How to validate user's data in web applications made with Jakarta Struts 1.3

1. Validation in Jakarta Struts 1.3
Ilio Catallo – info@iliocatallo.it

2. Outline
¤ HTML forms vs. web apps
¤ Struts validation
¤ Validation via the validate() method
¤ Validation via the Validator framework
¤ References
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3. HTML forms vs. web apps

4. HTML form vs. web apps
¤ While HTML forms give users a place to enter data, they
do not give web apps a place to put such data
¤ The browser sends the data up to the server as a list of
name-value pairs
¤ Everything is going to be transferred to the web app as a
string
¤ HTTP/HTML does not provide a component that can
buffer, validate and convert inputs coming from a form
¤ That is the way HTTP and HTML work, web applications
cannot control this
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5. HTML forms vs. Struts
¤ The Struts solution to HTTP data-entry problem is made of:
¤ the ActionForm class that provides a
buffer/validate/convert mechanism to ensure that users
enter what they are supposed to enter
¤ A set of JSP tags to bind the HTML form to the related
ActionForm object
¤ JSP tags allow developers to pre-populate a form with
any data the user may have to revise if validation fails
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6. ActionForm’s responsibilities
¤ ActionForm is a versatile object, and can play different
roles even within the span of the same request:
¤ Field collector: developers can work with a trusty JavaBean
and leave all the HTML/HTTP issues to the framework
¤ Data buffer: ActionForm is not the destination of the input,
but a buffer that preserves the input until it can be validated
and committed to the business layer
¤ Data validator: many fields must be the correct type before
they can be processed by the business logic. The
validate() method can be used to determine if the input is
of the right type
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7. Validation Part I
Manual validation

8. ActionForm’s life cycle
¤ The base ActionForm class includes two standard methods:
¤ reset(), which resets the form to its default state, as needed
¤ validate(), which checks if the data look correct and if all
required fields have been submitted
¤ Once the Controller receives the HTTP request:
¤ It creates the related ActionForm object in the proper context
(if not already present)
¤ It calls the reset() method on the ActionForm
¤ Starting from the HTTP request, it populates the ActionForm’s
properties
¤ It calls the validate() method on the ActionForm
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9. Manual validation:
validate() signature
validate() signature
public ActionErrors validate(ActionMapping mapping,
HttpServletRequest request)
¤ ActionErrors is a specialization of ActionMessages
¤ It encapsulates the error messages being reported by the
validate() method
¤ The returned ActionErrors object is stored in the
request context under the Globals.ERROR_KEY key
¤ Validation fails when the returned ActionErrors object
is not empty
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10. Manual validation:
struts-config.xml
struts-config.xml (snippet)
<action path="/register"
type="it.polimi.awt.struts.RegisterAction"
name="registerForm"
validate="true"
input="/register.jsp">
...
</action>
¤ When the mapping is set to validate=“true”, the validation
method is called after the form is populated from the HTTP
request
¤ The input property specifies where to send control if the
validate() method fails
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11. Displaying errors:
Application resources (1/2)
¤ We would like to inform the user that the web app
encountered some problems while trying to validate the
data he or she submitted
¤ To this end, each possible error is associated with a
description (i.e., a message) and an identification key
¤ The (key, message) pairs are stored in a standard Java
Properties file, i.e., a text file stored in the web app’s
CLASSPATH
¤ When the View needs to display an error, it can refer to its
description by its key
¤ In the Struts glossary, we will refer to this Properties file as
the applicationresources or (message) resource bundle
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12. Displaying errors:
Application resources (2/2)
application.properties (snippet)
registerform.email.msg=Invalid e-mail address
struts-config.xml (snippet)
<message-resources parameter="resources.application"/>
¤ The <message-resources> element is used to deploy whatever
bundle the application may need to use
¤ The location of application.properties is intended as a
Java package
¤ In this case, CLASSPATH/resources/application.properties
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13. Displaying errors:
<html:errors>
Displaying possible errors encountered during the validation phase
<html:errors/>
¤ The <html:errors> tag will render the error messages
when they exist, or do nothing when they do not exist
¤ The HTML markup surrounding the errors can be kept out
of the message by means of two specific keys in the
resource bundle:
¤ errors.prefix
¤ errors.suffix
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14. Validation Part II
Jakarta Validator Framework

15. Validation system requirements (1/2)
¤ Problem: inputs need to be validated by the Controller,
but validation rules must be kept synchronized with
business requirements
¤ Problem: in a distributed application, the business layer
may reside on a remote machine
¤ Creating round trips to resolve simple data-entry errors may
be costly
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16. Validation system requirements (2/2)
¤ Solving such problems means introducing two important
requirements for a validation system:
¤ Loose coupling: the validation rules should be stored
separately from markup or Java code so that they can be
reviewed and modified without changing any other source
code
¤ Client-side validation: generating JavaScript and server-side
validations from the same set of rules
¤ Even if JavaScript is disabled, the input is still validated
server-side to ensure nothing is amiss
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17. Jakarta Validator framework(1/3)
¤ The Jakarta Commons Validator framework meets the
afore-mentioned requirements:
¤ It is configured from an XML file that generates validation
rules for the form fields
¤ It provides a set of custom tags and JavaScript functions to
be used for client-side validation
¤ the Commons Validator was created as an extension to
the Struts framework
¤ Since it could also be used outside the framework, the
developers contributed it to the Commons project
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18. Jakarta Validator framework(2/3)
¤ The Validator framework uses two XML configuration files:
¤ validator-rules.xml: it defines a set of ready-to-use
validation routines (i.e., validators)
¤ validation.xml: it maps each form field with a
corresponding validator
¤ The Validator framework includes validators for native
types and other common needs, like e-mail and credit
card validations
¤ If a custom validator is needed, it can be defined along
with the basic validators
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19. Jakarta Validator framework(3/3)
¤ Starting from Struts 1.3, validator-rules.xml has been
included in the struts-core JAR file
¤ If basic validators are enough, nothing has to be done to
use them in validation.xml
¤ If custom validators are still needed, they can be defined
in a separate /WEB-INF/validator-rules.xml file
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20. Basic validators
Validators Purpose
required Succeeds if the field contains any
character other than whitespace
mask Succeeds if the field value matches
the specified regular expression
range Succeeds if the field value is within a
specific range
date Succeeds if the field contains a date
email Succeeds if the field value is
recognized as a valid e-mail address
validwhen*
Succeeds when a specified
condition is verified
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* server-side only

21. Validation via the
Validator Framework
¤ In order to use the Validator framework we need to
perform three steps:
¤ Plugging the Validator framework in Struts
¤ Configuring the Validator framework
¤ Enabling client-side validation (optional)
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22. Step 1: Plugging the Validator
framework in Struts
struts-config.xml (snippet)
<plug-in className="org.apache.struts.validator.ValidatorPlugIn">
<set-property property="pathnames"
value="/org/apache/struts/validator/validator-
rules.xml,
/WEB-INF/validation.xml"/>
</plug-in>
¤ Special resources are implemented in the Struts
framework as plug-ins
¤ To this end, ValidatorPlugIn (i.e., the Validator
framework) implements the
org.apache.struts.action.PlugIn interface
validator-rules.xml
inside the struts-core
JAR file
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23. Step 2: Configuring the Validator
framework (1/2)
validation.xml (snippet)
<formset>
<form name="registerForm">
<field property="email" depends="required,email">
<msg name="email" key="registerform.email.emailmsg"/>
<msg name="required" key="registerform.email.requiredmsg"/>
</field>
...
</form>
</formset>
¤ The Struts resource bundle is automatically shared with the
Validator framework
¤ For each validator, a specific entry in the resource bundle can
be specified by means of the <msg> tag
basic
validators to
be used
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name of the
ActionForm’s
property

24. Step 2: Configuring the Validator
framework (2/2)
RegisterForm.java (snippet)
import org.apache.struts.validator.*;
public class RegisterForm extends ValidatorForm {
¤ To enable validation via the Validation framework:
¤ The form bean must extend ValidatorForm, instead of
ActionForm
¤ The validate() method must be removed
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25. Step 3:
Enabling client-side validation
register.jsp (snippet)
<html:javascript formName="registerForm"/>
<html:form action="/register"
onsubmit="return validateRegisterForm(this);">
...
</html:form>
¤ The <html:javascript> tag generates all the
JavaScript code in charge of validating the form
¤ It can be placed anywhere in the page
¤ The entry-point function is validateFormName()
¤ The onsubmit attribute calls the validation script before
submitting the form
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26. References
¤ Struts 1 In Action, T. N. Husted, C. Dumoulin, G. Franciscus,
D. Winterfeldt, Manning Publications Co
¤ Struts Validator Guide,
http://struts.apache.org/release/1.3.x/faqs/validator.html
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