ZEST Essentials/Quick Start/Action

An action is POJO. It does not have to implement any interface. Of course, it has to implement the method specified in WEB-INF/zest. For example,

package foo;
public class HelloAction {
	private String _message = "Welcome";

	/** The execute method specified in WEB-INF/zest.xml. */
	public String execute() {
		return "success";
	}

	/** Sets the message. */
	public void setMessage(String message) {
		_message = message;
	}
	/** Returns the message. */
	public String getMessage() {
		return _message;
	}
}

Signature of the execute Method

There are two kinds of signatures are allowed for the execute method of an action.

1. public String execute();
2. public String execute(ActionContext ac);

The method's name could be anything you prefer, as long as it is the same as the one you specified in WEB-INF/zest.xml.

The signature with ActionContext has higher priority if both method are specified (and the signature with no arg will be ignored). It is used if you need the information of the request, such as HttpServletRequest.

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