Struts to Spring MVC using Sping Boot

Question

I need to convert a Struts app to Spring MVC using Spring Boot.

He want one application Core that can be called from two different Front Ends, one is with Angular and one with JSPs.

My idea is to build and app that retrieve data from a Soap service or a database with a central Controller (normal java class that expose methods), import the Jar of this App in two different Apps, one with a @RestController that communicate with Angular, and one with a @Controller that works with JSPs.

Now I know how to build a springboot app using rest services and Angular so that doesn't bother me. I'm worried about using Spring Boot with JSPs. I didn't know Struts and I've seen that it has a structure for create JSP pretty much handiling JSPs as layouts like "Header", "Footer" and ecc.. now in Angular I do the same thing with the components and is way more efficient, but JSPs are old and i found that very intresting.

My question is now what is the best way to handle the other Front End (the one with JSPs) in a pretty efficient way? I never used JSPs with Spring and I've understood the basic configuration doing some excercise with some easy "HelloWorld" apps.

Answer 1

The question arises, what to use Spring or Struts?

Struts, as I understand it, is a pure MVC Framework, and Spring MVC is just one of the Spring modules. I also heard that they use combinations of them. I must say right away that Struts 1.2 has not been developed for a long time and has been removed from the Apache site. Its successor was WebWork or Struts2 in the new name. As I understand it, if the name has changed, then the architecture has changed, which is very different for both frameworks.

Spring MVC is a web framework that is one of the Spring modules. It uses the MVC1 implementation as in Struts 1. The greatest benefit of this framework is that it easily integrates with other Spring modules that you need to develop your project.

Struts2 is a servlet-based web framework that implements MVC2. It can be extended with plugins and integrated into other frameworks, including Spring.

What is the difference, if not in architecture, then the first one, in my opinion, is simpler and requires less time to learn. The second one is much larger and more complex, requiring much more time to learn. It is clear that the time spent on studying then pays off. As for the speed of development, the second one, in my opinion, is developing much faster.

_{Apache Struts 2.5.30 GA has been released on 04 April 2022.}

Both frameworks can be used both on the frontend and on the backend. If you have a question what to use, or what is better to use, then I will tell you right away that this is your choice, and not only yours. Many people use the first framework because it is part of Spring. If you want to get your simple project done quickly, then the first one is more suitable for you, but if you have more time and opportunity to spend on learning the second framework, then this may suit you. I generally can’t imagine the practical use of the second without integrating into Spring, but again, this is my personal opinion.

Answer 2

To handle struts jsp, you need to convert all struts tags into compatible jstl or spring tags in that way you will be able to use it as view on your spring mvc.

Please refer to this post and also checkout the github code: https://www.shorterpost.com/2021/03/how-to-convert-struts-tags-to-jstl-spring.html

Attached excerpt from shorterpost:

Here is an example to convert struts tags to jstl and spring tags.Here is an list of struts tags and equivalent tags in JSTL and Spring.

1.Tags:

1.html

html:select     form:select
html:option     form:option
html:options    form:options
html:hidden     form:hidden
html:checkbox   form:checkbox
html:multibox   form:checkboxes
html:text       form:input
html:textarea   form:textarea
html:form       form:form
html:errors     form:errors
html:radio      form:radiobutton

2.bean

bean:write      c:out
bean:define     c:set
bean:message    spring:message

3.logic

logic:present       c:if
logic:notPresent    c:if
logic:iterate       c:forEach
logic:equal         c:if (test eq)
logic:notEqual      c:if (test ne)
logic:empty         c:if (test empty)
logic:notEmpty      c:if (test not empty)

But the problem is we have to change manually in JSP files, so i created an tool which uses jsoup and Apache commons to automatically process and overwrite tags.This tool reads all tags in JSP files and process overwriting to JSTL or Spring tags.Below is an sample code to process using java.


  private static void processHtmlHiddenTag(Element element)
    {
        String name = element.attr("name");
        String property = element.attr("property");

        if(!isEmptyOrNull(name) || isEmptyOrNull(property))
            return;

        element.tagName("form:hidden");
        element.attr("path",property);
        element.removeAttr("property");
    }

Check out on GitHub for full code Click Here...