[Springframework-developer] Struts Spring Plugin

[<jue...@we...>]

Matt,

I've just read that on the Spring Live blog that you're refining Don =
Brown's Struts Spring Plugin. That reminded me that I've repeatedly =
considered including something like this Plugin in the main Spring =
distribution. Particularly if it is just two classes, I don't have =
worries about size and scope. A main benefit is that it would be =
available out-of-the-box with Spring, just like all the integrated data =
access and view technologies.

Actually, I intend to completely rework the Plugin far beyond its =
current implementation. It should properly have its own =
XmlWebApplicationContext, by default loaded from =
"/WEB-INF/<servlet-name>.xml", having the Spring root application =
context (if any) as parent, just like a Spring DispatcherServlet.

The beans in the Spring context can have the same name as the =
corresponding Actions in struts-config.xml. Simply don't use <bean =
id=3D"..."/> but rather <bean name=3D"..."/>, which allows any special =
characters like in "/logon.do". The original Plugin was written against =
Spring 1.0 M1 where this wasn't available, IIRC.

SpringAction's looking up of the corresponding Spring bean and setting =
the ActionServlet can be significantly optimized. Actually, I consider =
the current implementation unsafe: It first sets the ActionServlet on =
the located Action (a shared instance) and then resets it to null again =
(on each execution!). This is not at all thread-safe.

If noone objects, I'll come up with an optimized implementation for the =
standard Spring codebase within the next couple of days. We're about to =
release Spring 1.0.1 next week, and I'd be willing to already include =
this special Struts support in that release, if the stuff is as simple =
as I assume (or in 1.0.2, if it takes longer).

Juergen