Struts is a popular framework for building web applications in Java. Struts is based upon the Model-View-Controller design pattern which separates the layers of an application into data (Model), presentation (View) and actions (Controller). Struts provides elements which map into these layers and which are used to build an application.
The Struts framework introduces the following concepts:
A Struts Form Bean is used to exchange data between the web browser and the web application.
A Struts Action is used as a delegate between the user and the web application. As the user interacts with the web application, selecting links, submitting forms, they invoke Struts Actions. Actions are implemented as Java classes that can receive and process the data coming from the user (typically as Struts Form Beans).
Once a Struts action has completed its processing, it sends a response which directs the Struts framework to return a certain page to the user. Struts allows pages to have aliases so that page names do not need to be hard coded into the Java Action classes. These aliases are called Struts Forwards.
Struts is a very powerful framework with many features including a rich JSP tag library, plug-ins for client and server-side validation, page composition, localization and more. Workshop provides advanced support for the Struts library and for developing Struts applications. Please refer to the resources listed below for more information.