ViralPatel.net

Struts display tag library is an open source suite of custom tags that provide high-level web presentation patterns which will work in an MVC model. The library provides a significant amount of functionality while still being easy to use. Displaytag can handle column display, sorting, paging, cropping, grouping, exporting, smart linking and decoration of a table in a customizable XHTML style. In the following example we will see how to dispaly data using display tag and to do pagination and sorting. We will use Eclipse as an IDE for our example.

Step 1: Create Eclipse dynamic web project and copy JAR files

Start Eclipse and goto File -> New -> Project -> Dynamic Web Project Following is the list of required JAR files to be added in Java Class Path of your project. Download displaytag JAR files from http://displaytag.sourceforge.net/1.2/download.html.

Step 2: Create Action, Form and Bean class

Once the project is created, create 3 java files ForbesData, UserAction and UserForm in package net.viralpatel.struts.displaytag. Copy following content into ForbesData.java file.

package net.viralpatel.struts.displaytag;

import java.util.ArrayList;

public class ForbesData {
 private int rank;
 private String name;
 private int age;
 private double netWorth;

 public ForbesData() {

 }
 
 public ForbesData(int rank, String name, int age, double netWorth) {
  this.rank = rank;
  this.name = name;
  this.age = age;
  this.netWorth = netWorth;
 }
 public ArrayList<ForbesData> loadData() {
  ArrayList<ForbesData> userList = new ArrayList<ForbesData>();
  userList.add(new ForbesData(1, "William Gates III", 53, 40.0));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(2, "Warren Buffett", 78, 37));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(3, "Carlos Slim Helu & family", 69, 35));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(4, "Lawrence Ellison", 64, 22.5));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(5, "Ingvar Kamprad & family", 83, 22));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(6, "Karl Albrecht", 89, 21.5));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(7, "Mukesh Ambani", 51, 19.5));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(8, "Lakshmi Mittal", 58, 19.3));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(9, "Theo Albrecht", 87, 18.8));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(10, "Amancio Ortega", 73, 18.3));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(11, "Jim Walton", 61, 17.8));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(12, "Alice Walton", 59, 17.6));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(12, "Christy Walton & family", 54, 17.6));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(12, "S Robson Walton", 65, 17.6));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(15, "Bernard Arnault", 60, 16.5));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(16, "Li Ka-shing", 80, 16.2));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(17, "Michael Bloomberg", 67, 16));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(18, "Stefan Persson", 61, 14.5));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(19, "Charles Koch", 73, 14));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(19, "David Koch", 68, 14));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(21, "Liliane Bettencourt", 86, 13.4));
  userList.add(new ForbesData(22, "Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud", 54, 13.3));
  return userList;
 }
 public int getRank() {
  return rank;
 }
 public void setRank(int rank) {
  this.rank = rank;
 }
 public String getName() {
  return name;
 }
 public void setName(String name) {
  this.name = name;
 }
 public int getAge() {
  return age;
 }
 public void setAge(int age) {
  this.age = age;
 }
 public double getNetWorth() {
  return netWorth;
 }
 public void setNetWorth(double netWorth) {
  this.netWorth = netWorth;
 }
}
Code language: Java (java)

Copy following content into UserForm.java

package net.viralpatel.struts.displaytag;

import java.util.ArrayList;

public class UserForm extends org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm {

 private ArrayList<ForbesData> forbesList;

 public ArrayList<ForbesData> getForbesList() {
  return forbesList;
 }

 public void setForbesList(ArrayList<ForbesData> forbesList) {
  this.forbesList = forbesList;
 }
}
Code language: Java (java)

Copy following content into UserAction.java

package net.viralpatel.struts.displaytag;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;

import org.apache.struts.action.Action;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForward;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMapping;

public class UserAction extends Action {
 
    private final static String SUCCESS = "success";
 
 public ActionForward execute(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,
            HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
            throws Exception {
        UserForm userForm = (UserForm) form;
        ForbesData actorData = new ForbesData();
        userForm.setForbesList(actorData.loadData());
        return mapping.findForward(SUCCESS);
    }
      
}
Code language: Java (java)

Step 3: Create JSPs, struts-config.xml and web.xml

Create index.jsp and user.jsp in WebContent folder and struts-config.xml and web.xml in WebContent/WEB-INF folder. Copy following content into appropriate files.

index.jsp

<%@page contentType="text/html"%>
<%@page pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>

<jsp:forward page="userAction.do"/>
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

user.jsp

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<%@taglib uri="http://displaytag.sf.net" prefix="display" %>
<html>
    <head>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
        <title>The World's Billionaires 2009</title>
        <link href="css/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
    </head>
    <body>
    <h2>The World's Billionaires 2009 - Forbes List</h2>
        <display:table export="true"  id="data" 
           name="sessionScope.UserForm.forbesList" 
           requestURI="/userAction.do" pagesize="10" >
            <display:column >
            <display:column >
            <display:column >
            <display:column >
        </display:table>
    </body>
</html>
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

struts-config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

<!DOCTYPE struts-config PUBLIC
          "-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Struts Configuration 1.2//EN"
          "http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/dtds/struts-config_1_2.dtd">


<struts-config>
    <form-beans>
        <form-bean name="UserForm" 
         type="net.viralpatel.struts.displaytag.UserForm"/>
    </form-beans>
    
    <global-exceptions>
    
    </global-exceptions>

    <global-forwards>
        <forward name="welcome"  path="/Welcome.do"/>
    </global-forwards>

    <action-mappings>
        <action input="/" name="UserForm" path="/userAction" 
         scope="session" type="net.viralpatel.struts.displaytag.UserAction">
            <forward name="success" path="/user.jsp" />
        </action>
        <action path="/Welcome" forward="/welcomeStruts.jsp"/>
    </action-mappings>
    
    <message-resources parameter="com/vaannila/ApplicationResource"/>
  
</struts-config>
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app version="2.5" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd">
 <servlet>
  <servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
  <servlet-class>
   org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet
  </servlet-class>
  <init-param>
   <param-name>config</param-name>
   <param-value>/WEB-INF/struts-config.xml</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <init-param>
   <param-name>debug</param-name>
   <param-value>2</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <init-param>
   <param-name>detail</param-name>
   <param-value>2</param-value>
  </init-param>
  <load-on-startup>2</load-on-startup>
 </servlet>
 <servlet-mapping>
  <servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
  <url-pattern>*.do</url-pattern>
 </servlet-mapping>
 <session-config>
  <session-timeout>30</session-timeout>
 </session-config>
 <welcome-file-list>
  <welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
 </welcome-file-list>
</web-app>
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

Step 4: Execute the project

We are done with the project. Now execute the project in eclipse or create a WAR file and run it in Tomcat.