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You can checkout this complete example project (and all the other Getting Started tutorial example projects) from the
Struts 2 subversion sandbox GitHub repository at https://svngithub.apache.org/repos/asf/struts/sandbox/trunkcom/apache/struts-examples. The example projects use Maven
to Maven to manage the artifact dependencies and to build the .war files.

...

In your Java IDE create a Java web application with a project name of basic_struts that follows the standard Maven project folder structure. In your pom.xml include the following:

Code Block

	xml
	xml
title	pom.xml build node	xml


	<build>
		<finalName>basic_struts</finalName>
	</build>

...

Now that we know we have a working Java web application, lets add the minimal required Struts 2 framework Jar files to our web application's class path. In pom.xml add the following dependency node:

Code Block

	xml
	xml
title	pom.xml dependency nodexml


<dependency>
	<groupId>org.apache.struts</groupId>
	<artifactId>struts2-core</artifactId>
	<version>X.X.X.X</version>
</dependency>

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To see what's happening under the hood, the example application for this tutorial uses log4j. You'll need to add to pom.xml a dependency node for the log4j jar file:

Code Block

	xml
	xml
title	pom.xml log4j dependency node	xml


<dependency>
	<groupId>log4j</groupId>
	<artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
	<version>1.2.14</version>
</dependency>

Setup a log4j.xml configuration in the src/main/resources folder. You can copy the one from the example application, which contains the following

Code Block

	xml
	xml
title	log4j.xml	xml


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE log4j:configuration PUBLIC "-//log4j/log4j Configuration//EN" "log4j.dtd">

<log4j:configuration xmlns:log4j="http://jakarta.apache.org/log4j/">
    
    <appender name="STDOUT" class="org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender">
       <layout class="org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout"> 
          <param name="ConversionPattern" value="%d %-5p %c.%M:%L - %m%n"/> 
       </layout> 
    </appender>
 
    <!-- specify the logging level for loggers from other libraries -->
    <logger name="com.opensymphony">
    	<level value="DEBUG" />
    </logger>

    <logger name="org.apache.struts2">
    	 <level value="DEBUG" />
    </logger>
  
   <!-- for all other loggers log only info and above log messages -->
     <root>
        <priority value="INFO"/> 
        <appender-ref ref="STDOUT" /> 
     </root> 
    
</log4j:configuration>

...

To enable the Struts 2 framework to work with your web application you need to add a Servlet filter class and filter mapping to web.xml. Below is the filter and filter-mapping nodes you should add to web.xml.

Code Block

	xml
	xml
title	web.xml Servlet Filterxml


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

<filter-mapping>
  <filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
   <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>

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Struts 2 can use either an XML configuration file or annotations (or both) to specify the relationship between a URL, a Java class, and a view page (such as index.jsp). For our basic Struts 2 application, we'll use a minimal xml configuration. Note the file name is struts.xml and it should be in the src/main/resources folder (struts.xml must be on the web application's root class path).

Code Block

	xml
	xml
title	struts.xml	xml


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE struts PUBLIC
    "-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Struts Configuration 2.0//EN"
    "http://struts.apache.org/dtds/struts-2.0.dtd">

<struts>

	<constant name="struts.devMode" value="true" />

	<package name="basicstruts2" extends="struts-default">

		<action name="index">
			<result>/index.jsp</result>
		</action>

	</package>

</struts>

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Open a web browser and go to http://localhost:8080/Basic_Struts2_Mvn/index.action (note that's index.action not index.jsp at the end of the URL). You should see the same web page as when going to http://localhost:8080/Basic_Struts2_Mvn/index.jsp. View the log messages written to the console and you should find several that discuss index.action and index.jsp:

Code Block

	java
	java
title	Struts 2 Log Messages	java


com.opensymphony.xwork2.DefaultActionProxy.debug:57 - Creating an DefaultActionProxy for namespace / and action name index
...
org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.ServletDispatcherResult.debug:57 - Forwarding to location /index.jsp

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