17/03/2013

Difference between Struts 1 and Struts 2 framework

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Difference between Struts 1 and Struts 2 framework

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I had work previously on Struts 1 but never touched Struts 2,
specially since Spring MVC was there to take the leading role.

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Recently one of my friend ask me to help with Struts2, which leads

me to look on Struts2 framework from start. First thing I wanted to

Difference between Struts 1 and Struts 2

framework

find out differences between Struts 1 and Struts 2 framework,

because in my experience, if you have worked in previous version

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Examples

looking differences between two versions of Struts can quickly help

to find, what changes and What are the new features, concepts
and improvement is offered by Struts 2. Also difference b etween

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Struts 1 and Struts 2 is a good candidate to include in my list of

Struts interview question for quick revision. To my surprise, Struts 2

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seems to be completely different than Struts 1 framework, because

some of the most familiar stuff like ActionForm, struts-config.xml,
and Actionclasses are changed in Struts 2 framework. Struts 2
has also done good job on removing direct dependency of Action classes on Servlet API e.g. HttpServletRequestand

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HttpServletResponse, which makes testing easy by using Dependency Injection concept. In this article, we will some
important differences between Struts 1 and Struts 2 framework.

Struts 1 vs Struts 2 - Differences

Here is my list of some common difference between Struts 1 and Struts 2 framework. This list contains some
observations, which can also help you to gauge some major changes in struts 2 from struts 1.

1) First major difference between Jakarta Struts 1 and Struts 2 framework is in Actionclass itself. In Struts 1 it's
mandatory to extend org.apache.struts.action.Actionand implement execute()method which returns
ActionForwardand accept HttpServletRequestand HttpServletResponse. This is not the case with Struts 2, here
Action class can be a simple POJO or Java object with execute()method. Also execute() method returns String rather
than returning ActionForwardobject. You can still use ActionSupportclass or Actioninterface but those are
completely optional.
2) Second main difference between Struts 1 and Struts 2 is on configuration files, earlier we used to configure Struts
using struts-config.xml,but with Struts 2 you can use multiple configuration file, most commonly used as
struts.xml. What is more important is declaration of Struts 2 Filter in web.xml e.g.

<filter>
<filter-name>struts2Fitler</filter-name>
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<filter-class>
org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.FilterDispatcher
</filter-class>
</filter>

<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>struts2Fitler</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
Also, if you notice, instead of mapping this to *.door *.actionwe have mapped it with *, which means all url pattern
will be flown to struts2 filter.
3) One more difference I noticed between Struts 1 and Struts 2 is on Front end Controller. In Struts 1, ActionServletis

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considered as FrontController while in Struts 2 its Filter, which can be considered as front end controller.
4) Another useful enhancement in Struts2 is Interceptor API, which allows to do lot of stuff much easily e.g. file upload

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using Struts2's builtin FileUploadInterceptorclass.

5) One more difference between Struts 1 and Struts 2 which I like is removing dependency of Action classes to Servlet API

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in form of HttpServletRequestand HttpServletResponseclasses required in execute() method. Struts 2 don't

have such dependency and its execute() method doesn't required Servlet API.
There are lot more difference in Struts 1 and Struts 2 and I suggest going thorough Struts 2 documentation as you learn
Struts 2. To me, Struts 2 looks completely different than Struts 1. Since I am using Spring MVC more frequently, I still need
to explore Struts 2 more closely. I will keep this list of differences between Struts 1 and Struts 2 updated as and when I
found some more differences.

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17/03/2013

Difference between Struts 1 and Struts 2 framework

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2 comments:

By Javin Paul

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Jitendra Gupta said...

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this is good article on Struts 2.0

Explore struts 2.0 architecture http://www.javaprogrammings.info/struts2.x.jsp

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March 14, 2013 at 10:10 AM

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Anonymous said...
Hi,
Can you write some article,
listing new component libraries, added on top of various MvcWebFrameworks
which is very easy/quick to use, and has many different object types.
My company is stucked with Struts1 and commonControls, and this is very hard to convince that bureaucracy...

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one more thing.

is there any chance to change email, and send full page content, not just the first paragraph.
im very happy spending 10 minutes readying your posts, but this colourful page is a problem in openspace
March 15, 2013 at 10:03 AM
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