JSP/Servlet-Based Web Application Generator

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JSP/Servlet-Based Web Application Generator

• Kornkamol Jamroendararasame,
• Tetsuya Suzuki, and Takehiro Tokuda
• Tokyo Institute of Technology

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Contents

• Motivation
• Goals
• Web transition diagrams
• A Web application generator T-Web system for
  JSP/Servlets
• Comparisons
• Conclusions and future work

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Motivation

• Web application generating methods
• Web page composers manual programming
• Web application development tools
• Microsofts Visual Interdev
• Cybozus Cybozu office
• Multiactives ecBuilder
• Web transition diagrams T-Web system (for
  CGI-based Web applications only)

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Goals

• Web transition diagrams representing both
  CGI-based Web applications and JSP/Servlet-based
  Web applications
• a JSP/Servlet-based Web application generator
• Support standard level of security and session
  management
• No procedural programming

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Web transition diagrams
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Definitions

• Describe overall behavior of Web applications by
  showing the movement of data through system
  components
• Previous version for CGI architecture
• Current version for both CGI architecture and
  JSP/Servlet architecture
• Classification of notation
• Core class
• Extended class

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Notation (1)
title
title
Fixed Web page node Output Web page node
name
name
Processing node Database node
Page transition link
Data-flow link
Core Class
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Notation (2)
Web page elements
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Example 1
I
II
Guestbook system
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Example 2
BookCD online shopping system
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Web Application Generator T-Web System for
JSP/Servlets
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Structure
EDITOR
Editor Part
a Web transition diagram and global parameters
GENERATOR
Generator Part
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Editor part
Processing program (servlet) templates template
description
EDITOR
Bean templates template description
Global parameter property box
Editor Part
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List of bean types
Required parameters
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Preview panel
Data-flow links to processing programs
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List of template types
Template explanation
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Lists of available values
Required parameters
Specified values
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Styles of output database information
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For page transition links
For data-flow links
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List of HTML element types
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For set/get bean properties
For direct connection from database table
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Allow database info from processing program to be
shown
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Structure
Templates
EDITOR
Editor Part
a Web transition diagram and global parameters
Web Application
GENERATOR
Generator Part
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Generator part
GENERATOR

• Web page structure template
• HTML element templates
• JSP element templates

Database table creator program template
T-Web libraries
Session object template
Business bean templates
Generator Part
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Click to generate resulting files
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Finish when this box disappears
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Template method

• Generality
• Large number of templates is not necessary.
• Templates themselves must be flexible.
• Sufficiency
• 15 servlet templates for all basic database
  transactions and some other facilities.
• 5 bean templates for general purposes
• Flexibility
• Available templates are changeable.
• New templates can be easily added.
• Non-programmers use existing templates, while
  programmers may use their own templates.

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Security and session management

• Standard level of security management
• Checking values of input parameters before
  passing them to processing programs
• restricted length of input parameters,
• Session management
• can be done automatically by input-checking codes
  in servlet templates.
• can be manually managed using cookies when
  composing Web transition diagrams.

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Comparisons
Previous version Current version
Web transition diagrams For CGI architecture Basic components For both CGI and JSP/Servlet architecture Basic components in Core class Other necessary components in extended class
T-Web system For CGI-based Web applications Templates and their parameters are fixed. For JSP/Servlet-based Web applications More flexibility existing templates are changeable and new templates can be added.
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Conclusions and Future Work

• Web transition diagrams representing both
  CGI-based and JSP/Servlet-based Web applications
• T-Web system generating JSP/Servlet-based Web
  applications
• Handling of atomic transactions consisting of two
  or more actions will be the future work.