDAOiBatis"/>
<!-- injected properties: dataSource, sqlMapClient -->

8. The app_user table created by Hibernate does not allow nulls in the id column. With iBATIS, it's
easiest to insert nulls for primary keys and retrieve the generated id back from the database. To do
this, drop and recreate the app_user table.

a. Login to MySQL by typing mysql -u root -p myusers from the command line.

b. Execute drop table app_user;.

c. Execute the following SQL statement:

create table app_user (id bigint not null auto_increment,

first_name varchar(50), last_name varchar(50),
primary key (id));

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Test It!

If you're developing MyUsers from a previous application, you may need to change build.xml before the tests
will pass. The compile target has the following XML that copies Hibernate mapping files to the build directory.

<!-- Copy hibernate mapping files to ${build.dir}/classes -->

<copy todir="${build.dir}/classes">
<fileset dir="${src.dir}" includes="**/*.hbm.xml"/>
</copy>

Change this to the following:

<!-- Copy XML files to ${build.dir}/classes -->

<copy todir="${build.dir}/classes">
<fileset dir="${src.dir}" includes="**/*.xml"/>
</copy>

Run ant clean test -Dtestcase=UserDAO. The output from this test should be similar to the
UserDAOHibernate class.

Caching

iBATIS supports many caching strategies for SQL Maps. To add a caching strategy to the UserSQL.xml file, add
the following <cacheModel> element:

<sqlMap namespace="UserSQL">
<cacheModel id="userCache" type="LRU">
<flushInterval hours="24"/>
<property name="size" value="1000"/>
</cacheModel>
<insert id="addUser" parameterClass="org.appfuse.model.User">

Add a cacheModel attribute to any <select> statements. For example, add it to the "getUser" statement:

<select id="getUser" parameterClass="java.lang.Long"

resultClass="org.appfuse.model.User"
cacheModel="userCache">
select id, first_name as firstName, last_name as lastName
from app_user where id=#id#;
</select>

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Retrieving Generated Primary Keys

The "addUser" statement uses a database-specific means to retrieve the generated primary key. The
<selectKey> element allows you to retrieve generated primary keys quite easily.

<insert id="addUser" parameterClass="org.appfuse.model.User">

insert into app_user (id, first_name, last_name)
values (#id#, #firstName#, #lastName#);
<selectKey resultClass="java.lang.Long" keyProperty="id" >
select last_insert_id();
</selectKey>
</insert>

The problem with this approach is that it's database-specific. Using select last_insert_id() will only
work with MySQL. This shows how the SQL standard allows variations and is not a true standard. A good ORM
tool like Hibernate or JDO does this transparently for you.

NOTE
If you'd like to try switching back to HSQLDB at this point, simply change the <selectKey> statement to call
identity();. Also change the dataSource bean appropriately. Run ant browse and drop/recreate the
app_user table. The following SQL script will help you with the table:

create table app_user (id integer identity, first_name varchar(50),

last_name varchar(50));

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As an alternative, use a Spring class to generate the primary key for you. For example, to use the
MySQLMaxValueIncrementer, perform the following steps:

1. Comment out the <selectKey> element in UserSQL.xml.

2. Change the save() method to the following:

public void saveUser(User user) {

if (user.getId() == null) {
MySQLMaxValueIncrementer incrementer =
new MySQLMaxValueIncrementer(
getDataSource(), "user_sequence", "value");
Long id = new Long(incrementer.nextLongValue());
user.setId(id);

getSqlMapClientTemplate().insert("addUser", user);
logger.info("new User id set to: " + id);
} else {
getSqlMapClientTemplate().update("updateUser", user);
}
}

3. Create the user_sequence table to allow the retrieval of primary keys.

create table user_sequence (value bigint auto_increment,

primary key (value));
insert into user_sequence values(0);

If you clean and run the UserDAOTest, all your tests should pass.

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The problem with putting the MySQLMaxValueIncrementer into your class is now you've hard-coded your
DAO to depend on MySQL. Having the select last_insert_id() statement seems more configurable
since it was in XML. Refactor this class to use dependency injection.

1. Add an incrementer variable and setter to the UserDAOHibernate class.

private DataFieldMaxValueIncrementer incrementer;

public void setIncrementer(DataFieldMaxValueIncrementer incrementer) {

this.incrementer = incrementer;
}

2. Change the saveUser() method to use this incrementer. Just delete the three lines that initialize the
incrementer.

3. Configure the incrementer as a bean in web/WEB-INF/applicationContext-ibatis.xml. Since userDAO

autowires by name, this property will get injected by Spring.

<bean id="incrementer"

class="org.springframework.jdbc.support.incrementer.MySQLMaxValueIncremen
ter">
<property name="dataSource"><ref local="dataSource"/></property>
<property name="incrementerName">
<value>user_sequence</value>
</property>
<property name="columnName"><value>value</value></property>
</bean>

4. Run ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO.

Unfortunately, iBATIS doesn't support JDBC 3.0's getGeneratedKeys() method, so you must use one of the
above methods to generate primary keys. Of course, you can also select max(id) and increment the primary
key yourself.

Community and Support

Developers who use iBATIS tend to be very happy with it. It has clean and concise documentation and tutorials.
The documentation is a mere 53 pages and the tutorial is only 9! In my experience, this is a framework you can
learn and use in the same day. iBATIS doesn't have a user mailing list, but it does have help forums. Its
application to be a top-level project at Apache is another favorable indicator.

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Spring JDBC

If you've written JDBC code before, you know that it can be tedious. Not only do you have to set up
Connections, Statements and ResultSets, but you have to close them after you've retrieved your data. Closing
resources in JDBC code is an area that many new developers don't know how to do properly. They tend to forget
to use the finally block, even though it's is a basic JDBC code pattern.

As you've seen in the previous examples, Spring removes the open/close resource responsibility from the
developer. It manages these operations for you, allowing you to write application code rather than infrastructure
code. Spring's JDBC core is an abstraction on top of J2SE's JDBC that allows you to write a minimal amount of
code to retrieve, save and delete your data.

Four packages make up the JDBC abstraction framework: core, datasource, object and support. The
functionality of each package is below:

• org.springframework.jdbc.core: core classes, JdbcTemplate and JdbcDaoSupport

convenience class

• org.springframework.jdbc.datasource: classes for easy DataSource access and basic DataSource

implementations

• org.springframework.jdbc.object: classes for corresponding to database queries, updates and

stored procedures as thread-safe reusable objects

• org.springframework.jdbc.support: SQLException translation,

DataFieldMaxValueIncrementer implementations and support classes for jdbc.core and
jdbc.object

In this section, you will use JdbcTemplate and JdbcDaoSupport. The names are similar to the Template and
DaoSupport classes you used with Hibernate and iBATIS. This section will not cover SQLException translation
because you rarely have to do it yourself. The classes are used internally and a number of default translations are
built-in for the following databases: DB2, HSQL, SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, Informix, PostgreSQL and
Sybase. You can find a complete list of error code to exception mappings in the jdbc/support/sql-error-codes.xml
file.

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Mapping ResultsSets to Objects

Similar to Hibernate and iBATIS, Spring JDBC requires you to map results from a query to your POJOs. With
Hibernate and iBATIS, you did this using XML. With Spring JDBC, you must do this programmatically. You
don't necessarily have to map results to objects; you can simply return maps of your data. For instance, the
following code returns a map with each entry as a row:

public List getList() {

return getJdbcTemplate().queryForList("select * from tablename");
}

In most cases, however, you'll want to map these results to a List of objects. To do this with Spring JDBC, use a
MappingSqlQuery class to convert each row of the JDBC ResultSet to an object. The following is an example
of this type of class retrieving a list of users in the MyUsers application:

public class UsersQuery extends MappingSqlQuery {

public UsersQuery(DataSource ds) {
super(ds, "SELECT * FROM app_user");
compile();
}
protected Object mapRow(ResultSet rs, int rowNum)
throws SQLException {
User user = new User();
user.setId(new Long(rs.getLong("id")));
user.setFirstName(rs.getString("first_name"));
user.setLastName(rs.getString("last_name"));
return user;
}
}

When extending MappingSqlQuery, you must override the mapRow(ResultSet rs, int rowNum)
method. Use the UsersQuery class to get a list of User objects:

public List getUsers() {

return new UsersQuery(getDataSource()).execute();
}

Declare parameters on your query by using the declareParameter() method of MappingSqlQuery.

public UserQuery(DataSource ds) {

super(ds, "SELECT * FROM app_user WHERE id = ?");
super.declareParameter(new SqlParameter("id", Types.INTEGER));
compile();
}

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Pass in the id parameter using an Object array:

public User getUser(Long id) {

List users = new UserQuery(getDataSource())
.execute(new Object[]{id});
if (users.isEmpty()) {
throw new ObjectRetrievalFailureException(User.class, id);
}
return (User) users.get(0);
}

Executing Update Queries

Mapping ResultSets to objects helps you retrieve data, but it doesn't help you update it. For that, use a
SqlUpdate class to create a reusable object for updating rows. Here is an example:

public class UserUpdate extends SqlUpdate {

public UserUpdate(DataSource ds) {
super(ds, "INSERT INTO app_user (id, first_name, last_name) values
(?, ?, ?)");
declareParameter(new SqlParameter("id", Types.BIGINT));
declareParameter(new SqlParameter("first_name", Types.VARCHAR));
declareParameter(new SqlParameter("last_name", Types.VARCHAR));
compile();
}
}

Call this class using this example code:

Object[] params =
new Object[] {user.getId(), user.getFirstName(),
user.getLastName()};
new UserUpdate(getDataSource()).update(params);

Another, less verbose option is to use the update() method of JdbcTemplate:

getJdbcTemplate().update(
"UPDATE app_user SET first_name = ?, last_name = ? WHERE id = ?",
new Object[] {user.getFirstName(), user.getLastName(), user.getId()});

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Finally, you don't need to implement a full SqlUpdate class; simply declare one in-line within a method:

String sql = "INSERT INTO app_user (id, first_name, last_name) ";

sql += "values (?, ?, ?)";
SqlUpdate su = new SqlUpdate(getDataSource(), sql);
su.declareParameter(new SqlParameter("id", Types.BIGINT));
su.declareParameter(new SqlParameter("first_name", Types.VARCHAR));
su.declareParameter(new SqlParameter("last_name", Types.VARCHAR));
su.compile();

Object[] params = new Object[]

{user.getId(), user.getFirstName(), user.getLastName()};

su.update(params);

Retrieving Generated Primary Keys

JDBC 3.0, which is part of J2SE 1.4, specifies that a JDBC 3.0-compliant driver has to implement the
java.sql.Statement.getGeneratedKeys() method. This method is to retrieve generated keys from
databases (for example, calling select last_insert_id(); from MySQL). The MySQL driver in MyUsers
is JDBC 3.0-compliant.

To take advantage of retrieving generated keys with Spring JDBC, use a KeyHolder as a second parameter to
the SqlUpdate.update() method.

KeyHolder keys = new GeneratedKeyHolder();

su.update(params, keys);
user.setId(new Long(keys.getKey().longValue()));

For non-compliant JDBC Drivers, use the DataFieldMaxValueIncrementer strategy as described earlier.

Dependencies

Since Spring JDBC is part of Spring, it has no third-party dependencies like the other libraries. If you only want
to use the JDBC functionality of Spring, use spring-dao.jar (rather than the all-encompassing spring.jar) in your
application.

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Configuration

Spring JDBC has no mapping files or sql maps so it's simple to configure in the MyUsers application.

1. Create an applicationContext-jdbc.xml file in the web/WEB-INF directory and add a bean definition
for "dataSource". Be sure to rename the previous applicationContext-ibatis.xml to
applicationContext-ibatis.xml.txt.

NOTE
You may want to duplicate the iBATIS version of this file and remove the sqlMapClient bean.

<bean id="dataSource"
class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource">
<property name="driverClassName">
<value>com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</value>
</property>
<property name="url">
<value>jdbc:mysql://localhost/myusers</value>
</property>
<property name="username"><value>root</value></property>
<property name="password"><value></value></property>
</bean>

2. Add a transaction manager:

<bean id="transactionManager"
class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceTransactionManager">
<property name="dataSource"><ref bean="dataSource"/></property>
</bean>

3. Create a UserDAOJdbc.java class in src/org/appfuse/dao/jdbc. This file extends

JdbcDaoSupport and implements UserDAO.

package org.appfuse.dao.jdbc;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserDAOJdbc extends JdbcDaoSupport implements UserDAO {

public List getUsers() {

return new UsersQuery(getDataSource()).execute();
}

public User getUser(Long id) {

List users = new UserQuery(getDataSource())

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.execute(new Object[]{id});
if (users.isEmpty()) {
throw new ObjectRetrievalFailureException(User.class, id);
}
return (User) users.get(0);
}

public void saveUser(User user) {

if (user.getId() == null) {
String sql = "INSERT INTO app_user (id, first_name, ";
sql += " last_name) values (?, ?, ?)";
SqlUpdate su = new SqlUpdate(getDataSource(), sql);
su.declareParameter(new SqlParameter("id", Types.BIGINT));
su.declareParameter(new SqlParameter("first_name",
Types.VARCHAR));
su.declareParameter(new SqlParameter("last_name",
Types.VARCHAR));
su.compile();

Object[] params = new Object[]

{user.getId(), user.getFirstName(),
user.getLastName()};

KeyHolder keys = new GeneratedKeyHolder();

su.update(params, keys);
user.setId(new Long(keys.getKey().longValue()));

if (logger.isDebugEnabled()) {
logger.info("user's id is: " + user.getId());
}
} else {
getJdbcTemplate().update("UPDATE app_user SET first_name = ?,
last_name = ? WHERE id = ?",
new Object[] {user.getFirstName(), user.getLastName(),
user.getId()});
}
}

public void removeUser(Long id) {

getJdbcTemplate().update("DELETE FROM app_user WHERE id = ?",
new Object[] {id});
}

// Query to get a single User

class UserQuery extends MappingSqlQuery {
public UserQuery(DataSource ds) {
super(ds, "SELECT * FROM app_user WHERE id = ?");
super.declareParameter(new SqlParameter("id", Types.INTEGER));
compile();
}

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protected Object mapRow(ResultSet rs, int rowNum)

throws SQLException {
User user = new User();
user.setId(new Long(rs.getLong("id")));
user.setFirstName(rs.getString("first_name"));
user.setLastName(rs.getString("last_name"));
return user;
}
}

// Query to get a list of User objects

class UsersQuery extends MappingSqlQuery {
public UsersQuery(DataSource ds) {
super(ds, "SELECT * FROM app_user");
compile();
}
protected Object mapRow(ResultSet rs, int rowNum)
throws SQLException {
User user = new User();
user.setId(new Long(rs.getLong("id")));
user.setFirstName(rs.getString("first_name"));
user.setLastName(rs.getString("last_name"));
return user;
}
}
}

This class has a lot more lines of code than the previous two. However, it does not require any
configuration files. The UserQuery and UsersQuery classes are inner classes, but could just as
easily be refactored into their own .java files.

4. Add a userDAO bean to the applicationContext-jdbc.xml file in the web/WEB-INF directory.

Test It!

To ensure a clean database, drop and recreate the app_user table.

1. Login to MySQL by typing mysql -u root -p myusers from the command line.

2. Execute drop table app_user;.

3. Execute the following statement:

create table app_user (id bigint not null auto_increment,

first_name varchar(50), last_name varchar(50),
primary key (id));

4. Run ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO.

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Community and Support

Spring's JDBC framework is a clean abstraction on top of JDBC. It frees you from opening and closing resources
and works great for batch processing large amounts of data. Spring's reference documentation is a good resource
for learning more about it, and Spring's Data Access Support Forum is a great place to get your questions
answered.

Commercial support for Spring and its JDBC Framework is available through Interface21.

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JDO

JDO is a Java standard, which means it was developed as part of the Java Community Process. As a standard, it's
not an actual product, but a specification of how the product should be built. The goals of JDO are described best
in section 1.1 (Overview) of the JDO 2.0 specification.

"There are two major objectives of the JDO architecture: first, to provide application programmers a
transparent Java-centric view of persistent information, including enterprise data and locally stored
data; and second, to enable pluggable implementations of datastores into application servers."

This section covers how to use Spring to configure and use your JDO implementation, which may be from your
app server vendor, or from an open-source provider like JPOX or ObjectWeb's Speedo. These examples use
JPOX because it is the most popular open-source implementation.

NOTE
Spring's JDO support classes are located in the org.springframework.orm.jdo and
org.springframework.orm.jdo.support packages.

JDO and Primary Keys

JDO handles primary keys (also called object ids) very differently than other persistence options. This is because
it's designed for both object databases and relational databases. In most cases, you'll be working with a relational
database and will therefore want to use application identity. However, if you're prototyping an application, it
might be easier to use database identity and not worry about primary keys. Below is a list of the different identity
types in the JDO specification.

JDO Identity Types

Identity Type JDO-Controlled Schema Existing Schema

Datastore #1. Generates tables; adds a #2. Allows you to configure classes to map
primary key and defines its value to existing tables and define the primary key
column name
Application #3. Generates tables; allows you to #4. Maps to existing tables; allows you to
define classes for primary keys define classes for primary keys

The purpose of the datastore identity type is to let the JDO completely handle the primary key. For example, to
use the User object with type #1, remove the id field and its access method, as JDO does not use them. This
creates its own column (user_id) in the database and its own table (user). The assumption is that you don't
need to know the primary key in your action.

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With type #2, you can define a column name that matches the id property in User, but the database won't
populate it when you persist the object. In other words, it won't tell you what the generated primary key is.

If you want to know the primary key, you must use the application identity type. Using this option, you can still
have your tables generated for you (type #3), or you can use MetaData (which is really a mapping file similar to
Hibernate's) to specify a table name (type #4). To use application identity, you must specify a primary key class.
In MyUsers, the UserDAOTest's testSaveUser() method verifies that the primary key was assigned.

public void testSaveUser() throws Exception {

user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Rod");
user.setLastName("Johnson");

dao.saveUser(user);
assertTrue("primary key assigned", user.getId() != null);
log.info(user);
assertTrue(user.getFirstName() != null);
}

Because of this, the JDO implementation of UserDAO will use application identity.

Dependencies

This example uses JPOX version 1.1.0-alpha-2, which is an implementation of JDO 2.0. Below are the JARs
included in the MyUsers download as part of JPOX.

• bcel-5.1jar: Byte-Code Engineering Library enhances the classes with byte-code

• jpox-enhancer-1.1.0-alpha-2.jar: JPOX byte-code Enhancer enhances classes before running a

JDO-enabled application with JPOX

• jpox-1.1.0-alpha-2.jar: Core JPOX classes

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Configuration

JDO requires a little more setup than the other frameworks. You must add an extra step to the build process that
enhances your persistable objects. To avoid conflicts with the previous section on iBATIS, rename the
applicationContext-jdbc.xml file (in web/WEB-INF) to applicationContext-jdbc.xml.txt. This will prevent it from
being loaded.

NOTE
The JPOX implementation for this example is an alpha release of JDO 2.0. The 2.0 specification has an early draft
available and will soon have a community review. After that, you a lot more vendors will be implementing JDO 2.0
solutions. The enhancement step described here will likely be replaced by a byte-code enhancing solution like
cglib.

1. Open the build.xml file in MyUsers and add the following "enhance" target just before the "test"
target.

<target name="enhance" description="JPOX enhancement"

depends="compile">
<taskdef name="jpoxenhancer"
classname="org.jpox.enhancer.tools.EnhancerTask"
classpathref="classpath"/>

<jpoxenhancer dir="${build.dir}/classes" failonerror="true"

fork="true" verbose="true" check="true">
<classpath>
<path refid="classpath"/>
<path location="${build.dir}/classes"/>
<path location="web/WEB-INF/classes"/>
</classpath>
</jpoxenhancer>
</target>

Change the "test" and "deploy" targets to depend on "enhance".

<target name="test" depends="enhance"

description="Runs JUnit tests">
...
<target name="war" depends="enhance"
description="Packages app as WAR">

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2. Create a MetaData file to map the User object to the app_user table. In the org/appfuse/model
directory, create a file named package.jdo with the following contents:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE jdo PUBLIC
"-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Java Data Objects Metadata 2.0//EN"
"http://java.sun.com/dtd/jdo_2_0.dtd">
<jdo>
<package name="org.appfuse.model">
<class name="User" identity-type="application"
objectid-class="org.appfuse.model.PrimaryKey"
table="app_user">
<field name="id" primary-key="true"/>
<field name="firstName" persistence-modifier="persistent">
<column name="first_name" jdbc-type="VARCHAR" length="50"/>
</field>
<field name="lastName" persistence-modifier="persistent">
<column name="last_name" jdbc-type="VARCHAR" length="50"/>
</field>
<extension vendor-name="jpox" key="use-poid-generator"
value="true"/>
</class>
</package>
</jdo>

Most of the items in this class are self-explanatory. You can see where the table name, columns and
sizes are set, and how each field is defined as a column in the User class. Note that the package.jdo
file can hold metadata for all the classes in the org.appfuse.model package (defined by the
<package> element). You may also notice the following line towards the bottom:

<extension vendor-name="jpox" key="use-poid-generator" value="true"/>

This is an indicator to use a sequence table for generating primary keys. There are many ways to
control how primary keys are generated. For more information, please see JPOX's documentation.

NOTE
When JPOX has fully implemented JDO 2.0, this extension will likely be replaced.

3. In order to copy and package the package.jdo file with the war, modify the "compile" target in
build.xml to include *.jdo files:

<!-- Copy XML files to ${build.dir}/classes -->

<copy todir="${build.dir}/classes">
<fileset dir="${src.dir}" includes="**/*.xml"/>
<!-- Copy JDO mapping files -->
<fileset dir="${src.dir}" includes="**/*.jdo"/>
</copy>

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4. The <class> element of the package.jdo file has an objectid-class attribute. This specifies a
primary key class and is required with an application identity. Create a PrimaryKey.java class in
src/org/appfuse/model and populate it with the code below:

package org.appfuse.model;

// organize imports with your IDE

public class PrimaryKey extends BaseObject implements Serializable {

public Long id;

public PrimaryKey() {}

public PrimaryKey(String value) {

id = Long.valueOf(value);
}
}

A primary key class has many requirements as defined by the JDO spec. They are as follows:

• The class must have a public no-args constructor.

• The class must be serializable.

• The class must provide a String constructor to return an instance that is equal to an instance
returned by the toString() method.

• The class must implement equals(), hashCode() and toString() methods. In the previous
PrimaryKey class, this is handled via reflection in the BaseObject class.

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5. Run ant clean enhance to see the metadata enhance the org.appfuse.model.User class.

Figure 7.4: Results of the ant clean enhance test

6. Create an applicationContext-jdo.xml file (using applicationContext-empty.txt as a template) in web/

WEB-INF. Add the following "persistenceManagerFactory" bean definition that uses the
LocalPersistenceManagerFactoryBean.

<bean id="persistenceManagerFactory"

class="org.springframework.orm.jdo.LocalPersistenceManagerFactoryBean">
<property name="jdoProperties">
<props>
<prop key="javax.jdo.PersistenceManagerFactoryClass">
org.jpox.PersistenceManagerFactoryImpl
</prop>
<prop key="javax.jdo.option.ConnectionDriverName">
com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
</prop>
<prop key="javax.jdo.option.ConnectionUserName">root</prop>
<prop key="javax.jdo.option.ConnectionPassword"></prop>
<prop key="javax.jdo.option.ConnectionURL">
jdbc:mysql://localhost/myusers
</prop>
<prop key="org.jpox.autoCreateSchema">true</prop>
<prop key="org.jpox.validateTables">false</prop>
<prop key="javax.jdo.option.NontransactionalRead">

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true
</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>

7. Add a "transactionManager" bean definition that uses a JdoTransactionManager. This

binds a JDO PersistenceManager from the specified factory to the thread, potentially allowing
for one thread PersistenceManager per factory.

<bean id="transactionManager"
class="org.springframework.orm.jdo.JdoTransactionManager">
<property name="persistenceManagerFactory">
<ref bean="persistenceManagerFactory"/>
</property>
</bean>

8. Create a UserDAOJdo.java class in src/org/appfuse/dao/jdo (you must create this directory). This
class extends JdoDaoSupport and implements UserDAO.

package org.appfuse.dao.jdo;

// user your IDE to organize imports

public class UserDAOJdo extends JdoDaoSupport implements UserDAO {

public List getUsers() {

Collection users = getJdoTemplate().find(User.class);
users = getPersistenceManager().detachCopyAll(users);
return new ArrayList(users);
}

public User getUser(Long id) {

User user = (User) getJdoTemplate().getObjectById(User.class, id);
if (user == null) {
throw new ObjectRetrievalFailureException(User.class, id);
}
return (User) getPersistenceManager().detachCopy(user);
}

public void saveUser(User user) {

if (user.getId() == null) {
getJdoTemplate().makePersistent(user);
} else {
getPersistenceManager().attachCopy(user, true);
}
}

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public void removeUser(Long id) {

getJdoTemplate().deletePersistent(
getJdoTemplate().getObjectById(User.class, id));
}
}

9. Add a "userDAO" bean definition to applicationContext-jdo.xml.

<bean id="userDAO" class="org.appfuse.dao.jdo.UserDAOJdo">

<property name="persistenceManagerFactory">
<ref bean="persistenceManagerFactory"/>
</property>
</bean>

Test It!

Testing this class isn't as simple as previous examples. JDO requires a transaction for any write operations,
unless you specifically indicate that it doesn't need one. If you run ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO, you will
see a stack trace in your console complaining that a transaction isn't active.

Figure 7.5: Stack trace, result of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO test

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The JDO spec says you can turn this off using by setting javax.jdo.option.NontransactionalWrite to
true, but JPOX doesn't support this (yet). In reality, you do want the save operation to participate in a transaction.
If you don't have an active transaction, you must create a new one. That's why the userManager bean has a
PROPOGATION_REQUIRED transaction attribute on its save* methods.

In the normal course of the application, the save methods in the UserManager will participate in a transaction,
so the only issue is in the UserDAOTest. To prove the issue is with this class and not the UserDAOJdo, run ant
test -Dtestcase=UserManager.

The easiest way to fix this is to override the definition of userDAO and wrap it with declarative transactions.

1. Create a file named applicationContext-test.xml in test/org/appfuse/dao. Put the following XML into
this file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC "-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN"
"http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd">

<beans>
<!-- userDAO for testing UserDAOJdo -->
<bean id="userDAO"

class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionProxyFactor
yBean">
<property name="transactionManager">
<ref bean="transactionManager"/>
</property>
<property name="target">
<bean class="org.appfuse.dao.jdo.UserDAOJdo"
autowire="byName"/>
</property>
<property name="transactionAttributes">
<props>
<prop key="*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>
</beans>

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2. Change the setUp() method in UserDAOTest to load this file before grabbing the userDAO.

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

String[] paths =
{"/org/appfuse/dao/applicationContext-test.xml"};
ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(paths, ctx);
dao = (UserDAO) ctx.getBean("userDAO");
}

3. Improve the "compile" target in build.xml to copy this file into the test classpath.

<!-- Copy JDO mapping files -->

<fileset dir="${src.dir}" includes="**/*.jdo"/>
</copy>
<!-- Copy overriding test files -->
<copy todir="${test.dir}/classes">
<fileset dir="${test.src}" includes="**/*.xml"/>
</copy>
</target>

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4. Run ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO.

Figure 7.6: Successful build, result of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO test

Another approach to using transactions in your unit tests is available on the Spring Forums.

Caching

See JPOX's website for information on its caching support.

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Community and Support

JDO is a standard, so unlike the other persistence options, it's likely that many vendors will create JDO-
compliant products. Many good books on JDO are available. As you may have noticed from this short tutorial,
it's not as refined as the other options; it requires an enhancement step that the other frameworks don't. The JPOX
project has user forums, good documentation and seems to be one of the few that offers JDO 2.0 support.

Kodo JDO is a commercial implementation of JDO by SolarMetric. Along with their product, they offer
commercial support and training. They also have a sample app for download that uses Spring and Kodo JDO.

For the past year, there's been competition in the J2EE Community between the JDO 2 Expert Group and the EJB
3 Expert Group. Both groups are implementing persistence based on ORM, but neither wanted to cooperate with
the other. The EJB 3 group is basing much of its work on Hibernate, while JDO's Expert Group is simply trying
to improve its first standard to be friendlier for relational database.

In a surprising turn of events, it was recently announced that the EJB 3 and JDO 2 groups would begin
cooperating to define a new, unified POJO persistence model for Java in the J2EE 5.0 time frame. This will most
likely result in a new standard for O/R mapping. Then both groups will use this standard to define their
mappings.

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OJB

ObJectRelationalBride (OJB) is an Apache project that is most similar to Hibernate. In fact, its description is
quite similar: an O/R mapping tool that allows transparent persistence for Java Objects against relational
databases. Because of this similarity, this chapter doesn't describe how it works. You can find a complete feature
list on OJB's website.

This section explains how to configure and use OJB with Spring.

NOTE
Spring's OJB support classes are located in the org.springframework.orm.ojb and
org.springframework.orm.ojb.support packages.

Dependencies

This example uses OJB version 1.0.0. Below are the JARs included in the MyUsers download as part of OJB.

• commons-dbcp.jar and commons-pool.jar: Connection pool implementation

• db-ojb-1.0.0.jar: Core OJB classes

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Configuration

The first step to integrating OJB is to create a repository file that maps objects to tables.

1. Create a new file named repository.xml and put it the src/org/appfuse/model directory.

<descriptor-repository version="1.0">
<jdbc-connection-descriptor jcd-alias="dataSource"
default-connection="true" useAutoCommit="1" platform="MySQL">
<sequence-manager

className="org.apache.ojb.broker.util.sequence.SequenceManagerNativeImpl"
/>
</jdbc-connection-descriptor>

<class-descriptor class="org.appfuse.model.User" table="app_user">

<field-descriptor name="id" column="id" primarykey="true"
autoincrement="true" access="readonly"/>
<field-descriptor name="firstName" column="first_name"/>
<field-descriptor name="lastName" column="last_name"/>
</class-descriptor>
</descriptor-repository>

The first part of this file describes the JDBC connection information (<jdbc-connection-
descriptor>). The platform helps OJB figure out how it should retrieve primary keys, so it's
important that it match your database. The jcd-alias attribute points to a "dataSource" bean
that you need to define.

2. Create an applicationContext-ojb.xml file in the web/WEB-INF directory. While you're in that

directory, rename applicationContext-jdo.xml to applicationContext-jdo.xml.txt. Also change the
dependencies in build.xml so the "test" and "war" targets don't depend on "enhance". Add the
"dataSource" bean definition as seen below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC "-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN"
"http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd">

<beans>
<bean id="dataSource"
class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource">
<property name="driverClassName">
<value>com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</value>
</property>
<property name="url">
<value>jdbc:mysql://localhost/myusers</value>
</property>
<property name="username"><value>root</value></property>

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<property name="password"><value></value></property>
</bean>
</beans>

3. Add a "transactionManager" bean definition that uses a

PersistenceBrokerTransactionManager. This transaction manager is similar to the others; it
binds an OJB PersistenceBroker from the specified key to the thread.
PersistenceBrokerTemplate is aware of thread-bound persistence brokers and participates in
such transactions automatically.

<bean id="transactionManager"
class="org.springframework.orm.ojb.PersistenceBrokerTransaction
Manager"/>

4. Add an "ojbConfigurer" bean. LocalOjbConfigurer exposes Spring's BeanFactory to OJB

so it can use the Spring-managed DataSource.

<bean id="ojbConfigurer"
class="org.springframework.orm.ojb.support.LocalOjbConfigurer"/>

5. Configure OJB to recognize Spring's "dataSource" bean. Do this by overriding a few settings in
the default OJB.properties.

a. Download the default OJB.properties file and put it in web/WEB-INF/classes. Be sure it's named
OJB.properties.

b. Change repositoryFile to the following:

repositoryFile=org/appfuse/model/repository.xml

c. Change ConnectionFactoryClass to the following to allow a Spring-defined DataSource:

ConnectionFactoryClass=org.springframework.orm.ojb.support.LocalDataSo
urceConnectionFactory

d. Change ObjectCacheClass to use a first-level cache per broker:

ObjectCacheClass=org.apache.ojb.broker.cache.ObjectCachePerBrokerImpl

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6. Create a UserDAOOjb.java class in src/org/appfuse/dao/ojb (you must create this directory). This
class extends PersistenceBrokerDaoSupport and implements UserDAO.

package org.appfuse.dao.ojb;

// organize imports with your IDE

public class UserDAOOjb extends PersistenceBrokerDaoSupport implements

UserDAO {

public List getUsers() {

return new ArrayList(getPersistenceBrokerTemplate().
getCollectionByQuery(new QueryByCriteria(User.class)));
}

public User getUser(Long id) {

Criteria criteria = new Criteria();
criteria.addEqualTo("id", id);
User user = (User) getPersistenceBrokerTemplate()
.getObjectByQuery(new QueryByCriteria(User.class,
criteria));
if (user == null) {
throw new ObjectRetrievalFailureException(User.class, id);
}
return user;
}

public void saveUser(User user) {

getPersistenceBrokerTemplate().store(user);
}

public void removeUser(Long id) {

getPersistenceBrokerTemplate().delete(getUser(id));
}
}

7. Add this class as the "userDAO" in web/WEB-INF/applicationContext-ojb.xml:

<bean id="userDAO" class="org.appfuse.dao.ojb.UserDAOOjb"/>

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8. The app_user table created by JDO does not allow nulls in the id column. With OJB, it's easiest to
insert nulls for primary keys and retrieve the generated id back from the database. To do this, drop
and recreate the app_user table.

a. Login to MySQL by typing mysql -u root -p myusers from the command line.

b. Execute drop table app_user;.

c. Execute the following SQL statement:

create table app_user (id bigint not null auto_increment,

first_name varchar(50), last_name varchar(50),
primary key (id));

Test It!

Before you run the UserDAOTest, change its setUp() method so it doesn't override the userDAO you just
created. Below is a setUp() method that eliminates loading the transaction-wrapped DAO for JDO.

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

//String[] paths = {"/org/appfuse/dao/applicationContext-test.xml"};
//ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(paths, ctx);
dao = (UserDAO) ctx.getBean("userDAO");
}

You can also simply change the class attribute of the target bean in applicationContext-test.xml:

<property name="target">
<bean class="org.appfuse.dao.ojb.UserDAOOjb"/>
</property>

Run ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO. If you've used the first option (commenting out lines in setUp()),
you'll see this warning: "No running tx found." The second option will eliminate this warning.

Caching

See OJB's website for information on its caching support.

Community and Support

OJB 1.0 was released on June 30, 2004. It's an Apache project with a fair amount of real-world implementations.
For support, your best option is to use its mailing lists. The OJB Website also has excellent documentation.

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Summary

This chapter explored the different persistence options that Spring supports: Hibernate, iBATIS SQL Maps, its
own JDBC abstraction, JDO and OJB. You saw how Spring configures each one in the MyUsers application. It is
my opinion that Hibernate and iBATIS are the best tools to use for persistence.

Hibernate makes it easy to persist objects using simple mapping files, and you can even use XDoclet to generate
the mapping files for you. iBATIS is ideal if you have an existing, complicated schema or legacy database - or if
you simply prefer writing your own SQL.

This chapter has shown how powerful Spring is as a configuration tool and loose-coupling promoter. Of the five
persistence frameworks, you only had to change the UserDAOTest for one. Not only does Spring promote good
design, it makes good design a lot easier to use.

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 Chapter
8

Testing Spring Applications

How Spring Makes Testing Easier

This chapter explains how to use test-driven development to create high-quality, well-tested, Spring-based
applications. You will learn how to test your components using tools like EasyMock, jMock and DBUnit. For the
Controllers, you will learn how to use Cactus for in-container testing, and Spring Mocks for out-of-container
testing. Lastly, you will learn how to use jWebUnit and Canoo's WebTest for testing the web interface.

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Overview

Using test-driven development is the best way to produce high-quality code. Not only do you think about how
your application is supposed to work as you're writing the test (from your user's APIs perspective), but you
actually design the contracts that your application is supposed to fulfill. If your tests don't pass as you expect,
then you have a problem with either your test or your implementation. If your tests do as expected in that
contract, you must modify your implementation to produce that expectation.

Test-first development is where developers write tests and ensure they fail
before proceeding. They continue to take baby steps to get the test to pass/
fail as they develop. The diagrama on the left illustrates this technique.

While test-driven and test-first techniques are similar, the most important
aspect is that the process of writing tests forces you to consider how your
classes behave. Test-first advocates a more rigorous system of small steps.

In this chapter, you will learn how to use testing technologies to develop
Spring applications faster and more efficiently. By employing test-first
development, you can virtually eliminate the trial-and-error procedures
that are common with developing browser-based applications. You can
also gain confidence in your code and add regular automation to ensure
that no one "broke the build."

Developing software that you can test easily is a very liberating

experience because it allows you to find out quickly whether something
worked.

Figure 8.1: Model of test-first

development

a. This diagram is based on one in Scott W. Ambler's Test Driven Development essay.

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Spring makes it easy to write testable software. Its IoC Container gives you the freedom to set dependencies on
classes any way you like. You can load Spring's ApplicationContext in your test and use your beans like
your application does, or you can set a bean's dependencies using mock objects. This chapter explores both
techniques and shows you how to use tools like EasyMock and jMock to create mock versions of your classes
on-the-fly. You will also see how to use DbUnit to load data in a database before testing.

NOTE
A mock object is a fake and simplistic version of a real object. For instance, you can use mocks to imitate the
Servlet API so you can run tests outside of a servlet container.

For testing the Controllers in your application, you will learn how to use StrutsTestCase, Spring Mocks and
Cactus. For testing the view layer, you will learn how to use jWebUnit and Canoo WebTest.

NOTE
A future chapter will cover Anthill, CruiseControl and DamageControl. These automated testing systems are
essential for maintaining a high-quality code base.

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JUnit

JUnit has quickly become the de facto standard for TDD in Java. It's an easy framework to use and most modern
IDEs support it. If you don't use an IDE, you probably use Ant, which is also easy to use with a <junit> task. In
this chapter, you will use JUnit to write most of your tests. If you're not using JUnit directly, you'll be using an
extension. For example, DbUnit, Cactus and StrutsTestCase are all JUnit extensions.

A basic JUnit test simply contains a testXXX() method, where XXX is a descriptive name of what the test
does. It's important to use a name that describes the test accurately. For example, if you have an object that allows
results to be filtered, testGetUsersWithNoFiltering() is better than the more generic testGetUsers().
Below is an example that demonstrates a simple JUnit test:

package org.appfuse.dao;

import junit.framework.TestCase;

import org.appfuse.model.User;

public class SimpleTest extends TestCase {

public void testGetFullName() {

User user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Jack");
user.setLastName("Raible");
assertEquals(user.getLastName(), "Jack Raible");
}
}

Running this test results in a failure because you're getting the last name, rather than the full name. Running your
tests with failures first is important to make sure they meet your expectations. Changing assertEquals() to
the following will yield a passing test:

assertEquals(user.getFullName(), "Jack Raible");

Optional methods to implement in a JUnit Test include setUp(), tearDown() and main(String[]). Using
setUp() and tearDown() are useful for creating a testing environment, then tearing down that environment
before running the next test. These methods are called before and after each testXXX() method. If you have
test-wide setup procedures, you should implement those in a static initialization block or use JUnit's TestSetup
class.

It is necessary to implement the main(String[]) to run a JUnit test from the command line using the java
command. However, with modern IDE and Ant support, you may never need to implement this method. To prove
it, remove the main(String[]) from the UserDAOTest in MyUsers; your tests will continue to run.

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In the Java Community, using TDD has increasingly become the norm, especially among open-source
developers. The projects with a rich test suite typically gain more credibility from other developers. However,
there is a philosophical difference of how one should do test-driven development. Many advocate the use of
Mock Objects, or mocks, while others think integration testing is good enough.

This chapter often refers to unit tests. You may not agree that it's a unit test, but rather an integration test. J. B.
Rainsberger said it best in JUnit Recipes:

"The testing that programmers do is generally called unit testing, but we prefer not to use this term. It
is overloaded and overused, and it causes more confusion than it provides clarity. As a community,
we cannot agree on what a unit is - is it a method, a class, or a code path? If we cannot agree on what
unit means, then there is little chance we will agree on what unit testing means."

This chapter shows you two types of testing: mock testing and integration testing. Let's take a brief look at the
philosophies behind them.

Mock Testing

Mock testing is the process of isolating your test case to test a single unit of work, most often a class. Using
mocks, you can test your class in isolation, without reliance on any of its dependencies. In the instance of a
business façade (or Manager), you would mock its dependent DAO. This allows you to test the business façade
for its specific functionality, not including the DAO's functionality.

A mock is typically a stub (a minimal test-only class you write yourself) or a dynamic mock. Dynamic mocks are
a slick way of setting expectations on a class or interface. With dynamic mocks, you can create an instance of
your class on-the-fly and write code to set expected behavior. The general rule for using mocks is "only mock
types that you can change," or "only mock APIs that are yours."

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Integration Testing

Integration testing is the process of testing your classes in their normal environment with all of their
dependencies intact. The main disadvantages of integration testing are speed and non-isolated tests. For example,
for a business façade test that depends on its real DAO, you must establish a database connection to retrieve
actual data. By coding and running non-isolated tests, you're writing tests that depend on your environment,
which really has nothing to do with your test.

There is a place for both types of tests. Dynamic mocks are great for team development, where different
developers are responsible for different layers. For instance, if developer Bruce is responsible for the DAO layer
and developer James is responsible for the business logic layer, they have no reason to be dependent on each
other's implementations. Bruce can provide James with interfaces and James can create mocks of these in order
to test his code in isolation. Then it doesn't matter if Bruce takes longer to deliver his DAO implementation.

If you're working on a small team or alone, integration tests will probably suffice. Of course, this means you will
have to develop your application in a specific order, where dependencies are coded first so implementations that
depend on them can run properly.

In my opinion, a properly designed application has integration tests in the database layer, mock tests in the
business and web layers and integration tests in the UI. Of course, this all depends on how complicated each
layer is. For the database layer, it's important to test that its interaction with your underlying datastore works.
There's no reason to mock the database connection or Spring-supplied Template. These are framework-level
components and shouldn't be a concern of your application. Once your DAOs return the expected results, it's
pointless to verify this again in the business layer. Therefore, you can mock the DAOs in the business (or service)
layer and concentrate on testing your business logic.

In the web tier, particularly with MVC Controllers (regardless of web framework), it's helpful to mock a J2EE
container environment. Mocks can impersonate requests, responses and other servlet-related classes, allowing
you to run your tests out-of-container, which is often much faster. Using real business objects vs. mocks in your
Controller tests is a matter of taste at that point. Testing them in isolation is usually a good idea, since the
important functionality in Controllers is controlling which views are returned for specific inputs.

The UI layer is the best place to test the full stack of integrated functionality. Testing the UI layer involves
shadowing the actions a user would take when using your application: clicking links, entering data, clicking
buttons, etc. These tests don't talk to your classes directly, but perform browser actions. They typically pull
HTML from a URL, parse it and submit request parameters based on your test code. The frameworks for UI
testing make this very simple so you can write one-liners to submit forms, enter data and verify page titles or
text.

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Now that you understand the different strategies of testing, let's look at some specific examples in the context of
the MyUsers application. In this chapter, like previous ones, you can follow along and do the examples as you
go. The easiest way to do this is to download the MyUsers Chapter 8 bundle from http://sourcebeat.com/
downloads. This project tree is the result of Chapter 7 exercises. It also contains all the JARs you will need in
this chapter in its web/WEB-INF/lib directory. You can also use the application you've been developing in
previous chapters. If you go this route, download Chapter 8 JARs from http://sourcebeat.com/downloads. Each
section notes new JARs you might need, so you can use this chapter as a reference for integrating these principles
into your own applications.

In Chapter 7, you integrated a number of persistence strategies. If you completed all the exercises in the chapter,
your MyUsers application should be using OJB, since that was the last strategy explored. If you'd like to change
your application to use a different framework, follow the specific section for that framework in Chapter 7. Below
are a few things to remember if you decide to switch from OJB to something else:

• JDO requires modifications to build.xml so "enhance" is called by the "test" and "war"
targets. You may also have to change UserDAOTest so it loads applicationContext-test.xml.

• You may need to drop the app_user table and recreate it (see the instructions for each DAO
type).

If you have issues with switching DAOs, feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] or enter an issue in the
Spring Live Issue Tracker provided by Atlassian.

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Testing the Database Layer

As mentioned earlier, it's best to test your DAOs directly against your database. This ensures that your
persistence framework works as you want. Testing a database layer involves retrieving, adding, updating and
removing data using your application-specific classes. To review the UserDAOTest you created in Chapter 2:

package org.appfuse.dao;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserDAOTest extends BaseDAOTestCase {

private User user = null;

private UserDAO dao = null;

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

dao = (UserDAO) ctx.getBean("userDAO");
}

protected void tearDown() throws Exception {

dao = null;
}

public void testGetUsers() {

// add a record to the database so we have something to work with
user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Rod");
user.setLastName("Johnson");
dao.saveUser(user);

List users = dao.getUsers();

assertTrue(users.size() >= 1);
assertTrue(users.contains(user));
}

public void testSaveUser() throws Exception {

user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Rod");
user.setLastName("Johnson");

dao.saveUser(user);
assertTrue("primary key assigned", user.getId() != null);
log.info(user);
assertTrue(user.getFirstName() != null);
}

public void testAddAndRemoveUser() throws Exception {

user = new User();

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user.setFirstName("Bill");
user.setLastName("Joy");

dao.saveUser(user);

assertTrue(user.getId() != null);
assertTrue(user.getFirstName().equals("Bill"));

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("removing user...");
}

dao.removeUser(user.getId());

try {
user = dao.getUser(user.getId());
fail("User found in database");
} catch (DataAccessException dae) {
log.debug("Expected exception: " + dae.getMessage());
assertTrue(dae != null);
}
}
}

This class is an integration test because it depends on Spring's ApplicationContext to retrieve the UserDAO
implementation class, with all its dependencies set. The ApplicationContext is initialized using
ClassPathXmlApplicationContext in the BaseDAOTestCase (which this class extends).

protected ApplicationContext ctx = null;

public BaseDAOTestCase() {
String[] paths = { "/WEB-INF/applicationContext*.xml" };
ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(paths);
}

In addition to the ClassPathXmlApplicationContext, a FileSystemXmlApplicationContext exists.

Both of these classes allow the Ant-style syntax (*.xml) to load any resources that match the specified pattern. If
you'd rather load context files using that class, you could refactor the above code to the following:

public BaseDAOTestCase() {
String[] paths = { "web/WEB-INF/applicationContext*.xml" };
ctx = new FileSystemXmlApplicationContext(paths);
}

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TIP
It is possible to store your bean definitions in .properties files, too. Read more about
PropertiesBeanDefinitionReader.

The advantage of using ClassPathXmlApplicationContext is your files don't have to be in a precise

location; they just have to be in your classpath. The reason I'm using /WEB-INF/applicationContext*.xml instead
of /applicationContext*.xml is because the first is in my classpath and the second isn't. The classpath is set in
both the Eclipse .classpath file and the Ant build file.

The Eclipse setting in the .classpath file is listed below:

<classpathentry excluding="WEB-INF/classes/" kind="src" path="web"/>

The Ant setting in "test" target is listed below:

<classpath>
<path refid="classpath"/>
<path location="${build.dir}/classes"/>
<path location="${test.dir}/classes"/>
<path location="web/WEB-INF/classes"/>
<path location="web"/>
</classpath>

Using /WEB-INF/applicationContext*.xml is also helpful because action-servlet.xml refers to validator resource

files using this path, requiring the web folder to be in the classpath when testing classes use that file. When you
refactor your Controller tests to be self-contained unit tests, you will no longer need to load the context, freeing
you to change this path.

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DbUnit

DbUnit is a testing framework useful for putting a database in a known state before running tests. DbUnit has a
single JAR that you need in your classpath: dbunit-2.1.jar. This is included in the MyUsers download and
Chapter 8 JARs download. You can also download it from SourceForge.

In the UserDAOTest, a record is added in the testGetUsers() method. Refactor this class to use DbUnit to
load a record before running the test. You must first create some sample data with which to populate the
database. A number of datasets are available to use with DbUnit, but the easiest is the XmlDataSet.

TIP
To export data from an existing database, use DbUnit's Ant tasks.

1. Create a sample-data.xml file in test/data (you must create this directory). Populate it with the
following XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<dataset>
<table name='app_user'>
<column>id</column>
<column>first_name</column>
<column>last_name</column>
<row>
<value>1</value>
<value>Rod</value>
<value>Johnson</value>
</row>
</table>
</dataset>

2. With DbUnit, you can extend its DatabaseTestCase or use your own TestCase. It's easier to use
your own TestCase than to change the parent class. Add the following two variables as member
variables of the BaseDAOTestCase class:

private IDatabaseConnection conn = null;

private IDataSet dataSet = null;

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3. Create a setUp() method to clear out the database for any tables specified in the sample-data.xml
file.

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

DataSource ds = (DataSource) ctx.getBean("dataSource");
conn = new DatabaseConnection(ds.getConnection());
dataSet = new XmlDataSet(new FileInputStream(
"test/data/sample-data.xml"));
// clear table and insert only sample data
DatabaseOperation.CLEAN_INSERT.execute(conn, dataSet);
}

4. Add logic in the tearDown() method to close the connection and delete any added data.

protected void tearDown() throws Exception {

// clear out database
DatabaseOperation.DELETE.execute(conn, dataSet);
conn.close();
conn = null;
}

5. Alter UserDAOTest so the setUp() and tearDown() methods call super.setUp() and
super.tearDown().

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

super.setUp();
dao = (UserDAO) ctx.getBean("userDAO");
}

protected void tearDown() throws Exception {

super.tearDown();
dao = null;
}

NOTE
If you'd prefer not to explicitly grab beans from the context, use Dependency Injection in your unit tests. Explicitly
grabbing your beans allows you to use whatever naming convention you like for the variables. In Spring 1.1.1, an
AbstractDependencyInjectionSpringContextTests class was added for dependency injection in your
tests.

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6. Change the getUsers() method to verify only one record is in the database, and it's the one DbUnit
entered.

public void testGetUsers() {

List users = dao.getUsers();
assertTrue(users.size() == 1);
User user = (User) users.get(0);
assertEquals(user.getFullName(), "Rod Johnson");
}

Running ant -Dtestcase=UserDAO should yield "BUILD SUCCESSFUL," and the app_user table should
be empty in the database. In performance comparisons, this test takes a mere 0.21 seconds longer than the
previous one (0.056 vs. 0.77).

Ant is another way to use DbUnit in your application. You can configure a target that loads the database before
running your tests. AppFuse uses this strategy; see its build.xml file and the db-load target for an example. This
is useful because you can run a block of tests with pre-defined data, rather than reloading the data for each test.
The advantage of using this strategy is your suite of tests will run faster since the database isn't reset before each
test is run. An advantage of using DbUnit directly in your classes is you can run your tests in an IDE without any
Ant dependencies.

Database Switching

Using Spring to configure your database connection makes it easy to swap the database with which you test your
code. For example, you could use an HSQL database for unit tests, and switch to a DB2 database for production.
In most cases, it's a good idea to test against your production database, but if your developers use PowerBooks,
DB2 doesn't have an install for OS X.

One way to configure database switching is to use two properties files. Most of Spring's sample applications (in
CVS/samples) use this strategy. By defining a "propertyConfigurer" bean (with class
PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer), you can configure your "dataSource" bean's properties with ant-
style placeholders: ${...}. This allows you to refer to test settings and production settings. It also allows you to
share your database configuration between your Spring config files and your build.xml file. To configure a
properties file with your database settings in MyUsers, complete the following steps:

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1. Modify your current DAO strategy's XML file. This should be applicationContext-ojb.xml. Replace
the "dataSource" bean's property values with Ant-style properties:

<bean id="dataSource"
class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource">
<property name="driverClassName">
<value>${jdbc.driverClassName}</value>
</property>
<property name="url"><value>${jdbc.url}</value></property>
<property name="username">
<value>${jdbc.username}</value>
</property>
<property name="password">
<value>${jdbc.password}</value>
</property>
</bean>

2. Create a jdbc.properties file in the web/WEB-INF/classes directory:

jdbc.driverClassName=com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
jdbc.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost/myusers
jdbc.username=root
jdbc.password=

3. Add a PropertyPlaceHolderConfigurer bean to web/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml. The

commented out section at the bottom of this definition shows you how to use a single "location"
property as an alternative to the "locations" property.

<bean id="propertyConfigurer"
class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholder
Configurer">
<property name="location">
<value>classpath:jdbc.properties</value>
</property>
</bean>

To specify multiple properties files for loading, use the "locations" property instead of
"location".

<property name="locations">
<list>
<value>classpath:jdbc.properties</value>
</list>
</property>

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4. To expose jdbc.properties to build.xml, add it as a properties file at the top of build.xml:

<property file="build.properties"/>
<property file="web/WEB-INF/classes/jdbc.properties"/>

5. Change the "populate" target's <sql> task to use the following:

<sql driver="${jdbc.driverClassName}" url="${jdbc.url}"

userid="${jdbc.username}" password="${jdbc.password}">

NOTE
Another strategy (used in AppFuse) is to use a manually configured DataSource when testing and a JNDI
DataSource when in production.

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Overriding Beans for Tests

If you have DAOs with methods that require transactions to be wrapped around them, you can define beans
specifically for unit tests. This was done in Chapter 7 for the JDO DAO because JDO requires that any
makePersistent() calls are inside a transaction. Using Spring's declarative transactions in your test is much
easier than using Transactions. If you're still using the OJB DAO, you may have received several warning
messages about no running transaction.

Figure 9.1: Warning messages when running the OJB DAO

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To fix this, create a bean definition just for testing, and override the regular userDAO by loading this definition
in UserDAOTest.

1. In test/org/appfuse/dao, create an applicationContext-test.xml file with a transaction-wrapped

"userDAO" bean:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC "-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN"
"http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd">

<beans>
<!-- userDAO for testing UserDAOJdo -->
<bean id="userDAO"
class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionProxy
FactoryBean">
<property name="transactionManager"><ref
bean="transactionManager"/></property>
<property name="target">
<bean class="org.appfuse.dao.ojb.UserDAOOjb" autowire="byName"/
>
</property>
<property name="transactionAttributes">
<props>
<prop key="*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED</prop>
</props>
</property>
</bean>
</beans>

2. Refactor the setUp() method of UserDAOTest to load this file before each test.

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

super.setUp();
String[] paths =
{"/org/appfuse/dao/applicationContext-test.xml"};
ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(paths, ctx);
dao = (UserDAO) ctx.getBean("userDAO");
}

3. Now the UserDAOTest should run (ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO) without the transactions
warning.

NOTE
You won't use this test configuration in the UserManagerTest since the "userManager" bean is already
wrapped in transactions.

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Use JNDI DataSource in Tests

As mentioned previously, you can define two different "dataSource" beans for testing and production. The
production bean will likely be a DataSource that's looked up via JNDI. An example definition is below:

<bean id="dataSource"
class="org.springframework.jndi.JndiObjectFactoryBean">
<property name="jndiName">
<value>java:comp/env/jdbc/myusers</value>
</property>
</bean>

To use this bean in your tests, use Spring's JNDI mocks to bind this to a simple JNDI implementation.

try {
SimpleNamingContextBuilder builder =
SimpleNamingContextBuilder.emptyActivatedContextBuilder();

DriverManagerDataSource ds = new DriverManagerDataSource();

ds.setDriverClassName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
ds.setUrl("jdbc:mysql://localhost/myusers");
ds.setUsername("root");
ds.setPassword("");
builder.bind("java:comp/env/jdbc/myusers", ds);
} catch (NamingException ne) {
// do nothing, test will fail on its own
}

To try this, put the JNDI DataSource in applicationContext-test.xml and add the context build code (above) to the
beginning of the static initialization block in BaseDAOTestCase.java. For the DriverManagerDataSource's
properties above, you could also use a ResourceBundle to pull the information from jdbc.properties.

To use a JNDI DataSource in Tomcat, replace the "dataSource" bean in your DAO context file with the JNDI
one configured in your container appropriately. Below are instructions for Tomcat 5.x:

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1. Create a myusers.xml file in $CATALINA_HOME/conf/Catalina/localhost and populate it with the

XML below:

<Context path="/myusers" docBase="myusers" debug="0" reloadable="true">

<Resource name="jdbc/myusers" auth="Container"
type="javax.sql.DataSource"/>
<ResourceParams name="jdbc/myusers">
<parameter>
<name>factory</name>
<value>org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSourceFactory</value>
</parameter>
<parameter><name>maxActive</name><value>30</value></parameter>
<parameter><name>maxIdle</name><value>5</value></parameter>
<parameter><name>maxWait</name><value>5000</value></parameter>
<parameter><name>username</name><value>root</value></parameter>
<parameter><name>password</name><value></value></parameter>
<parameter>
<name>driverClassName</name>
<value>com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>defaultAutoCommit</name>
<value>true</value>
</parameter>
<parameter>
<name>url</name>
<value>jdbc:mysql://localhost/myusers</value>
</parameter>
</ResourceParams>
</Context>

2. Copy the MySQL JDBC Driver (mysql-connector-java-3.0.14-production-bin.jar) from web/WEB-

INF/lib to $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib.

3. Add the following XML fragment to the bottom of web/WEB-INF/web.xml.

<resource-ref>
<description>Connection Pool</description>
<res-ref-name>jdbc/myusers</res-ref-name>
<res-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-type>
<res-auth>Container</res-auth>
</resource-ref>

Now if you run ant deploy and stop/start Tomcat, everything should work as before.

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Load Context Once

To speed up your unit tests, especially the ones that load an ApplicationContext, alter your tests so the
context is only loaded once for the entire test. In the previous examples, the context is loaded by setUp() before
running each testXXX() method. You can do this using one of two ways:

• Use JUnit's TestSetup class to configure once-per-test methods.

• Use a static initialization block in your test to initialize resources once.

To use either of these methods, you must first change some variables to be static.

1. Change BaseDAOTest so its ctx variable is static:

protected static ApplicationContext ctx = null;

2. Change UserDAOTest so the dao variable is static:

private static UserDAO dao = null;

3. The second static initialization block is easier to implement; simply add the following block to the
beginning of BaseDAOTestCase.

static {
String[] paths = {"/WEB-INF/applicationContext*.xml",
"/org/appfuse/dao/applicationContext-test.xml"};
ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(paths);
}

4. Remove the block to load the test context in the UserDAOTest.setUp() method.

public void setUp() throws Exception {

super.setUp();
String[] paths =
{"/org/appfuse/dao/applicationContext-test.xml"};
ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(paths, ctx);
dao = (UserDAO) ctx.getBean("userDAO");
}

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Now running ant test -Dtestcase=UserDAO should be a bit faster. Right now, the difference is negligible,
but it will greatly improve as your context files grow in size.

While using TestSetup is easy, I've chosen not to include it in this chapter. Using a static initialization block
works great and it's significantly faster than TestSetup. Using TestSetup vs. static initialization blocks is a
matter of personal preference. Other alternatives are available, such as Cedric Beust's TestNG framework. For
more information on TestSetup, and how JUnit initializes objects for each test, see Martin Fowler's website.

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Testing the Service Layer

In the last section, you learned how to test your DAO implementations against a database. This is important for
your database layer to verify that what you put into the database is the same thing that comes out of it. However,
once you have your DAOs tested and verified, you don't have much reason to use them in your service layer
tests.

A nice feature of Spring is that it not only promotes interface-based design, but it doesn't put any restrictions on
how you write your unit tests. As the last section demonstrates, you can easily load you context files in your tests
and interact with your beans just as you would in a production environment. This is an important concept that is
often overlooked. Many folks get caught up in mocking everything, which is great for test isolation, but it ignores
testing how the application's layers interact with each other.

You should always try to use integration tests first (load the context in your test and operate on your beans
accordingly). This is because it's easy to set up and it tests your real code, not a fake object. However, this
approach breaks down in two areas:

• You're working on a team and each developer is responsible for different layers. You don't want to
wait for an implementation before writing tests for a parent layer.

• Your application context files grow so large that it takes several seconds to load them.

To work around these issues, use mocks to simulate dependencies of your class.

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Using Mocks for DAO Objects

This section refactors the UserManagerTest to use mocks for the UserDAO. There are two types of mocks:
stubs, which you create yourself, and dynamic mocks, which allow you to implement classes on-the-fly. In the
process of creating dynamic mocks, the developer is responsible for setting expected results when methods are
called. Dynamic mocks are typically easier to use and don’t litter your source tree with a second set of classes to
maintain.

EasyMock

EasyMock is a project that provides mocks for interfaces in JUnit tests by generating them on-the-fly using
Java's proxy mechanism. A class extension is also available to mock implementation classes. To use EasyMock
in a test, perform the following steps:

1. Create a MockControl for the interface you would like to simulate.

2. Get the mock from the MockControl.

3. Specify the behavior of the mock (record state).

4. Activate the mock with the control (replay state).

5. Execute the methods you want to test.

6. Verify that the methods were called as expected.

The code below illustrates these setups:

private UserManager mgr = new UserManagerImpl();

private MockControl control;
private UserDAO mockDAO;
protected void setUp() throws Exception {
// Create a MockControl
control = MockControl.createControl(UserDAO.class);
// Get the mock
mockDAO = (UserDAO) control.getMock();

// Set required dependencies

mgr.setValidator(new UserValidator());
mgr.setUserDAO(mockDAO);
}

protected void testGetUser() {

// Set expected behavior
mockDAO.removeUser(new Long(1));

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control.setVoidCallable();

// Active the mock

control.replay();

// Execute method to test

mgr.removeUser("1");

// Verify methods called

control.verify();
}

This code never uses an implementation of the UserDAO. Rather, a mock is created from its interface and a
dynamic implementation is created using EasyMock.

In the MyUsers application, the UserManagerTest integration test already exists for the middle tier. This class
loads applicationContext.xml files and uses the beans as you would normally in your application. Refactoring
this class to use EasyMock is easy and will run much faster in the long run. You might as well keep your original
UserManagerTest around, since it will continue to serve as a nice integration test.

Create a new class named UserManagerEMTest in test/org/appfuse/service. This class does not contain any
Spring dependencies in this example and has the same basic functionality as UserManagerTest. The main
difference is this class is isolated (thanks to mocks) and will run very quickly. It has the following code:

package org.appfuse.service;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserManagerEMTest extends TestCase {

private static Log log =
LogFactory.getLog(UserManagerEMTest.class);
private UserManager mgr = new UserManagerImpl();
private MockControl control;
private UserDAO mockDAO;

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

control = MockControl.createControl(UserDAO.class);
mockDAO = (UserDAO) control.getMock();
mgr.setValidator(new UserValidator());
mgr.setUserDAO(mockDAO);
}

public void testAddAndRemoveUser() throws Exception {

User user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Easter");
user.setLastName("Bunny");

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// set expected behavior on dao

mockDAO.saveUser(user);
control.setVoidCallable();

// switch from record to playback

control.replay();

user = mgr.saveUser(user);
assertEquals(user.getFullName(), "Easter Bunny");
control.verify();

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("removing user...");
}

// set userId since Hibernate doesn't do it

String userId = "1";
user.setId(new Long(userId));

// reset to record state

control.reset();
mockDAO.removeUser(new Long(1));
control.setVoidCallable();
control.replay();

mgr.removeUser(userId);

control.verify();

try {
// reset to record state
control.reset();
control.expectAndThrow(mockDAO.getUser(user.getId()),
new ObjectRetrievalFailureException(
User.class, user.getId()));
// switch to playback
control.replay();

user = mgr.getUser(userId);

control.verify();
fail("User '" + userId + "' found in database");
} catch (DataAccessException dae) {
log.debug("Expected exception: " + dae.getMessage());
assertNotNull(dae);
}
}
}

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Run this test using ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerEM. The speed difference is substantial between this
test and UserManagerTest. In my meager tests, the UserManagerEM is 0.172 seconds, while the
UserManagerTest is 1.59 seconds.

jMock

jMock is another open-source project that produces dynamic mocks. jMock has a slightly different approach to
mocking than EasyMock. It requires you to subclass MockObjectTestCase. This class performs method
invocation verification and provides the syntactic sugar that makes jMock tests easy to read. To use jMock in a
test, perform the following steps:

1. Create a Mock for the interface you would like to simulate.

2. Set expected behavior on the mock.

3. Execute methods you want to test.

4. Verify expectations.

The code below is a simple example of the above steps:

private UserManager mgr = new UserManagerImpl();

private Mock mockDAO;

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

// Create a Mock
mockDAO = new Mock(UserDAO.class);

// Set dependencies
mgr.setValidator(new UserValidator());
mgr.setUserDAO((UserDAO) mockDAO.proxy());
}

protected void testGetUser() {

// Set expected behavior
mockDAO.expects(once()).method("getUser")
.with( eq(new Long(1)));

// Execute method to test

mgr.removeUser("1");

// Verify expectations
mockDAO.verify();
}

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jMock's syntax is a bit cleaner, but its expectations syntax is more complicated. A nice feature of jMock is the
ability to write custom stubs to simulate side-effects of calling methods. For instance, in the
UserDAOHibernate.saveUser(), the User object is assigned an id by Hibernate (if one doesn't exist).

To mimic this same functionality when mocking UserDAO, create an AssignIdStub class in test/org/appfuse/
service. The code for this class contains logic that merely sets a random Long as the id on the User object.

package org.appfuse.service;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class AssignIdStub implements Stub {

public StringBuffer describeTo(StringBuffer buffer) {

return buffer.append("assigns random id to an object");
}

public Object invoke(Invocation invocation) throws Throwable {

Long id = new Long(new Random().nextInt(10));
((User) invocation.parameterValues.get(0)).setId(id);

return null;
}
}

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Create a UserManagerJMTest class in this same directory.

package org.appfuse.service;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserManagerJMTest extends MockObjectTestCase {

private static Log log =
LogFactory.getLog(UserManagerJMTest.class);
private UserManager mgr = new UserManagerImpl();
private Mock mockDAO;

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

mockDAO = new Mock(UserDAO.class);
mgr.setValidator(new UserValidator());
mgr.setUserDAO((UserDAO) mockDAO.proxy());
}

public void testAddAndRemoveUser() throws Exception {

User user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Easter");
user.setLastName("Bunny");

// set expected behavior on dao

mockDAO.expects(once()).method("saveUser")
.with( same(user) ).will(assignId());

user = mgr.saveUser(user);

// verify expectations
mockDAO.verify();

assertEquals(user.getFullName(), "Easter Bunny");

assertTrue(user.getId() != null);

if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("removing user...");
}

String userId = user.getId().toString();

mockDAO.expects(once()).method("removeUser")
.with( eq(new Long(userId)) );

mgr.removeUser(userId);

// verify expectations
mockDAO.verify();

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try {
// set expectations
Throwable ex =
new ObjectRetrievalFailureException(
User.class, user.getId());

mockDAO.expects(once()).method("getUser")
.with( eq(new Long(userId)))
.will(throwException(ex));

user = mgr.getUser(userId);

// verify expectations
mockDAO.verify();
fail("User '" + userId + "' found in database");
} catch (DataAccessException dae) {
log.debug("Expected exception: " + dae.getMessage());
assertNotNull(dae);
}
}

private Stub assignId() {

return new AssignIdStub();
}
}

Run this test with ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerJM. The test should run as fast as the EasyMock test,
and its output should resemble the following screenshot.

Figure 8.3: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerJM test

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This section has shown you how to do true unit tests on your business façades and how using Mocks in your
testing strategy can greatly reduce the amount of time for tests to run.

In these tests, the UserManagerImpl class was instantiated with its default constructor, and a mock object
simulated its interactions with the UserDAO. Spring was not in any of the mock tests, proving that it's non-
evasive. Spring's JavaBeans philosophy for setter-based dependency injection made it easy to set whatever
dependencies you wanted.

If you'd like to learn more about the differences between jMock and EasyMock, the jMock website has a detailed
comparison. In my experience, jMock is more flexible, but its API can be a bit difficult to understand. Since it
requires you extend its MockObjectTestCase, you cannot always use it. jMock has a much more active
mailing list, but EasyMock enjoys the benefit of being released first and used more widely.

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Testing the Web Layer

Testing the web layer in an application is the most important part of an application test suite. By properly testing
your Controllers, you verify the control-flow of your application and determine if inputs will return the expected
outputs. In Spring MVC, inputs are requests and outputs are ModelAndView objects returned by Controller
methods. Spring Mocks allow you to easily mimic requests and verify results. You can test in-container with
Cactus.

While testing Controllers is important, testing the view by interacting with the User Interface (UI) is usually the
best way to be sure your application works properly. You may have a Quality Assurance (QA) department that
does this for you. However, it's easy to write tests for the UI using jWebUnit and Canoo WebTest, both of which
are simplifications of HttpUnit. HttpUnit emulates the relevant portions of a browser's behavior, including form
submission, JavaScript, basic http authentication, cookies and automatic page redirection. It allows Java test
code to examine returned pages as either text, XML DOM, or containers of forms, tables, and links. Tests that
interact with the UI are great integration tests to verify all layers of your application. Of course, they won't verify
that colors, fonts and position are correct; that will always need a human eye to test.

You can automate all of the tests mentioned in this chapter. That is, you can test them without human interaction.
This ability enables a healthy continuous build mechanism that you will explore in the Automated Testing
section.

Testing Controllers

In Chapter 4, you created JUnit tests for the two main Controllers in MyUsers: UserController and
UserFormController. In this section, you will refactor those tests to be independent of Spring's
ApplicationContext. Instead, you will use EasyMock and jMock to mock your Controller's dependencies.

You will create Cactus tests to see how to test Controllers in-container. You will learn how to use mocks in many
of these tests to isolate your tests and make them true unit tests (they only test a single class). You will also learn
how to write a test for the FileUploadController and test the e-mail it sends using Dumbster.

NOTE
Dumbster is a fake SMTP server for unit and system testing applications that send e-mail messages. It responds to
all standard SMTP commands but does not deliver messages to the user. The messages are stored within the
Dumbster for later extraction and verification.

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Spring Mocks

Spring Mocks is a general name for the mock classes that Spring distributes for testing JNDI and Controllers.
These classes were originally used internally by Spring to test the framework itself. As developers tested Spring's
Controllers with mocks (specifically, Mock Object's Servlet API), it became apparent that Mock Objects did not
provide rich enough functionality. In June 2002, Spring developers realized that their mocks were actually quite
feature-rich, and they began releasing them as part of the distribution (since 1.0.2).

One of the best things about Spring mocks is that the classes are for mocking the Servlet API and aren't tied to
Spring at all. This means that you could easily use them to test other Controllers, such as WebWork. In my
experience, Struts, Spring and WebWork have the best support for testing. Struts has it via StrutsTestCase, Spring
has its mocks and WebWork can be tested using regular JUnit tests. A later chapter will implement WebWork,
Tapestry and JSF in MyUsers. Unlike the request/response web frameworks, Tapestry and JSF are component-
and event-driven web frameworks. They often depend on JavaScript and currently don't have a lot of support for
unit testing their Controller components.

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Testing Controllers

Below is the UserControllerTest that you created in Chapter 4:

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserControllerTest extends TestCase {

private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(UserControllerTest.class);

private XmlWebApplicationContext ctx;

public void setUp() {

String[] paths = {"/WEB-INF/applicationContext*.xml",
"/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml"};
ctx = new XmlWebApplicationContext();
ctx.setConfigLocations(paths);
ctx.setServletContext(new MockServletContext(""));
ctx.refresh();
}

public void testGetUsers() throws Exception {

UserController c =
(UserController) ctx.getBean("userController");
ModelAndView mav =
c.handleRequest((HttpServletRequest) null,
(HttpServletResponse) null);
Map m = mav.getModel();
assertNotNull(m.get("users"));
assertEquals(mav.getViewName(), "userList");
}
}

This class makes use of two Spring mocks: MockHttpServletRequest and MockServletContext. It loads
context files and grabs the beans from the initialized XmlWebApplicationContext. This works well, but is
more of an integration test, rather than a unit test. This is because Spring has already wired the
UserController and all its dependent objects. In order to create a unit test, you must remove any trace of an
ApplicationContext and set the dependencies manually in the unit test.

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To refactor this test to use EasyMock, create a UserControllerEMTest.java class in test/org/appfuse/web.

This class extends JUnit's TestCase class.

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserControllerEMTest extends TestCase {

private MockControl control = null;
private UserManager mockManager = null;
private UserController c = new UserController();

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

control = MockControl.createControl(UserManager.class);
mockManager = (UserManager) control.getMock();
c.setUserManager(mockManager);
}

public void testGetUsers() throws Exception {

// set expected behavior on manager
mockManager.getUsers();
control.setReturnValue(new ArrayList());

// switch from record to playback

control.replay();

ModelAndView mav =
c.handleRequest((HttpServletRequest) null,
(HttpServletResponse) null);
Map m = mav.getModel();
assertNotNull(m.get("users"));
assertEquals(mav.getViewName(), "userList");

// verify getUsers() was called on manager

control.verify();
}
}

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To run this test, execute ant test –Dtestcase=UserControllerEM. Your console output should resemble
the screenshot below.

Figure 8.4: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserControllerEM test

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This test runs much faster than the previous one. To compare, run ant test –
Dtestcase=UserControllerTest and compare the "Time elapsed" value. On my 1.33Mhz/512RAM
PowerBook, there's quite a difference: 0.223 seconds for the mocked test and 6.455 seconds for the non-mock
version.

Figure 8.5: Showing the time elapsed for the non-mocked version

You've created an EasyMock version of UserControllerTest; now create a jMock version. Create a new
UserControllerJMTest.java class in test/org/appfuse/web. This class extends jMock's
MockObjectTestCase.

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserControllerJMTest extends MockObjectTestCase {

private UserController c = new UserController();
private Mock mockManager = null;

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

mockManager = new Mock(UserManager.class);
c.setUserManager((UserManager) mockManager.proxy());
}

public void testGetUsers() throws Exception {

// set expected behavior on manager
mockManager.expects(once()).method("getUsers")

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.will(returnValue(new ArrayList()));

ModelAndView mav =
c.handleRequest((HttpServletRequest) null,
(HttpServletResponse) null);
Map m = mav.getModel();
assertNotNull(m.get("users"));
assertEquals(mav.getViewName(), "userList");

// verify expectations
mockManager.verify();
}
}

Run this test using ant test –Dtestcase=UserControllerJM.

Figure 8.6: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserControllerJM test

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Testing FormControllers

Testing form classes, which extend SimpleFormController, is much like testing classes that implement
Controller. The major difference is that FormControllers do more; for example, they validate data, set
messages and use request parameters. The test for UserFormController (from Chapter 4) is listed below. It
verifies that no validation errors occur in its testSave() method, and that a success message is set.

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserFormControllerTest extends TestCase {

private static Log log =
LogFactory.getLog(UserFormControllerTest.class);
private XmlWebApplicationContext ctx = null;
private UserFormController c = null;
private MockHttpServletRequest request = null;
private ModelAndView mv = null;
private User user = null;

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

super.setUp();
String[] paths = {"/WEB-INF/applicationContext*.xml",
"/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml"};
ctx = new XmlWebApplicationContext();
ctx.setConfigLocations(paths);
ctx.setServletContext(new MockServletContext(""));
ctx.refresh();
c = (UserFormController) ctx.getBean("userFormController");
// add a test user to the database
UserManager mgr = (UserManager) ctx.getBean("userManager");
user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Matt");
user.setLastName("Raible");
user = mgr.saveUser(user);
}

public void testEdit() throws Exception {

log.debug("testing edit...");
request = new MockHttpServletRequest("GET", "/editUser.html");
request.addParameter("id", user.getId().toString());
mv = c.handleRequest(request, new MockHttpServletResponse());
assertEquals("userForm", mv.getViewName());
}

public void testSave() throws Exception {

request = new MockHttpServletRequest("POST", "/editUser.html");
request.addParameter("id", user.getId().toString());
request.addParameter("firstName", user.getFirstName());

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request.addParameter("lastName", "Updated Last Name");

mv = c.handleRequest(request, new MockHttpServletResponse());
Errors errors =
(Errors) mv.getModel().get(BindException.ERROR_KEY_PREFIX +
"user");
assertNull(errors);
assertNotNull(request.getSession().getAttribute("message"));
}

public void testRemove() throws Exception {

request = new MockHttpServletRequest("POST", "/editUser.html");
request.addParameter("delete", "");
request.addParameter("id", user.getId().toString());
mv = c.handleRequest(request, new MockHttpServletResponse());
assertNotNull(request.getSession().getAttribute("message"));
}
}

While this test works, it takes several seconds to run (10.2 on my PowerBook!). Refactoring it to remove Spring
dependencies and use jMock will speed things up dramatically.

To refactor this class, create a new UserFormControllerJMTest.java class in the test/org/appfuse/web

directory. This class extends MockObjectTestCase and contains the following code:

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserFormControllerJMTest extends MockObjectTestCase {

private static Log log =
LogFactory.getLog(UserFormControllerJMTest.class);
private UserFormController c = new UserFormController();
private MockHttpServletRequest request = null;
private ModelAndView mv = null;
private User user = new User();
private Mock mockManager = null;

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

super.setUp();
mockManager = new Mock(UserManager.class);

// manually set properties (dependencies) on userFormController

c.setUserManager((UserManager) mockManager.proxy());
c.setFormView("userForm");

// set context with messages avoid NPE when controller calls

// getMessageSourceAccessor().getMessage()
StaticApplicationContext ctx = new StaticApplicationContext();

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Map properties = new HashMap();

properties.put("basename", "messages");
ctx.registerSingleton("messageSource",
ResourceBundleMessageSource.class,
new MutablePropertyValues(properties));
ctx.refresh();
c.setApplicationContext(ctx);

// setup user values

user.setId(new Long(1));
user.setFirstName("Matt");
user.setLastName("Raible");
}

public void testEdit() throws Exception {

log.debug("testing edit...");

// set expected behavior on manager

mockManager.expects(once()).method("getUser")
.will(returnValue(new User()));

request = new MockHttpServletRequest("GET", "/editUser.html");

request.addParameter("id", user.getId().toString());
mv = c.handleRequest(request, new MockHttpServletResponse());
assertEquals("userForm", mv.getViewName());
// The getCommandName() method is available in Spring 1.1.1+
User editUser = (User) mv.getModel().get(c.getCommandName());
assertEquals(editUser.getFullName(), "Matt Raible");

// verify expectations
mockManager.verify();
}

public void testSave() throws Exception {

// set expected behavior on manager
// called by formBackingObject()
mockManager.expects(once()).method("getUser")
.will(returnValue(user));

User savedUser = user;

savedUser.setLastName("Updated Last Name");
// called by onSubmit()
mockManager.expects(once()).method("saveUser")
.with(eq(savedUser));

request = new MockHttpServletRequest("POST", "/editUser.html");

request.addParameter("id", user.getId().toString());
request.addParameter("firstName", user.getFirstName());
request.addParameter("lastName", "Updated Last Name");
mv = c.handleRequest(request, new MockHttpServletResponse());

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Errors errors =
(Errors) mv.getModel().get(BindException.ERROR_KEY_PREFIX +
"user");
assertNull(errors);
assertNotNull(request.getSession().getAttribute("message"));

// verify expectations
mockManager.verify();
}

public void testRemove() throws Exception {

// set expected behavior on manager
// called by formBackingObject()
mockManager.expects(once()).method("getUser")
.will(returnValue(user));
// called by onSubmit()
mockManager.expects(once()).method("removeUser").with(eq("1"));

request = new MockHttpServletRequest("POST", "/editUser.html");

request.addParameter("delete", "");
request.addParameter("id", user.getId().toString());
mv = c.handleRequest(request, new MockHttpServletResponse());
assertNotNull(request.getSession().getAttribute("message"));

// verify expectations
mockManager.verify();
}
}

In the above class's setUp() method, Spring's StaticApplicationContext provides a convenient way to
add and use beans in unit tests. Its registerSingleton() method registers the messages.properties file for
accessing messages. Without doing this, it would throw a NullPointerException when the FormController
tries to access the "messageSource" bean. You could also use the StaticMessageSource class for adding
messages programmatically in your tests. More information on using these classes in your tests is available in
Spring's StaticApplicationContextTestSuite.

NOTE
Spring's internal tests are an excellent source of information on how to write your own unit tests.

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Cactus

This section uses Cactus to test Controllers in their deployed environment. Cactus is an extension of JUnit for
unit testing server-side Java code.

To use Cactus for testing Controllers, modify MyUser's build.xml by adding a "test-cactus" target.

<target name="test-cactus" depends="war"

description="Runs Cactus tests in-container">

<!-- Define Cactus Tasks -->

<taskdef resource="cactus.tasks" classpathref="classpath"/>

<cactifywar srcfile="${dist.dir}/${webapp.name}.war"
destfile="${dist.dir}/${webapp.name}-cactus.war">
<classes dir="${test.dir}/classes"/>
<classes dir="test" includes="cactus.properties"/>
<!-- If you use EasyMock or Spring Mocks in a Cactus test
it needs to be included in the WAR -->
<lib dir="web/WEB-INF/lib" includes="*mock.jar"/>
<servletredirector/>
</cactifywar>

<mkdir dir="${test.dir}/data/tomcat"/>

<cactus warfile="${dist.dir}/${webapp.name}-cactus.war"
printsummary="yes" failureproperty="tests.failed">
<classpath>
<path refid="classpath"/>
<path location="${build.dir}/classes"/>
<path location="${test.dir}/classes"/>
</classpath>
<containerset>
<tomcat5x dir="${tomcat.home}" if="tomcat.home"
port="8080" todir="${test.dir}/data/tomcat"/>
</containerset>
<formatter type="xml"/>
<formatter type="brief" usefile="false"/>
<batchtest todir="${test.dir}/data" if="testcase">
<fileset dir="${test.dir}/classes">
<include name="**/*${testcase}*"/>
<exclude name="**/*TestCase.class"/>
</fileset>
</batchtest>
<batchtest todir="${test.dir}/data" unless="testcase">
<fileset dir="${test.dir}/classes">
<include name="**/*Cactus*Test.class*"/>
</fileset>

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</batchtest>
</cactus>
<fail if="tests.failed">Cactus test(s) failed.</fail>
</target>

The <cactifywar> task at the beginning of this listing is responsible for modifying the web.xml and WAR files
so Cactus can test it. A <tomcat5x> task is in the middle of this target. This task specifies the container in
which to run the tests. See Cactus's project site for more information on its Ant Integration and the list of
supported containers for the <cactus> task.

Now that you've set up Cactus, create a UserCactusTest.java class in test/org/appfuse/web. This class
extends ServletTestCase. This first version manually creates the UserController and
UserFormController, then sets their necessary dependencies (UserManager and context for
"messageSource" bean). The ApplicationContext for this test is retrieved from the ServletContext,
not initialized from the ClassPathXmlApplicationContext. This is because the test will be running in the
context of the application, and Spring's application context is initialized by the ContextLoaderListener in
web.xml.

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserCactusTest extends ServletTestCase {

private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(UserCactusTest.class);
private UserController list = new UserController();
private UserFormController form = new UserFormController();

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

super.setUp();
ApplicationContext ctx =
WebApplicationContextUtils
.getRequiredWebApplicationContext(
session.getServletContext());
UserManager userManager =
(UserManager) ctx.getBean("userManager");
list.setUserManager(userManager);
form.setUserManager(userManager);
// needed to prevent NPE with getMessageSourceAccessor()
form.setApplicationContext(ctx);
}

public void beginAddUser(WebRequest wRequest) {

wRequest.addParameter("firstName", "Dion", "post");
wRequest.addParameter("lastName", "Almaer", "post");
}

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public void testAddUser() throws Exception {

form.handleRequest(request, response);
assertTrue(request.getSession().getAttribute("message") != null);
}

public void testUserList() throws Exception {

ModelAndView mav = list.handleRequest(request, response);
Map m = mav.getModel();
assertNotNull(m.get("users"));
assertEquals(mav.getViewName(), "userList");
}
}

Create a cactus.properties file in the test directory. Cactus requires the following information to run its servlet
tests:

# Web app Context under which our application to test runs

cactus.contextURL=http://localhost:8080/myusers-cactus

# Default Servlet Redirector Name. Used by ServletTestCase test cases.

cactus.servletRedirectorName=ServletRedirector

Run this test by executing ant test-cactus -Dtestcase=UserCactusTest.

Another way to write this test is to grab the Controllers directly from the ApplicationContext, where
their dependencies are already set.

...
public class UserCactusTest extends ServletTestCase {
private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(UserCactusTest.class);
private UserController list = null;
private UserFormController form = null;

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

super.setUp();
ApplicationContext ctx =
WebApplicationContextUtils
.getRequiredWebApplicationContext(
session.getServletContext());
list = (UserController) ctx.getBean("userController");
form = (UserFormController) ctx.getBean("userFormController");
}

public void beginAddUser(WebRequest wRequest) {

...

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Finally, if you choose, you can mock the UserManager with EasyMock. The UserCactusEMTest class below
illustrates this technique. You cannot use jMock with Cactus since both of them require you to extend their
TestCase classes.

package org.appfuse.web;

// user your IDE to organize imports

public class UserCactusEMTest extends ServletTestCase {

private UserController list = new UserController();
private UserFormController form = new UserFormController();
private MockControl control = null;
private UserManager mockManager = null;

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

control = MockControl.createControl(UserManager.class);
mockManager = (UserManager) control.getMock();
list.setUserManager(mockManager);
form.setUserManager(mockManager);

// needed to prevent NPE with getMessageSourceAccessor()

ApplicationContext ctx =
WebApplicationContextUtils
.getRequiredWebApplicationContext(
session.getServletContext());
form.setApplicationContext(ctx);;
}

public void beginAddUser(WebRequest wRequest) {

wRequest.addParameter("firstName", "Dion", "post");
wRequest.addParameter("lastName", "Almaer", "post");
}

public void testAddUser() throws Exception {

// set expected behavior on manager
User user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Dion");
user.setLastName("Almaer");
mockManager.saveUser(user);
control.setReturnValue(user);

// switch from record to playback

control.replay();

form.handleRequest(request, response);

// verify saveUser() was called

control.verify();
assertTrue(request.getSession()

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.getAttribute("message") != null);
}

public void testUserList() throws Exception {

// set expected behavior on manager
control.expectAndReturn(mockManager.getUsers(),
new ArrayList());
// switch from record to playback
control.replay();

ModelAndView mav = list.handleRequest(request, response);

// verify getUsers() was called

control.verify();

Map m = mav.getModel();
assertNotNull(m.get("users"));
assertEquals(mav.getViewName(), "userList");
}
}

To run this test, execute ant test-cactus -Dtestcase=UserCactusEM.

The second approach (grab controllers directly) is usually the best approach. Running Cactus tests requires quite
a bit of time since it has to parse/modify the WAR and start/stop the container; therefore, using mocks is unlikely
to increase your test performances. However, they are still helpful for isolating your test in the container.

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Testing File Upload and E-Mail

As promised in Chapter 5, you will now learn how to test the FileUploadController class. This class is
responsible for uploading files and sending a notification e-mail.

1. In test/org/appfuse/web, create a FileUploadControllerTest that extends JUnit's TestCase.

The code below represents the contents of this class with a setUp() method to initialize the context
files:

package org.appfuse.web;

// organize imports using your IDE

public class FileUploadControllerTest extends TestCase {

private static Log log =
LogFactory.getLog(FileUploadControllerTest.class);
private XmlWebApplicationContext ctx = null;
private FileUploadController fileUpload = null;

public void setUp() {

String[] paths = {"/WEB-INF/applicationContext*.xml",
"/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml"};
ctx = new XmlWebApplicationContext();
ctx.setConfigLocations(paths);
ServletContext servletContext =
new MockServletContext("file:web");

ctx.setServletContext(servletContext);
ctx.refresh();
fileUpload = (FileUploadController)
ctx.getBean("fileUploadController");

// Create a mailSender that'll use Dumbster's ports

JavaMailSenderImpl mailSender = new JavaMailSenderImpl();
mailSender.setHost("localhost");
mailSender.setPort(2525);
fileUpload.setMailSender(mailSender);
}

// continued below

This setUp() method contains unique configurations. First, the MockServletContext is

initialized using "file:web". A ResourceLoader class uses this value to determine the root of the
web application. Without this, the following variable assignment in FileUploadController will
fail:

String uploadDir = getServletContext().getRealPath("/upload/");

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Second, setUp() contains a custom MailSender bean that sends e-mail on a non-standard port
(2525; 25 is standard). This is so you can use Dumbster. You will use Dumbster to start/stop an SMTP
server on port 2525 before and after running the FileUploadControllerTest.

NOTE
This example uses port 2525 to avoid conflicts with a server that might be running on port 25.

2. Finish the test by adding the testUpload() method below:

public void testUpload() throws Exception {

log.debug("testing upload...");
MockHttpServletRequest request =
new MockHttpServletRequest("POST", "/fileUpload.html");

MockCommonsMultipartResolver resolver =
new MockCommonsMultipartResolver();
ctx.getServletContext();

request.setContentType("multipart/form-data");
request.addHeader("Content-type", "multipart/form-data");
assertTrue(resolver.isMultipart(request));
MultipartHttpServletRequest multipartRequest =
resolver.resolveMultipart(request);

// setup a simple mail server using Dumbster

SimpleSmtpServer server = SimpleSmtpServer.start(2525);

ModelAndView mav =
fileUpload.handleRequest(multipartRequest,
new MockHttpServletResponse());

server.stop();
// the getReceieved() method is spelled wrong in the API. ;-)
assertEquals(1, server.getReceievedEmailSize());

log.debug("model: " + mav.getModel());

assertNotNull(request.getSession().getAttribute("message"));

// ensure the file got uploaded

Resource uploadedFile =
ctx.getResource("file:web/upload/test.xml");
assertTrue(uploadedFile.exists());

// delete the upload directory

Resource uploadDir = ctx.getResource("file:web/upload");
uploadedFile.getFile().delete();

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uploadDir.getFile().delete();
assertFalse(uploadDir.exists());
}

public static class MockCommonsMultipartResolver extends

CommonsMultipartResolver {

private boolean empty;

protected void setEmpty(boolean empty) {

this.empty = empty;
}

protected DiskFileUpload newFileUpload() {

return new DiskFileUpload() {
public List parseRequest(HttpServletRequest request) {
if (request instanceof MultipartHttpServletRequest) {
throw new IllegalStateException(
"Already a multipart request");
}
List fileItems = new ArrayList();
MockFileItem fileItem = new MockFileItem(
"file", "text/html", empty ? "" :
"test.xml", empty ? "" : "<root/>");
fileItems.add(fileItem);
return fileItems;
}
};
}
}
}

The MockCommonsMultipartResolver class in this test refers to a MockFileItem class. This

class mimics an uploaded file. The MockFileItem.java file is included in the download for this
chapter; it's also available in Spring's CommonsMultipartResolverTests class. You can
implement it as an inner class like the Spring test does; this example extracts it out in the interest of
saving space.

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3. Run this test using ant test -Dtestcase=FileUploadController. The test's output should
resemble the screenshot below.

Figure 8.7: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=FileUploadController test

From all of the examples in this section, you can see that many options for testing Controllers are available. The
simplest way to write Controller tests is to initialize a context in your test class, retrieve your Controllers (using
ctx.getBean("controllerName")) and execute methods on them. This technique allows Spring to wire the
Controller's dependencies. Using mocks requires a little more work because you must know your Controller's
dependencies. You also must be aware what methods will be called on your mocked object. The advantage is
you'll know exactly what your Controller depends on and how it interacts with those dependencies.

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Testing Views

In Chapter 6, you created a jWebUnit test (UserWebTest) that interacted with links and buttons to verify the
functionality of the UI. jWebUnit is a nice framework for testing views because it allows you to write your tests
in Java. This section modifies the "test-web" target in build.xml so that Tomcat starts and stops before any
jWebUnit tests run. You will also change the current test to switch locales and verify text against
messages.properties, rather than hard coding it in the class. Finally, you will use Canoo WebTest as an alternative
method of testing the UI. WebTest is friendlier to non-programmers because tests are written in an Ant build file
using XML.

The tests in this section are commonly referred to as integration tests. They verify that all the layers are
integrated properly by navigating the UI as a user would in a browser. Both jWebUnit and Canoo WebTest
support JavaScript testing. This means that if you have an "onclick" handler on a button, and you specify to click
this button, the JavaScript call will execute. However, this JavaScript support is quite flakey and reports errors in
JavaScript when there are none. For this reason, I advocate 1) developing your UIs so they don't require
JavaScript to run and 2) writing your tests to work around any UIs that have JavaScript in them. This means if
the URL calls <button onclick="addPage()"/> by the addPage() function, it can simply be called in the
test.

jWebUnit

Before you change the UserWestTest in MyUsers, review its source. The constructor should always contain a
call to setBaseUrl(). Since jWebUnit refers to submit buttons by name, you must specify a name attribute on
your buttons. If you want to test tables and their data, you must specify an id attribute on your tables. MyUsers
should already contain all the necessary names and ids.

package org.appfuse.web;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class UserWebTest extends WebTestCase {

public UserWebTest(String name) {

super(name);
getTestContext().setBaseUrl("http://localhost:8080/myusers");
}

public void testWelcomePage() {

beginAt("/");
assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ Welcome");
}

public void testAddUser() {

beginAt("/editUser.html");

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assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ User Details");

setFormElement("firstName", "Spring");
setFormElement("lastName", "User");
submit("save");
assertTextPresent("saved successfully");
}

public void testListUsers() {

beginAt("/users.html");

// check that table is present

assertTablePresent("userList");

//check that a set of strings are present somewhere in table

assertTextInTable("userList",
new String[] {"Spring", "User"});
}

public void testEditUser() {

beginAt("/editUser.html?id=" + getInsertedUserId());
assertFormElementEquals("firstName", "Spring");
submit("save");
assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ User List");
}

public void testDeleteUser() {

beginAt("/editUser.html?id=" + getInsertedUserId());
assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ User Details");
submit("delete");
assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ User List");
}

/**
* Convenience method to get the id of the inserted user
* Assumes last inserted user is "Spring User"
*/
public String getInsertedUserId() {
String[] paths = {"/WEB-INF/applicationContext*.xml"};
ApplicationContext ctx =
new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(paths);
List users = ((UserDAO) ctx.getBean("userDAO")).getUsers();
// assumed that user inserted in testAddUser() is last user
return ""+((User)users.get(users.size()-1)).getId();
}
}
In order to internationalize this test, you first must internationalize the titles in MyUsers. Currently, they are
hard-coded into their respective templates.

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1. Create entries in messages.properties:

# Page titles
index.title=MyUsers ~ Welcome
userList.title=MyUsers ~ User List
userForm.title=MyUsers ~ User Details

2. The download for this chapter uses Velocity templates for the view, so you must edit the Velocity
templates:

• web/WEB-INF/velocity/userList.vm:

<title>${rc.getMessage("userList.title")}</title>

• web/WEB-INF/velocity/userForm.vm:

<title>${rc.getMessage("userForm.title")}</title>

• web/index.vm:

<title>${rc.getMessage("index.title")}</title>

3. The welcome page (index.vm) requires a bit more work to resolve the rc variable. In the download
for this chapter, index.vm is located in the web directory and configured as a welcome-file in
web.xml. It's not easy to expose the messages.properties file to the SiteMesh Servlet (which parses
index.vm); however, you can work around this issue by putting index.vm with the rest of the templates
and using Paul Tuckey's UrlRewriteFilter to resolve it as the welcome page. Below are the steps to
make this change:

a. Move index.vm to web/WEB-INF/velocity.

b. Add /index.html as a URL to the urlMapper bean in web/WEB-INF/action-servlet.xml.

<prop key="/index.html">filenameController</prop>

c. To make this the welcome file, use the UrlRewriteFilter. To configure it, declare it as a filter in
web/WEB-INF/web.xml:

<filter>
<filter-name>rewriteFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>
org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.UrlRewriteFilter
</filter-class>
</filter>

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d. After the sitemesh mapping, add a filter-mapping for this filter:

<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>rewriteFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>

e. Change the urlrewrite.xml file in web/WEB-INF to have the following XML:

<urlrewrite>
<rule>
<from>/$</from>
<to type="forward">index.html</to>
</rule>
<rule>
<from>/index.vm</from>
<to type="forward">index.html</to>
</rule>
</urlrewrite>

NOTE
Use these same steps to alter the FreeMarker templates. For JSP, use JSTL's <fmt:message> tag in the <title>
tags.

At this point, start Tomcat and run ant deploy test-web to verify that this change worked. After verifying
that it worked, modify this class to take advantage of jWebUnit's internationalization capabilities. Namely, it has
the ability to set a ResourceBundle and verify titles and text based on key names, rather than text values. More
information on this feature and others is available in jWebUnit's QuickStart Guide.

The main difference between the class below and the previous un-internationalized class is that the
testAddUser() method verifies the resulting page's title, rather than the success message text. This is because
the success message gets the new user's name substituted into its final output and, therefore, the key's value is
different from the value displayed. A patch for jWebUnit to allow testing keys with dynamic values is available.

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Changed code is underlined below, and previous assertions are commented out.

package org.appfuse.web;

import java.util.List;
import java.util.Locale;

import net.sourceforge.jwebunit.WebTestCase;

import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
import org.appfuse.dao.UserDAO;
import org.appfuse.model.User;
import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import
org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;

public class UserWebTest extends WebTestCase {

public UserWebTest(String name) {

super(name);
getTestContext().setBaseUrl("http://localhost:8080/myusers");
getTestContext().setResourceBundleName("messages");
getTestContext().setLocale(Locale.ENGLISH);
}

public void testWelcomePage() {

beginAt("/");
//assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ Welcome");
assertTitleEqualsKey("index.title");
}

public void testAddUser() {

beginAt("/editUser.html");
assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ User Details");
setFormElement("firstName", "Spring");
setFormElement("lastName", "User");
submit("save");
//assertTextPresent("saved successfully");
assertTitleEqualsKey("userList.title");
}

public void testListUsers() {

beginAt("/users.html");

// check that table is present

assertTablePresent("userList");

//check that a set of strings are present somewhere in table

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assertTextInTable("userList",
new String[] {"Spring", "User"});
}

public void testEditUser() {

beginAt("/editUser.html?id=" + getInsertedUserId());
assertFormElementEquals("firstName", "Spring");
submit("save");
//assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ User List");
assertTitleEqualsKey("userList.title");
}

public void testDeleteUser() {

beginAt("/editUser.html?id=" + getInsertedUserId());
//assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ User Details");
assertTitleEqualsKey("userForm.title");
submit("delete");
//assertTitleEquals("MyUsers ~ User List");
assertTitleEqualsKey("userList.title");
}

/**
* Convenience method to get the id of the inserted user
* Assumes last inserted user is "Spring User"
*/
public String getInsertedUserId() {
String[] paths = {"/WEB-INF/applicationContext*.xml"};
ApplicationContext ctx =
new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(paths);
List users = ((UserDAO) ctx.getBean("userDAO")).getUsers();
// assumed that user inserted in testAddUser() is last user
return ""+((User)users.get(users.size()-1)).getId();
}
}

To test this class using a different locale (and messages.properties file), follow the steps below:

1. Duplicate the messages.properties file and name it message_de.properties. Change some of the title
values so you know it's using the new message bundle.

2. Change the setLocale() call in the constructor to set the locale to German.

getTestContext().setLocale(Locale.GERMAN);

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This will load the German messages file, but it will not set the locale for the request. This has been
reported as a bug in jWebUnit. To work around this bug, set the "Accept-Language" header as part
of the underlying HttpUnit WebClient.

getTestContext().getWebClient()
.setHeaderField("Accept-Language", "de");

3. Run the test using ant deploy reload test-web.

Automate Starting Tomcat

The current setup for running jWebUnit tests requires you to start Tomcat before running the tests. To alleviate
this pain, add a new target to build.xml that automates the startup and shutdown of Tomcat before and after
running the test. Cargo is an open-source project started by Vincent Massol (who also created Cactus). It
provides a Java API and Ant Tasks to start/stop and configure Java containers. Since the Cargo JAR is already
included in this chapter's download, you must simply add the following target to build.xml:

<target name="test-tomcat" depends="war"

description="Runs jWebUnit tests in a running server">
<taskdef resource="cargo.tasks" classpathref="classpath"/>
<cargo-tomcat5x homeDir="${tomcat.home}"
output="${test.dir}/cargo.log"
workingDir="${test.dir}/tomcat5x" action="start">
<war warFile="${dist.dir}/${webapp.name}.war"/>
</cargo-tomcat5x>
<antcall target="test-web"/>
</target>

Now you should be able to stop Tomcat and run ant test-tomcat to run the UserWebTest in Tomcat
without manually starting it.

NOTE
Cargo is a very new project and the JAR used in MyUsers is an alpha release from early September 2004. A few
things still need improvement, like allowing the startup/shutdown log messages to be printed to the console.
Currently, they can only be directed to the file specified in the "output" attribute.

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Canoo WebTest

Canoo WebTest is a free, open-source tool for automating web application tests. It's similar to jWebUnit, except
you write its tests using XML and execute them using Ant. One nice feature is the ability to test PDFs and their
contents. In order to add Canoo WebTest tests to MyUsers, complete the following steps:

1. Add links to the userList.vm page in web/WEB-INF/velocity so that you can bring up a PDF by just
clicking on the PDF link. Put the following HTML just after the Add button.

<p style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: -10px">

<strong>Export Options:</strong>
<a href="?report=XML">XML</a> &middot;
<a href="?report=Excel">Excel</a> &middot;
<a href="?report=PDF">PDF</a>
</p>

2. Add a "test-canoo" target to build.xml.

<target name="test-canoo" depends="deploy"

description="Runs Canoo WebTests in Tomcat to test JSPs">

<taskdef file="webtestTasks.properties">
<classpath>
<path refid="classpath"/>
<!-- for log4j.xml -->
<path location="web/WEB-INF/classes"/>
</classpath>
</taskdef>

<mkdir dir="${test.dir}/data"/>
<!-- Delete old results file if it exists -->
<delete file="${test.dir}/data/web-tests-result.xml"/>

<property name="testcase" value="run-all-tests"/>

<ant antfile="test/web-tests.xml" target="${testcase}"/>
</target>

3. Create a config.xml file in the test directory and add the following XML to it:

<config host="localhost" port="8080"

protocol="http" basepath="${webapp.name}"
resultpath="${test.dir}/data"
resultfile="web-tests-result.xml"
summary="true" saveresponse="true"/>

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4. Create a web-tests.xml file in the test directory with the following structure:

<!DOCTYPE project [
<!ENTITY config SYSTEM "file:./config.xml">
]>
<project basedir="." default="run-all-tests">
<!-- Include messages.properties so we can test against
keys, rather than values -->
<property file="web/WEB-INF/classes/messages.properties"/>

<!-- runs all targets -->

<target name="run-all-tests" depends="UserTests"
description="Call and executes all test cases (targets)">
<echo>All UserTests passed!</echo>
</target>

<!-- Verify adding a user, viewing and deleting a user works -->
<target name="UserTests"
description="Adds a new user profile">
<canoo name="userTests">
&config;
<steps>
<!-- View add screen -->
<invoke url="/editUser.html"/>
<verifytitle text="${userForm.title}"/>
<!-- Enter data and save -->
<setinputfield name="firstName" value="Test"/>
<setinputfield name="lastName" value="Name"/>
<clickbutton label="Save"/>
<!-- View user list -->
<verifytitle text="${userList.title}"/>
<!-- Verify PDF contains new user -->
<clicklink label="PDF"/>
<verifyPdfText text="Test Name"/>
<!-- Delete first user in table -->
<invoke url="/users.html"/>
<clicklink href="editUser.html"/>
<verifytitle text="${userForm.title}"/>
<clickbutton label="Delete"/>
<verifytitle text="${userList.title}"/>
</steps>
</canoo>
</target>
</project>

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This file's "UserTests" target contains the tasks to test the various operations on the MyUsers UI.
In the middle of the target is a call to bring up the PDF and verify the newly added user.

WARNING
If the rendering of the PDF doesn't work for your application, make sure the "viewResolver2" bean in action-
servlet.xml contains the following property:

<property name="order"><value>1</value></property>

If you get errors about log4j, make sure the following XML is in your log4j.xml file (in web/WEB-
INF/classes):

<logger name="com.canoo">
<level value="WARN"/>
</logger>

5. Run ant deploy, start Tomcat and then run ant test-canoo. All tests should pass and you will
see a console output similar to Figure 8.8.

Figure 8.8: Results of the ant test-canoo test

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Automate Starting Tomcat

Just like with jWebUnit, it’s easy to automate the startup/shutdown of Tomcat before and after running Canoo
tests. Use the Cargo API again, and add the following "test-view" target to build.xml.

<target name="test-view" depends="war"

description="Runs canoo tests in a running server">
<taskdef resource="cargo.tasks" classpathref="classpath"/>
<cargo-tomcat5x homeDir="${tomcat.home}"
output="${test.dir}/cargo.log"
workingDir="${test.dir}/tomcat5x" action="start">
<war warFile="${dist.dir}/${webapp.name}.war"/>
</cargo-tomcat5x>
<antcall target="test-canoo"/>
</target>

If Tomcat isn't running, you should be able to test this target by running ant test-view.

TIP
The Canoo WebTest team keeps a weblog of tips related to this project.

From this brief overview of jWebUnit and Canoo's WebTest, I hope you learned enough about how each one
works to use in your projects. Many developers don't know it's possible to automate UI tests, and both of these
tools can save you a lot of time. Of course, you must still often look at your UI in a browser to tweak colors, fonts
and position.

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Summary 313

Summary

This chapter covered a lot of information on how to test Spring, as well as how to write unit tests in general. You
learn how to use JUnit, DbUnit, EasyMock, jMock, Spring Mocks, Cactus, jWebUnit and Canoo's WebTest. For
the database layer, you saw how it's best to talk directly to a running database and verify that your DAOs are
operating as they should. It described techniques for overriding beans for tests (for example, to wrap transactions
around a DAO implementation).

In the business façade layer, demonstrations were given of using EasyMock and jMock, both of which greatly
simplify mocking objects. The best strategy for deciding what to mock is to never mock APIs that aren't yours.
Since the UserDAO interface and its implementation(s) are classes you've created, it makes sense to mock it in
the UserManagerTest unit test. Using mocks provides a nice way to isolate a test and, in most cases, makes
your tests run much faster.

In the web layer, you learned how to use jWebUnit to write a Java-based test for verifying the UI's features.
Canoo's WebTest demonstrated the same testing functionality, but with Ant/XML instead of Java. The new
Cargo project showed how you can easily start/stop Tomcat as part of running your tests.

This chapter did not cover testing rich clients (for example, SWT or Swing applications). This is mainly because
the Spring Rich has not been released at the time of this writing. Also, there seems to be a lack of tools for testing
these types of applications.

Testing is an important part of developing any software. This chapter has provided you with the tools and
techniques you need to use TDD in your projects to produce high-quality software.

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 Chapter
9

AOP
What is AOP and How Can Spring Make It Easier?

Aspect Oriented Programming has received a lot of hype in the Java community in the last year. What is AOP
and how can it help you in your applications? This chapter will cover the basics of AOP and give some useful
examples of how AOP might help you.

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Overview 315

Overview

If you're active in the Java Community by reading weblogs, magazines or TheServerSide.com, you've probably
heard of Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP). While AOP has been around for several years, it has only
recently gained attention. This is probably because many Java-based frameworks are now available to ease the
use of AOP.

The most basic definition of AOP is "it's a way of removing code duplication." Java is an Object-Oriented (OO)
language. It allows you to create applications and their objects in a hierarchical fashion. However, it doesn't offer
an easy way to remove code duplication among classes that aren't in the same hierarchy. In this chapter, you will
learn how to use AOP in your projects. You will modify the MyUsers application to use AOP for controlling
logging, caching, transactions and e-mail.

An application typically has two types of concerns: core concerns and crosscutting concerns. Core concerns
relate to application functionality, while crosscutting concerns don't apply to specific classes or modules, but are
system-wide. Modules created to manage these crosscutting concerns are known as aspects - hence the name
Aspect-Oriented Programming.

AOP is simply a nice way to modularize crosscutting concern logic from your classes and abstract them into
application-wide concerns, such as logging, security, transactions, etc. By writing generic AOP classes, you can
easily apply these concerns in other projects. Using Spring's IoC container, you can easily configure these
classes, and simply package them as a JAR to include in your projects.

In Spring terms, an aspect is typically an interceptor configured to inspect method calls. During inspection, this
interceptor can do many things: logging that the method is being called, modifying the returned object(s) or
sending notifications. Servlet Filters are a form of AOP that offers the ability to perform pre- and post-processing
of servlet invocations.

The Java Community's consensus on AOP seems to be "only factor concerns into AOP that your system can live
without." In other words, if it's something vitally important to your application (such as business logic), it should
remain in your application's code. This is because AOP configuration and code is not highly visible. With Spring,
you must examine an XML file to see what interceptors are applied to which methods. New developers may not
be aware of this and spend hours trying to figure out why certain behavior (performed by interceptors) is
happening. If you need to the see the functionality in your class, it shouldn't be in an aspect.

AOP helps you in terms of what you should see vs. what you shouldn't see. For example, it's better to have
Spring handle transaction-handling code than to see or write it yourself. This works especially well in an
environment with junior and senior developers; the experienced developers can hide aspects from the junior
developers.

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This chapter is for new users of AOP. Entire books are available on AOP, which are beyond the scope of this
book. I recommend AspectJ in Action by Ramnivas Laddad. Its first chapter provides an excellent introduction
to AOP. This chapter shows you how to use AOP, while keeping the theory and low-level details to a minimum.
By showing you how Spring allows you to use AOP, you can concentrate on doing your job, rather than learning
everything about AOP.

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Getting Started 317

Getting Started

In this chapter, like previous ones, you can follow along and do the examples as we go. The easiest way to do this
is to download the MyUsers Chapter 9 bundle from http://sourcebeat.com/downloads. This project tree is the
result of Chapter 8 exercises. It also contains all the JARs you will need for this chapter in the web/WEB-INF/lib
directory. You can also use the application you've been developing in previous chapters. If you go this route,
download Chapter 9 JARs from http://sourcebeat.com/downloads. Each section has a list of new JARs you may
need for each new technology. You can use this chapter as a reference for integrating these principles into your
own applications.

Note: If you have any issues downloading or running these examples, e-mail me at
[email protected] or enter an issue in the Spring Live Issue Tracker.

Logging Example

In most AOP books and articles, the first example shown is how to use AOP for logging. For debugging
purposes, it's sometimes nice to add log messages to the beginning and end of methods. Spring makes this very
easy, and it doesn't require any coding (only XML).

Note: In order to apply interceptors to beans, configure them as proxied classes. This is so JDK dynamic
proxies can create implementations of interfaces at runtime. This section covers the different AOP
implementation options after the logging examples below.

Spring ships with a TraceInterceptor that you can add as an interceptor to your proxied beans. In MyUsers,
the userManager bean is already proxied (using TransactionProxyFactoryBean), so adding an
interceptor is easy.

1. Open the applicationContext.xml file in web/WEB-INF and add a "loggingInterceptor" bean.

<bean id="loggingInterceptor"
class="org.springframework.aop.interceptor.TraceInterceptor"/>

2. Add a "preInterceptors" property to the userManager bean with this interceptor.

<property name="preInterceptors">
<list>
<ref bean="loggingInterceptor"/>
</list>
</property>

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3. Add a logger to web/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.xml to show log output from TraceInterceptor.

<logger name="org.springframework.aop.interceptor">
<level value="DEBUG"/>
</logger>

4. Run ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerTest. Your results should resemble the screenshot
below.

Figure 9.1: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerTest test

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If you look at the source of TraceInterceptor, you can see that how simple AOP can be. The
org.springframework.aop.interceptor package contains a number of other interceptors that you may
find useful in your projects.

This simple example is a brief introduction to AOP. Before diving into more intricate examples, it's important to
be familiar with AOP terminology.

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Definitions and Concepts

AOP, much like other programming paradigms, has its own vocabulary. The table below defines a number of the
words and phrases you may encounter when reading about or working with AOP. These definitions are not
Spring-specific.

AOP Definitions

Concern A particular issue, concept or area of interest for an application. Examples include
transaction management, persistence, logging and security.
Crosscutting A concern in which the implementation cuts across many classes. These are often
Concern difficult to implement and maintain with OOP.
Aspect The modularization of a crosscutting concern; implemented by gathering and
isolating code.
Join Point A point during the execution of a program or class. In Spring's AOP implementation, a
join point is always a method invocation. Other examples include accessing fields,
where read or write access occurs on an instance variable, and exception handling.
Advice An action taken at a particular join point. Different types of advice in Spring include
around, before, throws and after returning. Of these, around is the most powerful, as
you get the opportunity to do something before and after a method is invoked. The
previous TraceInterceptor used around advice by implementing the AOP
Alliance's MethodInterceptor. You can use the other advice types by
implementing the following Spring Interfaces:
• MethodBeforeAdvice
• ThrowsAdvice
• AfterReturningAdvice
Pointcut A set of join points specifying when an advice should fire. Pointcuts often use regular
expressions or wildcard syntax.
Introduction Adds fields or methods to an advised class. Spring allows you to introduce new
interfaces to any advised object. For example, you could use an introduction to make
any object implement an IsModified interface, to simplify caching.
Weaving Assembles aspects to create an advised object. This can be done at compile time
(this is how AspectJ does it) or at runtime. The Weaving Strategies section later in
this chapter discusses in detail the different strategies for weaving (that is,
implementing AOP).
Interceptor An AOP implementation strategy, where a chain of interceptors may exist for a
particular join point.
AOP Proxy An object created by the AOP framework, including advice. In Spring, an AOP proxy
will be a JDK dynamic proxy or a CGLIB proxy.
Target Object An object containing the join point. In frameworks using interception, it's the object
instance at the end of an interceptor chain. Also called an advised or proxied object.

The next section is on Pointcuts, which are the rules for applying advice. Because Spring's AOP is interceptor-
based, I will often refer to advice as interceptors.

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Pointcuts

Pointcuts are an important part of AOP. They give you the ability to specify when and where to invoke
interceptors. In a sense, they're often similar to declarative validation, but rather than specifying a field to
validate, you specify a method to inspect. In the table, pointcuts are defined as "a set of join points specifying
when an advice (interceptor) should fire." Since Spring only supports method invocation join points, a pointcut is
just a declaration of methods to which an interceptor should be applied.

The easiest way to define pointcuts in Spring AOP is using regular expressions in a context file. Below is an
example that defines a pointcut for data manipulation operations:

<bean id="dataManipulationPointcut"
class="org.springframework.aop.support.JdkRegexpMethodPointcut">
<property name="patterns">
<list>
<value>.*save.*</value>
<value>.*remove.*</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

This pointcut says, "Intercept methods that start with save or remove."

Note: The JdkRegexpMethodPointcut class above requires J2SE 1.4, which has built-in regular
expression support. You can also use the Perl5RegexpMethodPointcut, which requires
Jakarta ORO (included in MyUsers).

In most cases, you won't need to define individual pointcuts like the one listed above. Rather, Spring provides
advisor classes that encapsulate interceptors and pointcuts in the same bean definition.

For regular expression pointcuts, you can use the RegexpMethodPointcutAdvisor. Below is an example of a
RegularExpressionPointcutAdvice that triggers a NotificationInterceptor when a user's
information is saved:

<bean id="notificationAdvisor"
class="org.springframework.aop.support.RegexpMethodPointcutAdvisor">
<property name="advice">
<ref bean="notificationInterceptor"/>
</property>
<property name="pattern">
<value>.*saveUser</value>
</property>
</bean>

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Currently, the RegexpMethodPointcutAdvisor only supports Perl5 pointcuts, meaning that you must have
jakarta-oro.jar in your classpath if you want to use it. A complete list of pointcuts and their useful advisors are
available in the org.springframework.aop.support package.

Weaving Strategies

Weaving is the process of applying aspects to target objects. The list below shows the primary strategies for
implementing AOP, ordered from simplest to most sophisticated.

Note: Much of the information in this section is based on information from J2EE without EJB.

• JDK Dynamic Proxies

• Dynamic Byte-Code Generation

• Custom Class Loading

• Language Extensions

These strategies are implemented in various AOP Frameworks, all open-source.

Note: The best part about all of these frameworks is they have an interest in using the same standard in
their APIs. To back this up, they created the AOP Alliance project, which specifies a number of
interfaces for implementation. To see who's involved in this project, read its member list.

The sections below describe each of these weaving strategies in detail.

JDK Dynamic Proxies

Dynamic Proxies is a feature built into J2SE 1.3+. It allows you to create an implementation of one or more
interfaces on-the-fly. Dynamic proxies are built into the JDK, eliminating the risk of strange behavior in various
environments. Their one limitation is they can't proxy classes, only interfaces. If you've designed your
application correctly with interfaces, this shouldn't be an issue.

There is some reflection overhead when using dynamic proxies, but the performance impact is negligible in J2SE
1.4+ JVMs. Spring uses dynamic proxies by default when proxying against interfaces. The dynaop project uses
this strategy when proxying interfaces.

For more information on Dynamic Proxies, see the Java 2 SDK Documentation.

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Dynamic Byte-Code Generation

Spring uses dynamic byte-code generation when proxying against classes. A popular tool for this is CGLIB
(Code Generation Library). It intercepts methods by generating subclasses dynamically. These subclasses
override parent methods and have hooks to invoke interceptor implementations. Hibernate uses CGLIB
extensively, and it has been proven to be a very stable solution in J2EE environments.

One limitation is that dynamic subclasses cannot override and proxy final methods.

Custom Class Loading

Using a custom class loader allows you to advise all instances of created classes. This can be quite powerful,
since it gives you the opportunity to change the behavior of the new operator. JBoss AOP and AspectWerkz use
this approach, loading classes and weaving in their advices as defined in XML files.

The main danger in this approach is J2EE servers must typically control the class-loading hierarchy. What works
on one server may not work in another.

Language Extensions

AspectJ is the pioneering framework of AOP in Java. Rather than using a simple strategy for weaving in aspects,
it contains language extensions and its own compiler for using them.

While AspectJ is a very powerful and mature AOP implementation, its syntax is somewhat complex and not very
intuitive. However, AOP itself is not very intuitive, so trying to implement with a new language can be difficult.
Another limitation of this approach is the learning curve associated with a new language. However, if you want
the full power of AOP, including field-level interception, AspectJ will likely become your new best friend.
Integrating AspectJ with Spring is covered near the end of this chapter.

Spring takes a pragmatic "80/20 rule" approach to its AOP implementation. Rather than trying to satisfy
everyone's needs, it solves the most common ones and leaves the rest to more specialized AOP frameworks.

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Convenient Proxy Beans

As mentioned earlier, in order to apply advice to beans defined in a context file, they must be proxied. Spring
contains a number of support classes (or Proxy Beans) to make proxying easier. The first is the
ProxyFactoryBean, which allows you to specify beans to be proxied and interceptors to apply. Below is an
example of using this bean to create a proxy of a business object:

<bean id="businessObject"
class="org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactoryBean">
<property name="target">
<bean class="org.appfuse.service.BusinessObject"/>
</property>
<property name="interceptorNames">
<list><ref bean="loggingInterceptor"/></list>
</property>
</bean>

The example above uses an inner-bean in the "target" property's value. This is a convenient way to hide a
business object behind a proxy, so it will always be advised when grabbed from the ApplicationContext.

The TransactionProxyFactoryBean is the most useful and most used Proxy Bean. It allows you to use AOP
to define transactions declaratively on target objects. This useful feature was previously only available with EJB
Container Managed Transactions (CMT). The usage of this bean is described in the Practical AOP Examples
section.

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AutoProxy Beans

The aforementioned Proxy Beans provide easy manipulation of single beans, but what if you want to proxy
multiple beans, or all beans in a context? Spring provides two classes (in the
org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy package) that simplify this procedure.

The first is the BeanNameAutoProxyCreator, which allows you to specify a list of bean names as a property.
This property supports literals (actual bean names) and wildcards like *Manager. You can set interceptors using
the "interceptorNames" property.

<bean id="managerProxyCreator"

class="org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.BeanNameAutoProxyCreat
or">
<property name="beanNames"><value>*Manager</value></property>
<property name="interceptorNames">
<list>
<value>loggingInterceptor</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

The second, more generic, multiple bean proxy creator is the DefaultAdvisorAutoProxyCreator. To use
this proxy bean, simply define it in your context file.

<bean id="autoProxyCreator"
class="org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.DefaultAdvisorAuto
ProxyCreator"/>

Unlike the BeanNameAutoProxyCreator, you cannot specify interceptors to apply. Rather, it will inspect any
advisors you have in this file and figure if their pointcuts make them applicable to other beans. For more
information on advisors, see Spring's reference documentation.

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Practical AOP Examples

This section contains several examples of using AOP to manage crosscutting concerns in your application. The
concerns include transactions, caching and event notification.

Transactions

Specifying that operations should occur within a transaction can often result in a lot of duplication in your DAOs.
Using transactions the traditional way requires a lot of calls to tx.begin() and tx.commit() in data
manipulation methods. The good news is Spring and AOP can consolidate transaction concerns into a single
location and configuration.

You might not have been aware, but you've been using AOP in the MyUsers application since the QuickStart
Chapter. The ability to declaratively specify transaction attributes on the userManager bean is supported by
Spring's AOP and the TransactionProxyFactoryBean. The listing below shows a refactored version of the
userManager bean – this time using a transaction template bean and an inner-bean.

<bean id="txProxyTemplate" lazy-init="true"

class="org.springframework.transaction.interceptor.TransactionProxy
FactoryBean">
<property name="transactionManager">
<ref bean="transactionManager"/>
</property>
<property name="transactionAttributes">
<props>
<prop key="save*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED</prop>
<prop key="remove*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED</prop>
<prop key="*">PROPAGATION_REQUIRED,readOnly</prop>
</props>
</property>
<property name="preInterceptors">
<list>
<ref bean="cacheInterceptor"/>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

<bean id="userManager" parent="txProxyTemplate">

<property name="target">
<bean class="org.appfuse.service.impl.UserManagerImpl">
<property name="userDAO"><ref bean="userDAO"/></property>
<property name="validator">
<ref bean="userValidator"/>
</property>

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</bean>
</property>
</bean>

Further details on declarative transactions and handling their exceptions and rollbacks will be covered in Chapter
10.

Caching in the Middle Tier

Another good example of a crosscutting concern is caching data. The main reason for adding a cache is to
improve performance, especially if fetching data is a costly operation. Most of the frameworks discussed in the
last chapter have their own caching solutions; however, caching is a practical crosscutting concern.

Since your motivation behind introducing caching is to improve performance, add a test to UserManagerTest
to test the performance of UserMangerImpl. Put the code below in test/org/appfuse/service/
UserManagerTest.java.

Note: The StopWatch class in this test is a utility class for timing tasks like this.

public void testGetUserPerformance() {

user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Easter");
user.setLastName("Bunny");

user = mgr.saveUser(user);

String name = "getUser";

StopWatch sw = new StopWatch(name);
sw.start(name);
log.debug("Begin timing of method '" + name + "'");

for (int i=0; i < 200; i++) {

mgr.getUser(user.getId().toString());
}

sw.stop();
log.info(sw.shortSummary());
log.debug("End timing of method '" + name + "'");
}

Running ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerTest (with no interceptors configured in

applicationContext.xml) should yield results similar to Figure 9.2. In this initial test, fetching the same user took
about 10 seconds.

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Warning! If you use -Dtestcase=UserManager (without the "Test" suffix), it will run the mock tests
we created in the last chapter. Since these tests isolate the UserManager from Spring, they won't
demonstrate applying interceptors to be defined in the applicationContext.xml file.

Figure 9.2: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerTest test

In order to improve performance, add a simple cache to the UserManagerImpl. The basic requirements for this
cache are as follows:

1. Whenever you fetch objects from the database, put them into the cache (which is a simple HashMap
in this example).

2. When the save() or delete() methods are called, remove objects from the cache.

In the MyUsers application, you can implement the basic (non-AOP) solution by adding a BaseManager (in the
org.appfuse.service.impl package) from which all ManagerImpls extend:

package org.appfuse.service.impl;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class BaseManager {

// Adding this log variable will allow children to re-use it
protected final Log log = LogFactory.getLog(getClass());
protected Map cache;

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protected void putIntoCache(String key, Object value) {

if (cache == null) {
cache = new HashMap();
}
cache.put(key, value);
}

protected void removeFromCache(String key) {

if (cache != null) {
cache.remove(key);
}
}
}

To modify the UserManagerImpl to use this cache, make it extend BaseManager, then add calls to the cache
in each method. Below is a simple version of UserManagerImpl before adding these calls:

public User getUser(String userId) {

return dao.getUser(Long.valueOf(userId));
}

public User saveUser(User user) {

dao.saveUser(user);
return user;
}

public void removeUser(String userId) {

dao.removeUser(Long.valueOf(userId));
}

After adding these methods, they become much more verbose:

public User getUser(String userId) {

// check cache for user
User user = (User) cache.get(userId);
if (user == null) {
// user not in cache, fetch from database
user = dao.getUser(Long.valueOf(userId));
super.putIntoCache(userId, user);
}
return user;
}

public User saveUser(User user) {

dao.saveUser(user);
// update cache with saved user
super.putIntoCache(String.valueOf(user.getId()), user);

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return user;
}

public void removeUser(String userId) {

dao.removeUser(Long.valueOf(userId));
// remove user from cache
super.removeFromCache(userId);
}

Running ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerTest increases the performance. In Figure 9.3, the running
time is 9 seconds (1 second faster).

Figure 9.3: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerTest test

While adding these calls to add/remove from the cache is easy with a simple application like MyUsers, it will
become increasingly difficult with a larger application. You will have to remember to add these methods to each
Manager. Since caching is not a core concern of the application, you shouldn't really be concerned with it.

By using AOP, you can remove these method calls and intercept the appropriate methods to use the cache.
Furthermore, by abstracting the caching away from your code, it allows you to concentrate on the business logic
and doing the project.

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To add a caching interceptor, perform the following steps:

1. Create a CacheInterceptor class in the org.appfuse.aop package (you must create this).
Populate it with the following code:

package org.appfuse.aop;

// use your IDE to organize imports

public class CacheInterceptor implements MethodInterceptor {

private final Log log = LogFactory.getLog(CacheInterceptor.class);

public Object invoke(MethodInvocation invocation) throws Throwable {

String name = invocation.getMethod().getName();
Object returnValue;

// check cache before executing method

if (name.indexOf("get") > -1 && !name.endsWith("s")) {
String id = (String) invocation.getArguments()[0];
returnValue = cache.get(id);
if (returnValue == null) {
// user not in cache, proceed
returnValue = invocation.proceed();
putIntoCache(id, returnValue);
return returnValue;
else {
//log.debug("retrieved object id '" + id + "' from cache");
}
} else {
returnValue = invocation.proceed();

// update cache after executing method

if (name.indexOf("save") > -1) {
Method getId = returnValue.getClass().getMethod("getId",
new Class[]{});
Long id = (Long) getId.invoke(returnValue, new Object[]{});
putIntoCache(String.valueOf(id), returnValue);
} else if (name.indexOf("remove") > -1) {
String id = (String) invocation.getArguments()[0];
removeFromCache(String.valueOf(id));
}
}
return returnValue;
}

protected Map cache;

protected void putIntoCache(String key, Object value) {

if (cache == null) {

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cache = new HashMap();

}
cache.put(key, value);
}

protected void removeFromCache(String key) {

if (cache != null) {
cache.remove(key);
}
}
}

2. Add a "cacheInterceptor" bean to applicationContext.xml (in web/WEB-INF).

<bean id="cacheInterceptor"
class="org.appfuse.aop.CacheInterceptor"/>

3. Replace the "loggingInterceptor" with the "cacheInterceptor" on the userManager

bean.

<property name="preInterceptors">
<list>
<ref bean="cacheInterceptor"/>
</list>
</property>

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Running ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerTest results in a dramatic performance increase.

Figure 9.4: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerTest test

Using a caching aspect, you've reduced the performance to 0 seconds! The reason for the dramatic increase in
performance is the CacheInterceptor returns the data before almost all of the method invocations on
UserManagerImpl.

The caching example provided here is very simplistic. For a more robust caching implementation, refer to Pieter
Coucke's Spring AOP Cache or using EHCache with Spring.

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Event Notification

If you're developing a web application that's open to the public, you might want to be aware when new users sign
up. This can be particularly useful if you want to examine the user's information before authorizing an account.
In the following example, you'll create a NotificationInterceptor and configure it to send e-mail when a
new user registers.

1. Modify the UserManagerTest to use Dumbster to ensure that a message is sent when a new user
registers. Only relevant sections are included below. The new code in this class is underlined. After
adding this, run ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerTest to ensure it fails.

protected void setUp() throws Exception {

String[] paths = {"/WEB-INF/applicationContext*.xml"};
ctx = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(paths);
mgr = (UserManager) ctx.getBean("userManager");

// Modify the mailSender bean to use Dumbster's ports

JavaMailSenderImpl mailSender =
(JavaMailSenderImpl) ctx.getBean("mailSender");
mailSender.setPort(2525);
}

public void testAddAndRemoveUser() throws Exception {

user = new User();
user.setFirstName("Easter");
user.setLastName("Bunny");

// setup a simple mail server using Dumbster

SimpleSmtpServer server = SimpleSmtpServer.start(2525);

user = mgr.saveUser(user);

server.stop();
assertEquals(1, server.getReceievedEmailSize()); // spelling is
correct
SmtpMessage sentMessage =
(SmtpMessage) server.getReceivedEmail().next();
assertTrue(sentMessage.getBody().indexOf("Easter Bunny") != -1);
log.debug(sentMessage);

assertTrue(user.getId() != null);

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2. Create a NotificationInterceptor class in src/org/appfuse/aop. Populate it with the code listed

below:

package org.appfuse.aop;

// organize imports using your IDE

public class NotificationInterceptor implements MethodInterceptor {

private final Log log =
LogFactory.getLog(NotificationInterceptor.class);
private MailSender mailSender;
private SimpleMailMessage message;

public void setMailSender(MailSender mailSender) {

this.mailSender = mailSender;
}

public void setMessage(SimpleMailMessage message) {

this.message = message;
}

public Object invoke(MethodInvocation invocation) throws Throwable {

User user = (User) invocation.getArguments()[0];

if (user.getId() == null) {
if (log.isDebugEnabled()) {
log.debug("detected new user...");
}
Object returnValue = invocation.proceed();
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer(100);
sb.append("A new account has been created for " + user.getFull
Name());
sb.append(".\n\nView this users information at:\n\t ");
sb.append("http://localhost:8080/myusers/editUser.html?
id=" + user.getId());
message.setText(sb.toString());

mailSender.send(message);
}

return user;
}
}

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3. Configure this interceptor and its dependent beans (MailSender and SimpleMailMessage) in
web/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml.

Warning! Be sure to change the e-mail address in the "to" property of the "accountMessage"
bean below. If you don't, the test will fail.

<bean id="notificationInterceptor"
class="org.appfuse.aop.NotificationInterceptor">
<property name="mailSender"><ref bean="mailSender"/></property>
<property name="message"><ref bean="accountMessage"/></property>
</bean>

<bean id="mailSender"
class="org.springframework.mail.javamail.JavaMailSenderImpl">
<property name="host"><value>localhost</value></property>
</bean>

<bean id="accountMessage" singleton="false"

class="org.springframework.mail.SimpleMailMessage">
<property name="to">
<value><![CDATA[MyUser Admin <youremailhere>]]></value>
</property>
<property name="from">
<value><![CDATA[MyUsers <[email protected]>]]></value>
</property>
<property name="subject">
<value>MyUsers Account Information</value>
</property>
</bean>

4. Configure this interceptor in an advisor to be fired using the RegexpMethodPointcutAdvisor

class.

<bean id="notificationAdvisor"
class="org.springframework.aop.support.RegexpMethodPointcutAdvisor">
<property name="advice">
<ref bean="notificationInterceptor"/>
</property>
<property name="pattern">
<value>.*saveUser</value>
</property>
</bean>

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5. Add the "notificationAdvisor" bean to the list of "preInterceptors" on the userManager

bean. I recommend commenting out the other examples.

<property name="preInterceptors">
<list>
<!--ref bean="loggingInterceptor"/-->
<!--ref bean="cacheInterceptor"/-->
<ref bean="notificationAdvisor"/>
</list>
</property>

6. Save all your files and run ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerTest. Your console output
should be similar to Figure 9.5.

Figure 9.5: Results of the ant test -Dtestcase=UserManagerTest test

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Using a setup like this, you could easily add notifications based on values or conditions.

These examples are a good introduction to AOP and how to use it in your application. Some other examples of
where you might use AOP in your applications include:

• Resource pooling

• Thread pooling

• XSLT Stylesheet caching

• Authentication and authorization

Examples and code for implementing these are available in AspectJ in Action.

AOP is very powerful and new users should be careful when introducing it into their codebase. Two good ways
to get into AOP and learn more about it are listed below:

1. Via recipe: Copy and paste code from books or articles.

2. Non-production: The nice thing about AOP is you don't have to use all its features at once. It has a
nice incremental curve. You can start using it in development (for example, the Logging/Tracing
example), then you can move into having items that check on policy or help with testing. Once you
get comfortable, you can start using it in production.

While AOP might not be for everyone, it has a place for creating modular, maintainable Java applications.

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Summary

AOP has been around for several years, but only recently has it gained so much popularity in the Java arena. This
is likely due to the many open-source frameworks for implementing AOP. At the time of this writing, these
include AspectJ, AspectWerkz, dynaop, JAC, JBoss AOP and Spring AOP.

Spring provides a simple-to-use API for AOP, and it integrates well with other AOP frameworks. As of Spring
version 1.1, it provides powerful integration with AspectJ. It also integrates nicely with AspectWerkz. In both of
these integrations, Spring's IoC container configures and manages the lifecycle of the created aspects.

In this chapter, you learned about the different concepts in AOP, from aspects to pointcuts to weaving. After
defining the verbiage in AOP, the different implementation strategies were explored. JDK Dynamic Proxies and
byte-code manipulation are the most popular weaving strategies used in the aforementioned AOP frameworks.
AspectJ is the most mature and sophisticated AOP implementation, providing its own language and compiler for
integrating aspects and classes. Finally, you learned how to write aspects and advisors in the MyUsers
application to implement logging, caching, transactions and event notification.

So what's the future of Spring's AOP framework? According to its roadmap, many of its goals have been met in
the 1.1 release, with improved performance and AspectJ integration. Spring AOP Cache and the Acegi Security
System for Spring are good examples of generic implementations for caching and security. This pool of
resources will grow extensively as more users become familiar with AOP and start using it in their applications.

Spring Live