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Setting up jQuery jTable plugin in Struts 2 framework

 
In this article we will learn to setup jTable and dependent libraries in Struts 2 web application. jTable is a jQuery plugin which is used to create AJAX based CRUD tables without coding HTML or Javascript, to know more about jTable please refer the article here
 

Steps done to set up our application for jTable

 
Libraries required for the setup,

 
Now to start with demonstration of above topic, let us Create a Dynamic Web Project in Eclipse, with following project structure.
 
jTable in struts 2
 
As show in the image download the required library mentioned and place it in js and css folder of eclipse work-space, and refer these files in the head section in the jsp as shown below.
 
Setup done from the browser perspective: jTable
 
jTable plugin allows you to issue an ajax request via jQuery plugin and expects a JSON object as a response, hence the following configuration needs to be made in Jsp file
 

Jsp Page

 
File : jTable.jsp

<html>
<head>
<title>jTable in Struts 2</title>
<!-- jTable Metro theme -->
<link href="css/metro/blue/jtable.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<link href="css/jquery-ui-1.10.3.custom.css" rel="stylesheet"
	type="text/css" />

<!-- jTable script file. -->
<script src="js/jquery-1.8.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="js/jquery-ui-1.10.3.custom.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="js/jquery.jtable.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
	$(document).ready(function() {
		$('#StudentTableContainer').jtable({
			title : 'Students List',
			actions : {
				listAction : 'listAction'
			},
			fields : {
				studentId : {
					title : 'Student Id',
					width : '30%',
					key : true,
					list : true,
					create : true
				},
				name : {
					title : 'Name',
					width : '30%',
					edit : false
				},
				department : {
					title : 'Department',
					width : '30%',
					edit : true
				},
				emailId : {
					title : 'Email',
					width : '20%',
					edit : true
				}
			}
		});
		$('#StudentTableContainer').jtable('load');
	});
</script>

</head>
<body>
<div>
	<h3>Integrating jTable jQuery plugin and Struts 2 framework</h3>
	    <div id="StudentTableContainer"></div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

 
As you can see, jTable just needs a div container as the only HTML tag. It fields options are explained below:
title: Title of the table.
actions: URLs of actions that are used to create/delete/update/list records.
fields: It defines the field names that represent columns of the record. Note that the field name should exactly match the instance variable defined in the model class.
 
Setup done from the server’s perspective: Struts 2 Action class
 
In the Action class, we are populating a list of type “Student”(Model). Since jTable accepts data only in Json format, so we are converting this List (Java Object) to Json(Javascript object Notation) format using struts2-json-plugin.jar.

**Update:: In the article AJAX implementation in Struts 2 using JQuery and JSON I have explained about usage of struts2-json-plugin.jar clearly, So if you are not aware of how struts2-json-plugin works, then please go thorough the above mentiioned link.

 

Action Class

 

package com.simplecodestuffs.action;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

import com.opensymphony.xwork2.Action;
import com.simplecodestuffs.model.Student;

public class JtableAction {

	private List<Student> records = new ArrayList<Student>();
	private String result;

	public String list() {
		// Add data to Student list
		records.add(new Student(1, "Haripriya", "IT", "[email protected]"));
		records.add(new Student(2, "Dinesh", "ECE", "[email protected]"));
		records.add(new Student(3, "Prabhu", "MECH", "[email protected]"));
		records.add(new Student(4, "Badru", "ECE", "[email protected]"));
		records.add(new Student(5, "Lahir nisha", "CSC", "[email protected]"));
		records.add(new Student(6, "Nilafar nisha", "CSC", "[email protected]"));
		records.add(new Student(7, "Jamil", "ECE", "[email protected]"));
		records.add(new Student(8, "Mahes", "ECE", "[email protected]"));
		records.add(new Student(9, "Lourde", "IT", "[email protected]"));
		result = "OK";

		return Action.SUCCESS;
	}

	public List<Student> getRecords() {
		return records;
	}

	public void setRecords(List<Student> records) {
		this.records = records;
	}

	public String getResult() {
		return result;
	}

	public void setResult(String result) {
		this.result = result;
	}
}

 
In case of read operations in jTable, Result property must be “OK” if operation is successful. If an error occurs, then Result property must be “ERROR”. If Result is “OK”, the Records property will contain an array of records defined in the action class. If it’s ERROR, a Message property will contain an error message to show to the user. A sample return value for listAction is show below
 

{
"Result":"OK",
"Records":
[{
"studentId":1,
"name":"Haripriya",
"department":"IT",
"emailId":"[email protected]"
}]
}

 

Model Class

 
Create the Model class which will have getters and setters for fields specified in jTable script.
 

package com.simplecodestuffs.model;

public class Student {

	public Student() {
	}

	public Student(int studentId, String name, String department, String emailId) {
		super();
		this.studentId = studentId;
		this.name = name;
		this.department = department;
		this.emailId = emailId;
	}

	private int studentId;
	private String name;
	private String department;
	private String emailId;

	public int getStudentId() {
		return studentId;
	}

	public String getName() {
		return name;
	}

	public String getDepartment() {
		return department;
	}

	public String getEmailId() {
		return emailId;
	}

	public void setStudentId(int studentId) {
		this.studentId = studentId;
	}

	public void setName(String name) {
		this.name = name;
	}

	public void setDepartment(String department) {
		this.department = department;
	}

	public void setEmailId(String emailId) {
		this.emailId = emailId;
	}
}

 

Struts.xml

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE struts PUBLIC
"-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Struts Configuration 2.0//EN"
"http://struts.apache.org/dtds/struts-2.0.dtd">
<struts>
<package name="default" extends="json-default">
   <action name="listAction" class="com.simplecodestuffs.action.JtableAction"
	method="list">
	<result type="json">/jTable.jsp</result>
  </action>
  <action name="getJSONResult" class="com.simplecodestuffs.action.JtableAction" method="list">
	<result type="json" />
  </action>
</package>
</struts>

Since jTable accepts data only in Json format, So in order to convert java object to json object I have extended json-default package instead of struts-default package, please refer article here for more detail on json-default package.
 

Demo

 
On running the application i got the following response
 
Jtable exception
 
Since I have not handled any exception, so the message displayed in error box is empty.
 
While debugging the error I found that the json response formed in struts application as below.
get json result in Jtable
 
Hear the property names of jTable plugin are case sensitive. Only “Result”, “Records” and “Message” will work. In struts 2 the “json response” generated is in lower case[“result”, “records” and “message”], hence I edited the jtable.js to replace Result to result, Records to records and Message to message then it worked.
 
**Note: Along with the above keyword replace TotalRecordCount to totalRecordCount respectively, since this parameter will be used to display pagination count(Which I will implement in upcoming tutorial)
 
jquery-jtable-in-struts-2
 
Now on including action for create, update and delete in jsp page as below

actions : {
	listAction : 'list',
	createAction : 'create',
	updateAction : 'update',
	deleteAction : 'delete'
}

 
On running the application
Integrating-jQuery-jTable-plugin-with-Struts2-framework
 
On clicking ‘Add new record’
Struts-2-using-jTable-jQuery-plug-in-Create-record
 
On clicking edit button
Struts-2-jTable-jQuery-plug-in-Update-record
 
On clicking delete button
Struts-2-jTable-jQuery-plug-in-Delete-record
 
Note :
 
In the above program I have not included the logic for create, delete and update functions. In the article CRUD Operations in Struts 2 using jTable jQuery plugin via Ajax I have implemented CRUD operation using jTable jQuery plugin in Struts 2, and in the article Pagination in Struts 2 using jQuery jTable plugin I have implemented paging feature using the same plugin.
 
download
 

Reference

 
jTable official website
AJAX based CRUD tables using ASP.NET MVC 3 and jTable jQuery plug-in
 

About Mohaideen Jamil