Using J2SE 5 ("Tiger") support with WebWork

Work in progress

This is a work in progress and not yet finished! More complex examples will follow. For now, have a look at the unit tests within the xwork-tiger project path.

To use J2SE 5 support with WebWork, you have to add xwork-tiger.jar to your classpath.
The xwork-tiger.jar can be obtained via the ivy repository and is located in the lib/tiger directory.

Interceptor Annotations

To use these annotations, you have to specify the AnnotationWorkflowInterceptor to your interceptor stack.

Annotation	Description
After Annotation	Marks a action method that needs to be executed before the result.
Before Annotation	Marks a action method that needs to be executed before the main action method.
BeforeResult Annotation	Marks a action method that needs to be executed before the result.

Validation Annotations

If you want to use annotation based validation, you have to annotate the class or interface with Validation Annotation.

These are the standard validator annotations that come with XWork-tiger:

Annotation	Description
ConversionErrorFieldValidator Annotation	Checks if there are any conversion errors for a field.
DateRangeFieldValidator Annotation	Checks that a date field has a value within a specified range.
DoubleRangeFieldValidator Annotation	Checks that a double field has a value within a specified range.
EmailValidator Annotation	Checks that a field is a valid e-mail address.
ExpressionValidator Annotation	Validates an expression.
FieldExpressionValidator Annotation	Uses an OGNL expression to perform its validator.
IntRangeFieldValidator Annotation	Checks that a numeric field has a value within a specified range.
RegexFieldValidator Annotation	Validates a regular expression for a field.
RequiredFieldValidator Annotation	Checks that a field is non-null.
RequiredStringValidator Annotation	Checks that a String field is not empty.
StringLengthFieldValidator Annotation	Checks that a String field is of the right length.
StringRegexValidator Annotation
UrlValidator Annotation	Checks that a field is a valid URL.
Validation Annotation	Marker annotation for validation at Type level.
Validations Annotation	Used to group validation annotations.
VisitorFieldValidator Annotation
CustomValidator Annotation	Use this annotation for your custom validator types.

Type Conversion Annotations

If the xwork-tigerjar is added to the classpath, you will directly have type conversion support for Maps and Collections using generics.

In short, instead of specifying the types found in collections and maps as documented in Type Conversion, the collection's generic type is used. This means you most likely don't need any ClassName-conversion.properties files.

If you want to use annotation based type conversion, you have to annotate the class or interface with the Conversion Annotation.

Annotation	Description
Conversion Annotation	Marker annotation for type conversions at Type level.
CreateIfNull Annotation	For Collection and Map types: Create the types within the Collection or Map, if null.
Element Annotation	For Generic types: Specify the element type for Collection types and Map values.
Key Annotation	For Generic types: Specify the key type for Map keys.
KeyProperty Annotation	For Generic types: Specify the key property name value.
TypeConversion Annotation	Used for class and application wide conversion rules.

Create ClassName-conversion.properties via "ant apt" target

This is an example for the apt ant target:

<target name="apt">
        <mkdir dir="${build}/generated"/>

        <path id="classpath">
            <pathelement path="${basedir}/build/java"/>
            <pathelement path="${basedir}/build/test"/>
            <!-- xwork.jar and xwork-tiger.jar must be in one of the following lib dirs -->
            <fileset dir="${basedir}/lib/build" includes="*.jar"/>
            <fileset dir="${basedir}/lib/default" includes="*.jar"/>
            <fileset dir="${basedir}/lib/spring" includes="*.jar"/>
        </path>

        <property name="pclasspath" refid="classpath"/>

        <!-- Change the includes attribute value to match your annotated java files -->
        <fileset id="sources" dir="." includes="src/test/**/*.java" />

        <pathconvert pathsep=" " property="sourcefiles" refid="sources"/>

        <echo>

            CLASSPATH ${pclasspath}

            SOURCES: ${sourcefiles}

        </echo>

        <exec executable="apt" >
            <arg value="-s"/>
            <arg value="${build}/generated"/>
            <arg value="-classpath"/>
            <arg pathref="classpath"/>
            <arg value="-nocompile"/>
            <arg value="-factory"/>
            <arg value="com.opensymphony.xwork.apt.XWorkProcessorFactory"/>
            <arg line="${sourcefiles}"/>
        </exec>
    </target>