Problems forwarding to a tile

[Terry Rappatillo]

Hello all, I'm creating a tiny web site using struts, tiles and jstl-powered jsp pages. I've got some business logic included in javabeans and used in action classes, but there's nothing complicated involved here like EJBs or such.

I'm pointing my browser to <http://localhost:8080/site/main.do>. The problem is that I get an exception called IllegalArgumentException telling me that the tile I'm forwarding to at the end of my action class should be absolute. This tile is named as ".main" like suggested in many howtos. Execution never gets to my jsp pages.

Any ideas how to fix this or good pointers where to continue reading valid information? I've been spending hours and again hours reading out of dated documents and howtos, but without any luck.

Please see the following exact error message.

500 Servlet Exception
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: request dispatcher url `.main' must
be absolute
  at com.caucho.server.webapp.Application.getRequestDispatcher(Application.java:1912)
  at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.doForward(RequestProcessor.java:1062)
  at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesRequestProcessor.doForward(TilesRequestProcessor.java:274)
  at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.processForwardConfig(RequestProcessor.java:455)
  at org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesRequestProcessor.processForwardConfig(TilesRequestProcessor.java:320)
  at org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.process(RequestProcessor.java:279)
  at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.process(ActionServlet.java:1482)
  at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.doGet(ActionServlet.java:507)
  at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:115)
  at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:92)
  at com.caucho.server.dispatch.ServletFilterChain.doFilter(ServletFilterChain.java:106)
  at com.caucho.server.cache.CacheFilterChain.doFilter(CacheFilterChain.java:209)
  at com.caucho.server.webapp.WebAppFilterChain.doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:178)
  at com.caucho.server.dispatch.ServletInvocation.service(ServletInvocation.java:229)
  at com.caucho.server.http.HttpRequest.handleRequest(HttpRequest.java:267)
  at com.caucho.server.port.TcpConnection.run(TcpConnection.java:388)
  at com.caucho.util.ThreadPool.runTasks(ThreadPool.java:490)
  at com.caucho.util.ThreadPool.run(ThreadPool.java:423)
  at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:534)
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Resin-3.0.17 (built Thu, 22 Dec 2005 12:11:34 PST) 

Here's my tiles-definition.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<tiles-definition>
  <definition name="_base" path="/common/layout.jsp">
    <put name="header" value="/common/header.jsp"/>
    <put name="body" value="/common/body.jsp"/>
    <put name="footer" value="/common/footer.jsp"/>   
  </definition>
  
  <!-- Main page -->
  <definition name=".main" extends="_base">
    <put name="body" value="/main.jsp"/>
  </definition>
  
  <!-- Products page -->
  <definition name=".products" extends="_base">
    <put name="body" value="/products.jsp"/>
  </definition>
  
  <!-- Services page -->
  <definition name=".services" extends="_base">
    <put name="body" value="/services.jsp"/>
  </definition>
  
  <!-- Company page -->
  <definition name=".company" extends="_base">
    <put name="body" value="/company.jsp"/>
  </definition>
  
  <!-- Contact page -->
  <definition name=".contact" extends="_base">
    <put name="body" value="/contact.jsp"/>
  </definition>
</tiles-definition>

Here's my struts-config.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE struts-config PUBLIC "-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Struts Configuration 1.1//EN" "http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/dtds/struts-config_1_1.dtd">
 
<struts-config>
  <data-sources />
  
  <form-beans>
    <form-bean name="MainPageForm" type="fi.x.site.ui.form.MainPageForm"/>
  </form-beans>
  
  <global-exceptions />
  
  <global-forwards>
    <forward name="logoff" path="/logoff.do"/>
    <forward name="logon" path="/logon.jsp"/>
  </global-forwards>
 
  <action-mappings >
    <!-- Main page [1] -->
    <action path="/main" type="fi.x.site.main.ui.action.MainPageAction"
      scope="request">
      <forward name="success" path=".main"/>
    </action>
     
     <!-- Products page -->
    <action path="/products" type="fi.x.site.products.ui.action.MainPageAction"
      scope="request">
      <forward name="success" path=".products"/>
    </action>
    
     <!-- Services page -->
    <action path="/services" type="fi.x.site.services.ui.action.MainPageAction"
      scope="request">
      <forward name="success" path=".services"/>
    </action>
    
     <!-- Company page -->
    <action path="/company" type="fi.x.site.company.ui.action.MainPageAction"
      scope="request">
      <forward name="success" path=".company"/>
    </action>
    
     <!-- Contact page -->
    <action path="/contact" type="fi.x.site.contact.ui.action.MainPageAction"
      scope="request">
      <forward name="success" path=".contact"/>
    </action>
  </action-mappings>
 
  <message-resources parameter="fi.x.site.common.ui.data.ApplicationResources"/>
  
  <plug-in className="org.apache.struts.validator.ValidatorPlugIn">
    <set-property property="pathnames" value="/WEB-INF/validator-rules.xml"/>
  </plug-in>
    
  <plug-in className="org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesPlugin">
    <set-property property="definitions-config" value="/WEB-INF/tiles-definition.xml"/>
    <set-property property="moduleAware" value="true"/>
    <set-property property="definitions-debug" value="2"/>
    <set-property property="definitions-parser-details" value="2"/>
    <set-property property="definitions-parser-validate" value="true"/>    
  </plug-in>
  
  <controller processorClass="org.apache.struts.tiles.TilesRequestProcessor"/>
</struts-config>

[1] This is the tile I'm trying to get to function. When it does, I'll proceed with the others then.

And here's my web.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" version="2.4" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee   <a href="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd">" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd"></a>
  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>config</param-name>
      <param-value>/WEB-INF/struts-config.xml</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>application</param-name>
      <param-value>ApplicationResources</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>debug</param-name>
      <param-value>255</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>detail</param-name>
      <param-value>255</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>validate</param-name>
      <param-value>true</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>3</load-on-startup>
  </servlet>
  
  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>action</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.do</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>
  
  <welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>/index.jsp</welcome-file>
  </welcome-file-list>
</web-app>

And here's the code of my action class:

// $Header$
 
package fi.x.site.main.ui.action;
 
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.logging.Level;
import java.util.logging.Logger;
 
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpSession;
 
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForward;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMapping;
 
import fi.x.site.common.ui.action.BaseAction;
 
/**
 * @author Tero Ripattila <[e-mail]>
 * @version $Id$
 */
public class MainPageAction extends BaseAction {
  private final String SESSION_ERROR_MESSAGES = "error_messages";
  private final String SESSION_ERROR_COLUMNS = "error_columns";
 
  static protected final Logger log =
    Logger.getLogger(MainPageAction.class.getName());
  
  /**
   * 
   */
  public ActionForward execute(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,
    HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
    throws Exception {
      log.log(Level.INFO, "MainPageAction::execute called.");
      
      HttpSession session = request.getSession();
      
      try {
        session.setAttribute("foo", "bar");
        
        return mapping.findForward("success");
      }
      catch (Exception e) {
        System.err.println ("[ERROR] MainPageAction:   :-P	   erform at final " +
          "catch: " + e.getMessage());
        e.printStackTrace();
        throw new ServletException(e);
      }
  }
 
  /**
   *
   */
  public ActionForward doPerform(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,
    HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
    throws IOException, ServletException {
      log.log(Level.INFO, "MainPageAction:  :mrgreen:  oPerfom called.");
 
      try {
        // :TODO:
        return execute(mapping, form, request, response);
      }
      catch (Exception e) {
        System.err.println ("[ERROR] MainPageAction:  :-P	  erform at final " +
          "catch: " + e.getMessage());
        e.printStackTrace();
        throw new ServletException(e);
      }
  }
}

TIA, Tero

[ January 12, 2006: Message edited by: Tero Ripattila ]
[ January 13, 2006: Message edited by: Tero Ripattila ]