Combining Groovy, Grails, MySQL, and the Java Persistence API
With the addition of support for scripting languages in the Java platform , there has been a lot of interest in combining into web applications scripting languages such as Groovy, Java technologies such as the Java Persistence API (JPA), and databases such as MySQL. Last year I wrote a Tech Tip titled Combining JavaServer Faces Technology, Spring, and the Java Persistence API that showed how you can use JavaServer Faces Technology, Spring, and the JPA to create an application that displays an online catalog of pets. In this tip, I'll show you how to create an online catalog application using the Groovy language, the Grails framework, the MySQL database, and the Java Persistence API.
A package that contains the code for the sample application accompanies the tip. The code examples in the tip are taken from the source code of the sample (which is included in the package). In this tip, you'll use NetBeans IDE 6.5 Milestone 1 to build the application and deploy it on the GlassFish application server. The NetBeans IDE is a modular, standards-based, integrated development environment (IDE) written in the Java programming language. The latest NetBeans IDE offering, NetBeans IDE 6.5 Milestone 1 (or M1 for short), offers many new features including support for Groovy and Grails. GlassFish is a free, open source application server that implements the newest features in the Java EE 5 platform.
A Summary of the Languages, Technologies, and Frameworks in the Sample Application
If you're not familiar with Groovy, Grails, MySQL, or the Java Persistence API, here are brief descriptions:
- Groovy is an agile and dynamic language for the Java Virtual Machine1 . It compiles to Java bytecode and combines popular features from languages such as Smalltalk, Python, and Ruby.
- Grails is an open-source web application framework that leverages the Groovy language and complements Java Web development. It aims to bring the "coding by convention" paradigm to Groovy. Grails is a Model-View-Controller based framework that simplifies the development of web applications by reducing the need for configuration files and by generating a lot of the things needed in a database-backed web application.
- MySQL is the world's most popular open-source database. It offers consistently fast performance, high reliability and ease of use.
- The Java Persistence API provides a (plain old Java object) POJO-based persistence model for Java EE and Java SE applications. It handles the details of how relational data is mapped to Java objects, and it standardizes Object/Relational (O/R) mapping.
The Sample Application
The sample application displays an online catalog of pets sold in a pet store. Figure 1 shows the Catalog Listing page, which allows a user to page through a list of items in a store.
Figure 1. Catalog Listing Page |
Examining the Application
Earlier I mentioned that Grails is a Model-View-Controller based framework that simplifies the development of web applications. The online catalog application uses Grails and so it follows the MVC pattern, that is, the application isolates its data, the "Model", from the user interface, the "View", and from the code that manages the communication between the model and the view, the "Controller". Let's first look at the Model for the application.
The Model
The Model not only represents the data for the application, but it also represent persistent data, that is, data that persists beyond the life of the application. In other words, the Model represents an application's persistent business domain objects. The application uses JPA to manage that persistence. In JPA, an entity instance -- an instance of an entity object -- represents a row of data in a database table.
If you examine the source code for the application, you'll find the following two classes in the model
directory: Item
and Address
. Item
is an entity class -- a typical JPA entity object -- that maps to an item
table in a database. The table stores information about items in the catalog. Here is part of the source code for the Item
class:
package model;
import java.io.Serializable;
...
@Entity
@Table(name = "item")
public class Item implements Serializable {
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
@Id
private Long id;
private String name;
private String description;
private String imageurl;
private String imagethumburl;
private BigDecimal price;
@ManyToOne(optional = false)
@JoinColumn(name = "address_id")
private Address address;
// getters and setters
...
}
Address
is an entity class that maps to an address
table in the database. The table stores addresses associated with items in the catalog. Here is part of the source code for the Address
class:
package model;
import java.io.Serializable;
...
@Entity
public class Address implements Serializable {
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
@Id
private Long id;
private String street1;
private String street2;
private String city;
private String state;
private String zip;
private BigDecimal latitude;
private BigDecimal longitude;
private BigInteger version;
@OneToMany(fetch = FetchType.EAGER,
cascade = { CascadeType.ALL },
mappedBy = "address")
private Collection<Item>items = new ArrayList();
// getters and setters
...
}
The Item
class has a many-to-one relationship with the Address
class, meaning that there can be multiple items in the catalog associated with the same address, but multiple addresses cannot be associated with the same item. This relationship is specified by the @ManyToOne
annotation in the Item
class and the @OneToMany(mappedBy = "address")
annotation in the Address
entity class.
Using JPA Entities With Grails and MySQL
To use the JPA entities for the application with Grails and MySQL, you first need to create a Grails application and then modify some files in the Grails application directory structure.
We'll use NetBeans IDE 6.5 M1 to create a Grails application. If you haven't already done so, download NetBeans IDE 6.5 Milestone 1 and download Grails .
Start NetBeans IDE 6.5 Milestone 1. Select New Project from the File menu. Then select Groovy in the Categories window and Grails in the Projects window as shown in Figure2 .
Figure 2. Creating a Grails Project in NetBeans IDE 6.5 M1 |
Click the Next button and name the project, for instance, MyGrailsApp
. Accept the default project location or browse to select a different location. Leave the Set as Main Project checkbox checked and click the Finish button.
In response, NetBeans creates the Grails project and a standard directory structure for a Grails application. Figure 3 shows the Grails directory structure for the online catalog application.
Figure 3. Grails Directory Structure for the Online Catalog Application |
After you have your directory structure in place, do the following:
- Put your entity files in the app_name /src/java directory, where app_name is the name of your Grails application. The
Item
andAddress
entity files for the online catalog application are in thecatalog/src/java/model
directory. - Get the MySQL jdbc driver, mysql-connector-java-5.1.6-bin.jar and put it in the
app_name /lib
directory. You can find themysql-connector-java-5.1.6-bin.jar
file for the online catalog application in thecatalog/lib
directory. - Modify the
DataSource.groovy
file in theapp_name /grails-app/conf
directory to use MySQL as the database and specify theGrailsAnnotationConfiguration
configuration class to use the annotations in the JPA entities. The code marked in bold in the following code example shows the additions and modification that I made to theDataSource.groovy
file for the online catalog application.import org.codehaus.groovy.grails.orm.hibernate.cfg.GrailsAnnotationConfiguration
dataSource {
configClass = GrailsAnnotationConfiguration.class
pooled = false
driverClassName = "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver "
username = "root "
password = ""
dialect = "org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5InnoDBDialect "
}
hibernate {
cache.use_second_level_cache=true
cache.use_query_cache=true
cache.provider_class='com.opensymphony.oscache.hibernate.OSCacheProvider'
}
// environment specific settings
environments {
development {
dataSource {
dbCreate = "create-drop" // one of 'create', 'create-drop','update'
url = "jdbc:mysql://localhost/petcatalog "
}
}
test {
dataSource {
dbCreate = "update"
url = "jdbc:mysql://localhost/petcatalog "
}
}
production {
dataSource {
dbCreate = "update"
url = "jdbc:mysql://localhost/petcatalog "
}
}
}
- For Grails to recognize the JPA entities as domain classes, you need to add the
hibernate.cfg.xml
file to theapp_name /grails-app/conf/hibernate
directory. Here is thehibernate.cfg.xml
file for the online catalog application. You can find it in thecatalog/grails-app/conf/hibernate
directory.<?xml version=""1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD 3.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">
<hibernate-configuration>
<session-factory>
<mapping package="model" />
<mapping class="model.Item" />
<mapping class="model.Address" />
</session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>
The Controller
NetBeans IDE 6.5 M1 enables you to create domain classes and controllers, but I haven't found the menu option to generate controllers, so for now, let's use the command line as follows to generate a controller:
- Open a command prompt and navigate to the project directory for your Grails application. If you've forgotten where this is, you can find it in the project's Properties dialog.
- Generate a controller for a domain class by entering the following command:
grails generate-controller domain-class
where domain-class is the domain class name. For example, to generate a controller for the
Item
domain class in the online catalog application, I entered the following command:grails generate-controller model.Item
In response, the command generates a file named
domain-class Controller.groovy
in thegrails-app/controllers
directory. For theItem
class, the generated controller is ingrails-app/controllers/ItemController.groovy
.
Figure 4 shows the controller, ItemController.groovy
, in the NetBeans IDE 6.1 M1 Groovy editor window.
Figure 4. A Controller Listed in the Grails Directory Structure for the Online Catalog Application |
Controllers handle incoming HTTP requests, interact with the model to get data and process requests, invoke the correct view, and direct domain data to the view for display. In Grails, HTTP requests are handled by controller classes that contain one or more action methods that are executed on request. The action methods either render a Groovy Server Page (GSP) or redirect to another action. Grails routes requests to the controller action that corresponds to the URL mapping for the request. In Grails, the default mapping from URL to action method follows the convention http://host /app_name /controller /action /id where host is the host name, app_name is the name of the Grails application, controller is the controller class, action is the action method, and id is the id of a passed parameter. For example, the URL http://host/catalog/item/list calls the list
action method in the item controller class. Here is code snippet in ItemController.groovy
that shows the list
method:
import model.Item
class ItemController {
def index = { redirect(action:list,params:params) }
// the delete, save and update actions only accept POST requests
def allowedMethods = [delete:'POST', save:'POST', update:'POST']
def list = {
if(!params.max) params.max = 10
[ itemList: Item.list( params ) ]
}
Grails scaffolding provides a series of standardized controller action methods for listing, showing, creating, updating, and deleting objects of a class. These standardized actions come with both controller logic and default view Groovy Server Pages. The list
action in ItemController
renders a view with a paginated list of item objects.
If a URL has a controller but no action, as is the case for http://localhost:8080/catalog/item/, Grails defaults to the index
action. In the ItemController
code, the index
action method redirects to the list
action method. The list
action method calls the Item.list()
method, which returns an ArrayList
of item
objects retrieved from the item
table in the database. If there are more objects in the table than the number specified in params.max
(in this case, 10), Grails automatically creates next and previous pagination links. The Grails framework automatically makes the itemList
variable available to the view.
After executing code, actions usually render a GSP in the views
directory corresponding to the name of the controller and action. For example the list
action renders the GSP, list.gsp
, in the grails-app/views/item
directory.
The View
The view layer uses data from domain objects provided by the controller to generate a web page. In Grails, the view is rendered using Groovy Server Pages. To generate the view, open a command prompt, navigate to the project directory for your Grails application, and enter the following command:
grails generate-views domain-class
where domain-class is the domain class. For example, to generate a view for the Item
domain class in the online catalog application, I entered the following command:
grails generate-views model.Item
In response, the command generates GSPs for the domain class. For example, it generates create.gsp
, edit.gsp
, list.gsp
, for the model.Item
entity.
Here is part of the list.gsp
file for the online catalog application. Note that I modified the HTML table format that is generated by default to display the pet images.
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<g:sortableColumn property="name" title="Name" />
<g:sortableColumn property="imagethumburl" title="Photo" />
<g:sortableColumn property="price" title="Price" />
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<g:each in="${itemList}" status="i" var="item">
<tr class="${(i % 2) == 0 ? 'odd' : 'even'}">
<td>
<g:link action="show" id="${item.id}">
${item.name?.encodeAsHTML()}</g:link>
</td>
<td>
<img src="${createLinkTo(dir:'images',file:item.imagethumburl)}"/>
</td>
<td>${item.price?.encodeAsHTML()}</td>
</tr>
</g:each>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div class="paginateButtons">
<g:paginate total="${Item.count()}" />
</div>
The view uses instance variables set by the controller to access the data it needs to render the GSP. Groovy Server Pages use a GroovyTagLib that is similar to the JSP tag library. Notice the tags that start with <g:
in the list.gsp
code. These are GroovyTags. Here is a brief summary of the GroovyTags and some other elements in the list.gsp
code:
- Renders a sortable column to support sorting in tables.
-
Loops through each object in the
itemList
variable, which is an orderedArrayList
ofItem
model objects, and assigns eachItem
model object to theitem
variable. -
Creates an HTML anchor tag
href
based on the specified action, id, and controller parameters specified. In this example, it generates a link to theitem/show/id
action. This action will display the corresponding item details. Here, the line generates the following HTML for the variableitem
:<a href="/catalog/item/show/2">Friendly Cat</a>
- Generates an HTML link for the item's attribute.
- Displays the value of the item 's price attribute as escaped HTML text.
- Creates next/previous buttons and a breadcrumb trail to allow pagination of results using the domain method.
<g:sortableColumn>
<g:each in="${itemList}" status="i" var="item">
<g:link action="show" id="${item.id}">${item.name?.encodeAsHTML()}</g:link>
<img src="${createLinkTo (dir:'images',file:item.imagethumburl)}"/>
${item.price?.encodeAsHTML()}
<g:paginate total="${Item.count()}" />
The Show Action Method
Recall that in Grails, the default mapping from URL to action method follows the convention http://host/app_name /controller /action /id where host is the host name, app_name is the name of the Grails application, controller is the controller class, action is the action method, and id is the id of the passed parameter. This means that in the online catalog application, a URL of http://host/item/show/1 will route to the show action in the ItemController
, passing 1 to the method as the id of the parameter. The show
action of the ItemController
class is shown below. The ItemController
show
action renders a view showing the details of the item
object corresponding to the id
parameter.
def show = {
def item = Item.get( params.id )
if(!item) {
flash.message = "Item not found with id ${params.id}"
redirect(action:list)
}
else { return [ item : item ] }
}
The show
action method calls the Item.get()
method. That method, in turn, queries the items
table, and returns an item
instance variable that corresponds to the item
whose attribute id (that is, its primary key) is equal to the id
parameter. This is the equivalent to the following SQL statement:
select * from items where id='1'
The Grails framework automatically makes the item
variable available to the Show
view.
The Show Item GSP
After executing the appropriate code, the show
action renders the show.gsp
file in the applications's views/item
directory. Here is the part of the show.gsp
file for the online catalog application, presenting the item show view:
<table>
<tbody>
<tr class="prop"">
<td valign="top" class="name">Name:</td>
<td valign="top" class="value">${item.name}</td>
</tr>
<tr class="prop">
<td valign="top" class="name">Description:</td>
<td valign="top" class="value">${item.description}</td>
</tr>
<tr class="prop">
<td valign="top" class="name">Imageurl:</td>
<td valign="top" class="value">
<img src="${createLinkTo(dir:'images',file:item.imageurl)}" />
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="prop">
<td valign="top" class="name">Price:</td>
<td valign="top" class="value"> ${item.price}</td>
</tr>
<tr class="prop">
<td valign="top" class="name">Seller's Address:</td>
<td valign="top" class="value">${item?.address?.street1},
${item?.address?.city}, ${item?.address?.state}</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Here are some important parts of the item show view:
- Displays the value of the item 's description attribute.
-
Generates an HTML image tag for the item's
imageurl
attribute. - Displays the value of the item's address city attribute.
${item.description}
<img src="${createLinkTo(dir:'images',file:item.imageurl)}" /> ${item.description}
${item?.address?.city}
Running the Sample Code
These instructions assume that you have NetBeans IDE 6.1 , GlassFish v2ur2 , and MySQL installed. You can download all three in a single bundle . Another option is to download a bundle that includes Sun Java System Application Server 9.1 Update 1 with MySQL Community Server .
- Install the GlassFish v2 plugin for Grails as follows:
- Start the GlassFish Update Center by issuing the following command:
GF_install /updatecenter/bin/updatetool
- Check the GlassFish Support for Grails Framework checkbox in the GlassFish Update Center and click Install.
- Start the GlassFish Update Center by issuing the following command:
- If you haven't already done so, download and install NetBeans IDE 6.5 M1 .
- Download the sample code and extract its contents. You should now see the newly extracted directory as
<sample_install_dir>/catalog
, where<sample_install_dir>
is the directory where you unzipped the sample package. For example, if you extracted the contents toC:/
on a Windows machine, then your newly created directory should be atC:/catalog
. - Start NetBeans IDE 6.5 Milestone 1.
- Start the MySQL database as follows:
- Click the Services tab in the NetBeans IDE.
- Expand the databases node. You should see the MySQL server database in the list of databases.
- Right-mouse click on the MySQL server database and select Start.
- Create the petcatalog database as follows:
- Right-mouse click on the MySQL server database and select Create Database.
- Enter the database name petcatalog. This will open a New Database Connection window. Click O.K. to accept the displayed settings.
- Create the tables in the MySQL pet-catalog database as follows:
- Expand the Drivers node. You should a driver for the petcatalog database in the list of drivers.
- Right-mouse click on the petcatalog driver and select Connect.
- Right-mouse click on the petcatalog driver and select Execute Command. This will open up a SQL command window.
- Copy the contents of the
catalog.sql
file in thecatalog
directory and paste the contents into the SQL command window. - Click the Run SQL icon (Ctrl+Shift+E) above the SQL command window.
- Expand the Drivers node. You should a driver for the petcatalog database in the list of drivers.
- Create a WAR file as follows:
- Ensure that the username and password settings in the
catalog/grails-app/conf/DataSource.groovy
file are the same as the corresponding property settings in NetBeans IDE 6.5 M1 for the MySQL server database. - Right- click the catalog node in the Projects window.
- Select Grails, then Create war file. This will create a
catalog-0.1.war
file in your the catalog project directory. You might need to change the level of Grails expected by the application -- this is theapp.grails.version
setting in thecatalog/application.properties
file -- to align it with the level of Grails you have installed.
- Ensure that the username and password settings in the
- Copy the
catalog-0.1.war
file to theGF_install /domains/domain1/autodeploy
directory, where GF_install is the directory where you installed GlassFish. - Start GlassFish if you haven't already.
- Enter the URL
http://localhost:8080/catalog-0.1/
in your browser. You should see the home page of the sample application.
Further Reading
- Sample Store Catalog using Groovy and Grails and the Java Persistence API on Glassfish with MySQL
- Developing Grails with NetBeans
- GlassFish and Scripting
- TOTD #31: CRUD Application using Grails - Hosted on GlassFish and MySQL
- Grails
- Groovy
- mysql Commands
About the Author
Carol McDonald is a Java Technology Evangelist at Sun Microsystems. As a software developer since 1986, Carol's experience has been in the technology areas of distributed network applications and protocols, including Java EE technology, XML, Internet/Intranet applications, LDAP, Distributed Network Management (CMIP,SNMP) and Email (X.400,X.500). Besides Java, Carol is also fluent in French and German.
1 As used on this web site, the terms "Java virtual machine" or "JVM" mean a virtual machine for the Java platform.