What is struts framework

A struts framework is an open source framework that is meant for building Java web applications. Web applications are quite different to websites since they even contain databases and can customize a response based on business logic engines. Struts framework is based on the Model-View-Controller design and can store routing information and be able to map in a single core file.

Struts frameworks advantages and limitations

Struts, which is an open source framework has quite a number of advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages: Struts values do not require hard coding because they are represented in XML or property files. This means that Struts makes a task of J2EE developer easy by preventing complicated coding anytime any modification or change has to be made. Struts offer a selection of custom JSP tags that allow J2EE developers to easily output the properties of JavaBeans components. Apache struts also provide JSP tags to help in easily creating HTML forms.

Disadvantages: J2EE developers, especially those creating struts framework for the first time may encounter problem initially since few resources are available online. Sometimes Strut applications may be a bit difficult to understand in comparison to Java based web applications for J2EE developers.

Struts Frameworks Components

The components for Struts framework consists of the controller, the struts-config.xml file, action classes, view resources, action forms and model components. The various model components that it supports include JavaBeans, EJB, CORBA and JDA etc. The controller is meant to receive request by mapping a request URI to an action class. The J2EE developers have to create action classes that bridges user-enabled URIs and business services. The struts-config.xml file possesses all the information regarding routing and configuration. The view resources contain HTML pages, Java Server pages, resource bundles, JavaBeans, JavaScript, stylesheets and struts JSP tags. The action forms are responsible for validation user form by capturing user data from the HTTP request.

List for Struts frameworks versions and its characteristics

The struts framework has two versions, which are Version 1 and Version 2. Struts 2 is a more strong and robust framework than Struts1, however, even now Struts 1 are used in a number of cases. Struts1 uses abstract classes while Struts 2 uses action interface. The actions performed by Struts 1 are singletons and thread safe while Struts 2 doesn’t need to worry about thread safety issues.

List for various frameworks for java application development

Struts is not the only framework as Java developers used a variety of other frameworks including Django, Ruby on Rails, CakePHP, Code Igniter and JBoss.