Serve static files (JavaScript) with Struts 2

Question

I want to put some JavaScript files in one of my packages and make Struts serve them like /struts/js/foo.js

Struts does that for files in 'template' package (that's where jQuery plugin's files are located, guarded by struts.ui.templateDir option). However I want to put those files into another package; If I redefine struts.ui.templateDir then struts ceases working because it can't find its templates.

So the question is: How to tell Struts to serve files in org.foo.some.package.js as /struts/js/whatever.js?

Answer 1

Struts2 can serve static content out of the box. By default static content is being served by DefaultStaticContentLoader an implementation of StaticContentLoader. It automatically searches the following packages:

• org.apache.struts2.static
• template
• static
• org.apache.struts2.interceptor.debugging

You can add additional packages to be searched in filter init parameter named "packages".

<filter>
    <filter-name>struts2</filter-name>
    <filter-class>
        org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.ng.filter.StrutsPrepareAndExecuteFilter
    </filter-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>packages</param-name>
        <param-value>some.package another.one</param-value>
    </init-param>
</filter>

You can add more than one package, use comma or space or tab or new line as separator.

BTW you can control whether static content is being cached by a browser or not with this constant:

struts.serve.static.browserCache

Answer 2

One way is to extend the entire template & change the templateDir as you already suggested. Unless one needs to implement a custom template, this is highly over-kill.

But the best way IMHO is to forget /struts/js/foo.js & use any other URL to load the js.

Few Samples :

JSP

WebPages
    |-->myjs.js         (a normal js file)
    |-->mydynamicjs.jsp (a .jsp file containing ONLY javascript code)
    |-->WEB-INF-->xyz.js (another .js file but accessed only through action)

Struts

<action name="myacctionjs">
    <result>/WEB-INF/xyz.js</result>
</action>