Jakarta Struts Cookbook

6.8. Managing Related Operations from a Central Action

Problem

You want to use a single Action class to handle related operations instead of having to write separate Action classes for each operation.

Solution

Extend the DispatchAction with your own class. Provide methods for each operation that you wish to be accessible as an Action. Each method should have the same signature as the execute( ) method except for the method name. The Action class shown in Example 6-4 provides three related operations in one class: create( ), update(), and delete( ).

Example 6-4. Dispatch action for related operations

package com.oreilly.strutsckbk.ch06; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse; import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm; import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForward; import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMapping; import org.apache.struts.actions.DispatchAction; public class MyDispatchAction extends DispatchAction { public ActionForward create( ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception { // create data request.setAttribute("dispatchedTo","create"); return mapping.findForward("success"); } public ActionForward update( ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception { // update data request.setAttribute("dispatchedTo","update"); return mapping.findForward("success"); } public ActionForward delete( ActionMapping ...