Introduction to Stripes
This is an introductory Stripes tutorial. We create two simple web applications with the Stripes web framework. We use NetBeans to build the applications.
Stripes is an open source lightweight Java web application framework. The goal of Stripes is to make Servlet/JSP based web development in Java easy, intuitive, and straightforward. Stripes is an action based MVC (Model View Controller) framework. It runs in a JEE web container, uses minimum configuration files, and has a flexible and simple parameter binding.
Stripes' ActionBean is an object that receives the data submitted in requests and processes
the user's input. It both defines the properties of the form and the processing logic for the form.
Stripes auto-discovers ActionBeans at deployment time by scanning the web application's classpath.
The ActionResolver.Packages
init-param
of the Stripes Filter
(in web.xml
) sets one or more package roots.
Resolution is an object created as a response to the processed request. A Resolution can forward to a JSP page, stream data, or return an error message. Resolutions are returned by handler methods of ActionBeans.
From the Stripes' Github page, we download
the latest Stripes release. In the lib subdirectory, we have the three JAR files that we need to
include in our projects: commons-logging-1.1.3.jar
, cos-05Nov2002.jar
, and
stripes-1.6.0.jar
. In addition, there is also the StripesResources.properties
file
which contains various messages.
Simple Stripes application
The first application displays the current date. We create a new web application in NetBeans. We choose Tomcat as our JSP/servlet cointainer.

The project has three files: the HelloActionBean.java
contains code which responds
to our request, the showDate.jsp
is the view sent as a response back to the user, and
the web.xml
file contains configuration to set up Stripes. In this application,
we do not use StripesResources.properties
.

These are the libraries that we need to build the Stripes application.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <web-app xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_1.xsd" version="3.1"> <filter> <display-name>Stripes Filter</display-name> <filter-name>StripesFilter</filter-name> <filter-class>net.sourceforge.stripes.controller.StripesFilter</filter-class> <init-param> <param-name>ActionResolver.Packages</param-name> <param-value>com.zetcode.action</param-value> </init-param> </filter> <filter-mapping> <filter-name>StripesFilter</filter-name> <url-pattern>*.jsp</url-pattern> <dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher> </filter-mapping> <filter-mapping> <filter-name>StripesFilter</filter-name> <servlet-name>StripesDispatcher</servlet-name> <dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher> </filter-mapping> <servlet> <servlet-name>StripesDispatcher</servlet-name> <servlet-class>net.sourceforge.stripes.controller.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class> <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup> </servlet> <servlet-mapping> <servlet-name>StripesDispatcher</servlet-name> <url-pattern>*.action</url-pattern> </servlet-mapping> <welcome-file-list> <welcome-file>Hello.action</welcome-file> </welcome-file-list> </web-app>
In the standard web.xml
deployment descriptor, we configure Stripes.
We specify where Stripes should look for ActionBeans: in our case it is the com.zetcode.action
package. The welcome file is the file that is displayed when we request the home page; the
Hello.action
tells that the HelloActionBean
should be executed.
package com.zetcode.action; import java.util.Date; import net.sourceforge.stripes.action.ActionBean; import net.sourceforge.stripes.action.ActionBeanContext; import net.sourceforge.stripes.action.DefaultHandler; import net.sourceforge.stripes.action.ForwardResolution; import net.sourceforge.stripes.action.Resolution; public class HelloActionBean implements ActionBean { private static final String VIEW = "/WEB-INF/jsp/showDate.jsp"; private ActionBeanContext context; private Date date; public Date getDate() { return date; } public void setDate(Date date) { this.date = date; } @Override public void setContext(ActionBeanContext context) { this.context = context; } @Override public ActionBeanContext getContext() { return context; } @DefaultHandler public Resolution hello() { this.date = new Date(); return new ForwardResolution(VIEW); } }
The HelloActionBean
processes the requests and
responds with a forward resolution to a JSP page.
private static final String VIEW = "/WEB-INF/jsp/showDate.jsp";
The view is the showDate.jsp
file.
private ActionBeanContext context;
ActionBeanContext
encapsulates information about the current request. It
provides access to the underlying Servlet API should we need to use it for any reason.
@DefaultHandler public Resolution hello() { this.date = new Date(); return new ForwardResolution(VIEW); }
The @DefaultHandler
annotation sets the default handler for this
action bean. It fills the date
property with current date and
returns a new ForwardResolution
. The resolution forwards to the
view.
<%@page contentType="text/html" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%> <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> <title>Current date</title> </head> <body> <h3>The date is ${actionBean.date}</h3> </body> </html>
This is the template view for the user. The ${actionBean}
expression
refers to the action bean that pointed to this view. We use the expression to
refer to the action bean's date
property.
$ curl localhost:8084/SimpleStripes/ <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> <title>Current date</title> </head> <body> <h3>The date is Thu Jun 02 14:13:01 CEST 2016</h3> </body> </html>
After we build and deploy the application, we access the home page of the application
with the curl
tool. The application responds with an HTML page that contains
the current date.
Hello Stripes application
In the second application, we have a simple HTML form. The user specifies his name in a text box. The application responds with a greeting. Validation is used to ensure that the user has entered something into the text field.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <web-app xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_1.xsd" version="3.1"> <filter> <display-name>Stripes Filter</display-name> <filter-name>StripesFilter</filter-name> <filter-class>net.sourceforge.stripes.controller.StripesFilter</filter-class> <init-param> <param-name>ActionResolver.Packages</param-name> <param-value>com.zetcode.action</param-value> </init-param> </filter> <filter-mapping> <filter-name>StripesFilter</filter-name> <url-pattern>*.jsp</url-pattern> <dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher> </filter-mapping> <filter-mapping> <filter-name>StripesFilter</filter-name> <servlet-name>StripesDispatcher</servlet-name> <dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher> </filter-mapping> <servlet> <servlet-name>StripesDispatcher</servlet-name> <servlet-class>net.sourceforge.stripes.controller.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class> <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup> </servlet> <servlet-mapping> <servlet-name>StripesDispatcher</servlet-name> <url-pattern>*.action</url-pattern> </servlet-mapping> <welcome-file-list> <welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file> </welcome-file-list> </web-app>
In the web.xml
file, we set the index.jsp
file
to be the welcome file.
<%@taglib prefix="stripes" uri="http://stripes.sourceforge.net/stripes.tld"%> <%@page contentType="text/html" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%> <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> <title>Enter your name</title> </head> <body> <stripes:form beanclass="com.zetcode.action.HelloActionBean"> <stripes:errors/> Enter your name: <stripes:text name="userName"/> <stripes:submit name="save" value="Submit"/> </stripes:form> </body> </html>
The index.jsp
contains a simple HTML form. Stripes has its own
tags. The <stripes:errors/>
displays validation errors.
If we do not write any text into the field, a validation error is shown.
In the <stripes:form>
tag we specify the action bean
which should process the request. The <stripes:text/>
creates a text field. The created request parameter is automatically mapped
to the userName
property of the HelloActionBean
.

StripesResources.properties
is the default resource bundle for
the Stripes framework. It contains values for various messages and labels.
A sample file is included in the lib subdirectory of the Stripes download file.
We put the file into the source packages, with no package specified. (The file should
end up in the WEB-INF/classes
directory.)
... validation.required.valueNotPresent={0} is a required field ...
This error message is shown when we do not enter anything into the text field and click on the Submit button.
package com.zetcode.action; import net.sourceforge.stripes.action.ActionBean; import net.sourceforge.stripes.action.ActionBeanContext; import net.sourceforge.stripes.action.DefaultHandler; import net.sourceforge.stripes.action.ForwardResolution; import net.sourceforge.stripes.action.Resolution; import net.sourceforge.stripes.validation.Validate; public class HelloActionBean implements ActionBean { private static final String VIEW = "/WEB-INF/jsp/greet.jsp"; private ActionBeanContext context; @Validate(required=true) private String userName; public String getUserName() { return userName; } public void setUserName(String userName) { this.userName = userName; } @Override public void setContext(ActionBeanContext context) { this.context = context; } @Override public ActionBeanContext getContext() { return context; } @DefaultHandler public Resolution greet() { return new ForwardResolution(VIEW); } }
HelloActionBean
is executed when we click on the Submit button.
The request parameter is automatically bound to its userName
property.
The default handler forwards to the greet.jsp
view.
@Validate(required=true) private String userName;
The @Validate
annotation is used to enforce validation for
the user name field of the form. An error message is displayed if no
value is entered.

The second view in our application is greet.jsp
.
<%@page contentType="text/html" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%> <%@taglib prefix="stripes" uri="http://stripes.sourceforge.net/stripes.tld"%> <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> <title>Greeting</title> </head> <body> <h3>Hello ${actionBean.userName}</h3> </body> </html>
The greet.jsp
shows a greeting message for the user. With the ${actionBean.userName}
expression we get the name of the user.

The application responds with a simple message.
In this tutorial, we have created two simple web applications with the Stripes web framework. You might be also interested in ZetCode's Java tutorial, Validation filter tutorial, Java MVC tutorial, Introduction to Play framework, Introduction to Spark Java, Stripes, MyBatis & Derby tutorial, or EJB tutorial.