Skip to Content
Jakarta Struts Cookbook
book

Jakarta Struts Cookbook

by Bill Siggelkow
February 2005
Intermediate to advanced
528 pages
12h 53m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Jakarta Struts Cookbook

6.3. Returning the HTTP Response

Problem

You want to create a response in the Action and send that response to the client instead of forwarding to another action or JSP page.

Solution

Use the standard methods provided by the HttpServletResponse object to write the response. Then return null instead of an ActionForward from the execute() method of the Action. Example 6-2 shows an Action that creates and returns a simple response.

Example 6-2. Writing the HTTP response in an action

package com.oreilly.strutsckbk.ch06;

import java.io.PrintWriter;

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 ResponseWriterAction extends Action {
    
    public ActionForward execute( ActionMapping mapping, 
                                  ActionForm form,
                                  HttpServletRequest request, 
                                  HttpServletResponse response)
            throws Exception {
        response.setContentType("text/html");
        PrintWriter out = response.getWriter( );
        out.write("<html><head></head><body>Hello World!</body></html>"); 
        return null;
  }        

}

Discussion

The typical Action returns an ActionForward from its execute( ) method. The returned ActionForward is evaluated and processed by the Struts request processor. The returned forward specifies the path to a resource, like a JSP page, that generates the actual HTTP response. However, you can generate the response in the ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Jakarta Commons Cookbook

Jakarta Commons Cookbook

Timothy M. O'Brien
Beginning Spring Framework 2

Beginning Spring Framework 2

Bruce Snyder, Sing Li, Anne Horton, Thomas Van de Velde, Naveen Balani, Christian Dupuis

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 059600771XErrata Page