In this tutorial, it shows the integration between “Struts2 + Spring + Hibernate“. Make sure you check the following tutorials before continue.

  1. Struts 2 + Hibernate integration example
  2. Struts 2 + Spring integration example
  3. Struts 1.x + Spring + Hibernate integration example

See the summary of integration steps :

  1. Get all the dependency libraries (a lot).
  2. Register Spring’s ContextLoaderListener to integrate Struts 2 and Spring.
  3. Use Spring’s LocalSessionFactoryBean to integrate Spring and Hibernate.
  4. Done, all connected.

See the relationship :

Struts 2 <-- (ContextLoaderListener) --> Spring <-- (LocalSessionFactoryBean) --> Hibernate
This will be a very long tutorial with little explanation, make sure you check the above 3 articles for details explanation.

Tutorials Start…

It will going to create a customer page, with add customer and list customer function. Front end is using Struts 2 to display, Spring as the dependency injection engine, and Hibernate to doing the database operation. Let start…

1. Project structure

Project folder structure.

Struts2 Spring Hibernate Project Structure
Struts2 Spring Hibernate Project Structure
2. MySQL table script

Customer’s table script.

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `mkyong`.`customer`;
CREATE TABLE  `mkyong`.`customer` (
  `CUSTOMER_ID` BIGINT(20) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `NAME` VARCHAR(45) NOT NULL,
  `ADDRESS` VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  `CREATED_DATE` datetime NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`CUSTOMER_ID`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=17 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
3.Dependency libraries

This tutorials request many dependency libraries.

Struts 2…

        <!-- Struts 2 -->
        <dependency>
	    <groupId>org.apache.struts</groupId>
	    <artifactId>struts2-core</artifactId>
	    <version>2.1.8</version>
        </dependency>
	<!-- Struts 2 + Spring plugins -->
	<dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.struts</groupId>
	    <artifactId>struts2-spring-plugin</artifactId>
	    <version>2.1.8</version>
        </dependency>

MySQL…

        <!-- MySQL database driver -->
	<dependency>
		<groupId>mysql</groupId>
		<artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
		<version>5.1.9</version>
	</dependency>

Spring…

    <!-- Spring framework --> 
	<dependency>
		<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
		<artifactId>spring</artifactId>
		<version>2.5.6</version>
	</dependency>
	<dependency>
		<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
		<artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
		<version>2.5.6</version>
	</dependency>

Hibernate…

    <!-- Hibernate core -->
	<dependency>
		<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
		<artifactId>hibernate</artifactId>
		<version>3.2.7.ga</version>
	</dependency>
 
	<!-- Hibernate core library dependency start -->
	<dependency>
		<groupId>dom4j</groupId>
		<artifactId>dom4j</artifactId>
		<version>1.6.1</version>
	</dependency>
 
	<dependency>
		<groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
		<artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
		<version>1.1.1</version>
	</dependency>
 
	<dependency>
		<groupId>commons-collections</groupId>
		<artifactId>commons-collections</artifactId>
		<version>3.2.1</version>
	</dependency>
 
	<dependency>
		<groupId>cglib</groupId>
		<artifactId>cglib</artifactId>
		<version>2.2</version>
	</dependency>
	<!-- Hibernate core library dependency end -->
 
	<!-- Hibernate query library dependency start -->
	<dependency>
		<groupId>antlr</groupId>
		<artifactId>antlr</artifactId>
		<version>2.7.7</version>
	</dependency>
	<!-- Hibernate query library dependency end -->
4. Hibernate…

Only the model and mapping files are required, because Spring will handle the Hibernate configuration.

Customer.java – Create a class for customer table.

package com.mkyong.customer.model;
 
import java.util.Date;
 
public class Customer implements java.io.Serializable {
 
	private Long customerId;
	private String name;
	private String address;
	private Date createdDate;
 
	//getter and setter methods
}

Customer.hbm.xml – Hibernate mapping file for customer.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC "-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD 3.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-mapping-3.0.dtd">
<!-- Generated 20 Julai 2010 11:40:18 AM by Hibernate Tools 3.2.5.Beta -->
<hibernate-mapping>
    <class name="com.mkyong.customer.model.Customer" 
		table="customer" catalog="mkyong">
        <id name="customerId" type="java.lang.Long">
            <column name="CUSTOMER_ID" />
            <generator class="identity" />
        </id>
        <property name="name" type="string">
            <column name="NAME" length="45" not-null="true" />
        </property>
        <property name="address" type="string">
            <column name="ADDRESS" not-null="true" />
        </property>
        <property name="createdDate" type="timestamp">
            <column name="CREATED_DATE" length="19" not-null="true" />
        </property>
    </class>
</hibernate-mapping>
5. Struts 2…

Implements the Bo and DAO design pattern. All the Bo and DAO will be DI by Spring in the Spring bean configuration file. In the DAO, make it extends Spring’s HibernateDaoSupport to integrate Spring and Hibernate integration.

CustomerBo.java

package com.mkyong.customer.bo;
 
import java.util.List;
import com.mkyong.customer.model.Customer;
 
public interface CustomerBo{
 
	void addCustomer(Customer customer);
	List<Customer> listCustomer();
 
}

CustomerBoImpl.java

package com.mkyong.customer.bo.impl;
 
import java.util.List;
import com.mkyong.customer.bo.CustomerBo;
import com.mkyong.customer.dao.CustomerDAO;
import com.mkyong.customer.model.Customer;
 
public class CustomerBoImpl implements CustomerBo{
 
	CustomerDAO customerDAO;
	//DI via Spring
	public void setCustomerDAO(CustomerDAO customerDAO) {
		this.customerDAO = customerDAO;
	}
 
	//call DAO to save customer
	public void addCustomer(Customer customer){
		customerDAO.addCustomer(customer);
	}
 
	//call DAO to return customers
	public List<Customer> listCustomer(){
		return customerDAO.listCustomer();
	}
}

CustomerDAO.java

package com.mkyong.customer.dao;
 
import java.util.List;
import com.mkyong.customer.model.Customer;
 
public interface CustomerDAO{
 
	void addCustomer(Customer customer);
	List<Customer> listCustomer();	
 
}

CustomerDAOImpl.java

package com.mkyong.customer.dao.impl;
 
import java.util.List;
import org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.support.HibernateDaoSupport;
import com.mkyong.customer.dao.CustomerDAO;
import com.mkyong.customer.model.Customer;
 
public class CustomerDAOImpl extends HibernateDaoSupport 
    implements CustomerDAO{
 
	//add the customer
	public void addCustomer(Customer customer){
		getHibernateTemplate().save(customer);
	}
 
	//return all the customers in list
	public List<Customer> listCustomer(){
		return getHibernateTemplate().find("from Customer");		
	}
 
}

CustomerAction.java – The Struts2 action is no longer need to extends the ActionSupport, Spring will handle it.

package com.mkyong.customer.action;
 
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.List;
 
import com.mkyong.customer.bo.CustomerBo;
import com.mkyong.customer.model.Customer;
import com.opensymphony.xwork2.ModelDriven;
 
public class CustomerAction implements ModelDriven{
 
	Customer customer = new Customer();
	List<Customer> customerList = new ArrayList<Customer>();
 
	CustomerBo customerBo;
	//DI via Spring
	public void setCustomerBo(CustomerBo customerBo) {
		this.customerBo = customerBo;
	}
 
	public Object getModel() {
		return customer;
	}
 
	public List<Customer> getCustomerList() {
		return customerList;
	}
 
	public void setCustomerList(List<Customer> customerList) {
		this.customerList = customerList;
	}
 
	//save customer
	public String addCustomer() throws Exception{
 
		//save it
		customer.setCreatedDate(new Date());
		customerBo.addCustomer(customer);
 
		//reload the customer list
		customerList = null;
		customerList = customerBo.listCustomer();
 
		return "success";
 
	}
 
	//list all customers
	public String listCustomer() throws Exception{
 
		customerList = customerBo.listCustomer();
 
		return "success";
 
	}
 
}
6. Spring…

Almost all the configuration is done here, at all, Spring is specialized in integration work :) .

CustomerBean.xml – Declare the Spring’s beans : Action, BO and DAO.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans 
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd">
 
 	<bean id="customerAction" class="com.mkyong.customer.action.CustomerAction">
		<property name="customerBo" ref="customerBo" />	
	</bean>
 
	<bean id="customerBo" class="com.mkyong.customer.bo.impl.CustomerBoImpl" >
		<property name="customerDAO" ref="customerDAO" />
	</bean>
 
   	<bean id="customerDAO" class="com.mkyong.customer.dao.impl.CustomerDAOImpl" >
		<property name="sessionFactory" ref="sessionFactory" />
	</bean>
 
</beans>

database.properties – Declare the database details.

jdbc.driverClassName=com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
jdbc.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/mkyong
jdbc.username=root
jdbc.password=password

DataSource.xml – Create a datasource bean.

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd">
 
 <bean 
   class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
   <property name="location">
     <value>WEB-INF/classes/config/database/properties/database.properties</value>
   </property>
</bean>
 
  <bean id="dataSource" 
         class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource">
	<property name="driverClassName" value="${jdbc.driverClassName}" />
	<property name="url" value="${jdbc.url}" />
	<property name="username" value="${jdbc.username}" />
	<property name="password" value="${jdbc.password}" />
  </bean>
 
</beans>

HibernateSessionFactory.xml – Create a sessionFactory bean to integrate Spring and Hibernate.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd">
 
<!-- Hibernate session factory -->
<bean id="sessionFactory" 
    class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.LocalSessionFactoryBean">
 
    <property name="dataSource">
      <ref bean="dataSource"/>
    </property>
 
    <property name="hibernateProperties">
       <props>
         <prop key="hibernate.dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect</prop>
         <prop key="hibernate.show_sql">true</prop>
       </props>
    </property>
 
    <property name="mappingResources">
		<list>
          <value>com/mkyong/customer/hibernate/Customer.hbm.xml</value>
		</list>
    </property>	
 
</bean>
</beans>

SpringBeans.xml – Create a core Spring’s bean configuration file, act as the central bean management.

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd">
 
	<!-- Database Configuration -->
	<import resource="config/spring/DataSource.xml"/>
	<import resource="config/spring/HibernateSessionFactory.xml"/>
 
	<!-- Beans Declaration -->
	<import resource="com/mkyong/customer/spring/CustomerBean.xml"/>
 
</beans>
7. JSP page

JSP page to display the element with Struts 2 tags.

customer.jsp

<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="/struts-tags" %>
<html>
<head>
</head>
 
<body>
<h1>Struts 2 + Spring + Hibernate integration example</h1>
 
<h2>Add Customer</h2>
<s:form action="addCustomerAction" >
  <s:textfield name="name" label="Name" value="" />
  <s:textarea name="address" label="Address" value="" cols="50" rows="5" />
  <s:submit />
</s:form>
 
<h2>All Customers</h2>
 
<s:if test="customerList.size() > 0">
<table border="1px" cellpadding="8px">
	<tr>
		<th>Customer Id</th>
		<th>Name</th>
		<th>Address</th>
		<th>Created Date</th>
	</tr>
	<s:iterator value="customerList" status="userStatus">
		<tr>
			<td><s:property value="customerId" /></td>
			<td><s:property value="name" /></td>
			<td><s:property value="address" /></td>
			<td><s:date name="createdDate" format="dd/MM/yyyy" /></td>
		</tr>
	</s:iterator>
</table>
</s:if>
<br/>
<br/>
 
</body>
</html>
8. struts.xml

Link it all ~

<?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>
 	<constant name="struts.devMode" value="true" />
 
	<package name="default" namespace="/" extends="struts-default">
 
		<action name="addCustomerAction" 
			class="customerAction" method="addCustomer" >
		    <result name="success">pages/customer.jsp</result>
		</action>
 
		<action name="listCustomerAction"
			class="customerAction" method="listCustomer" >
		    <result name="success">pages/customer.jsp</result>
		</action>
 
	</package>
 
</struts>
9. Struts 2 + Spring

To integrate Struts 2 and Spring, just register the ContextLoaderListener listener class, define a “contextConfigLocation” parameter to ask Spring container to parse the “SpringBeans.xml” instead of the default “applicationContext.xml“.

web.xml

<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC
 "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN"
 "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd" >
 
<web-app>
  <display-name>Struts 2 Web Application</display-name>
 
  <filter>
	<filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
	<filter-class>
	  org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.ng.filter.StrutsPrepareAndExecuteFilter
	</filter-class>
  </filter>
 
  <filter-mapping>
	<filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
	<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
  </filter-mapping>
 
  <context-param>
	<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
	<param-value>/WEB-INF/classes/SpringBeans.xml</param-value>
  </context-param>
 
  <listener>
    <listener-class>
      org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
    </listener-class>
  </listener>
 
</web-app>
10. Demo

Test it : http://localhost:8080/Struts2Example/listCustomerAction.action

Struts2 Spring Hibernate Example
Struts2 Spring Hibernate Example