I had worked previously on Struts 1 but never touched Struts 2, especially
since Spring MVC was there to take the leading role. Recently one of my friends
ask me to help with Struts2, which leads me to look on the Struts2 framework from
start. First thing I wanted to find out differences between Struts 1 and Struts
2 framework, because in my experience, if you have worked in the previous version
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 the difference between
Struts 1 and Struts 2 is a good candidate to include in my list of Struts interview questions
for quick revision.
To my surprise, Struts 2 seems to be completely different than Struts 1 framework, because some of the most familiar stuff like ActionForm, struts-config.xml, and Action classes are changed in the Struts 2 framework.
Struts 2 has also done great job on removing the direct dependency of Action classes on Servlet API e.g. HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse, which makes testing easy by using the Dependency Injection concept. In this article, we will some important differences between Struts 1 and Struts 2 framework.
To my surprise, Struts 2 seems to be completely different than Struts 1 framework, because some of the most familiar stuff like ActionForm, struts-config.xml, and Action classes are changed in the Struts 2 framework.
Struts 2 has also done great job on removing the direct dependency of Action classes on Servlet API e.g. HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse, which makes testing easy by using the 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) The first major difference between Jakarta Struts 1 and Struts 2 framework is in Action class
itself. In Struts 1 it's mandatory to extend org.apache.struts.action.Action and implement execute() method
which returns ActionForward and accept HttpServletRequest and 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 ActionForward object. You can still use ActionSupport class or Action interface but those are completely optional.
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 ActionForward object. You can still use ActionSupport class or Action interface but those are completely optional.
2) The 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 files, most commonly used as struts.xml. What is
more important is the declaration of Struts 2 Filter in web.xml e.g.
<filter>
<filter-name>struts2Fitler</filter-name>
<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 *.do or *.action we 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, ActionServlet is
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 a lot of stuff much easily e.g. file upload using Struts2's builtin FileUploadInterceptor class.
5) One more difference between Struts 1 and Struts 2 which I like is
removing the dependency of Action classes to Servlet API in form of HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse classes
required in execute() method. Struts 2 don't have such
dependency and its execute() method doesn't require Servlet API.
There are a lot more differences in Struts 1 and Struts 2 and I suggest
going through 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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7 comments :
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...
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
I think the main difference is that Struts 1 is dead in terms of development :)
In Struts 1 We can also define multiple struts-cinfig.xml file.
nice docx
In struts 1.x an Action class is a single ton class, so Action class object is not a thread safe, as a programmer we need to make it as thread safe by applying synchronization
In 2.x an Action class object will be created for each request, so it is by default thread safe, so we no need to take care about safety issues here
In struts 1.x we have only jsp as a view technology
In 2.x we have support of multiple view technologies like velocity, Freemarker etc
struts1.x doesn't support Annotations concept.but 2.x support the annotaions.
and in struts1.x ActionServlet will create the mapping obj,form obj.but in struts2.x its not possible
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