Struts 2.3 ignores wildcard actions

Question

I'm setting up an application that uses Struts 2.3 and Tiles 2. Some pages will be heavily Struts driven (e.g. lots of CRUD) while others will be simple, static HTML/JSP pages. I want to set up some actions that handle specific functionality and send all other URLs to a default action, which will check to see if the appropriate static page exists based on the supplied path. If not, a 404 error or some such will be generated instead.

In struts.xml, I have applied a basic configuration that appears like it should work; however, Struts seems to ignore the wildcard action. The non-wildcard actions work just fine.

Here's the struts.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE struts PUBLIC
    "-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Struts Configuration 2.3//EN"
    "http://struts.apache.org/dtds/struts-2.3.dtd">
 
<struts>
    <!--
    You could also set the constants in the struts.properties file
    placed in the same directory as struts.xml
    -->
    <constant name="struts.devMode" value="true" />
    <!-- <constant name="struts.mapper.class" value="rest" /> -->
    
    <constant name="struts.action.extension" value="," />
    <constant name="struts.enable.SlashesInActionNames" value="true"/>
    <constant name="struts.mapper.alwaysSelectFullNamespace" value="false"/>
    <constant name="struts.patternMatcher" value="regex" />
    
    <!-- 
    <constant name="struts.convention.action.suffix" value="Controller"/>
    <constant name="struts.convention.action.mapAllMatches" value="true"/>
    <constant name="struts.convention.default.parent.package" value="rest-default"/>
    <constant name="struts.convention.package.locators" value="rest"/>
     -->
    
    <package name="base" extends="tiles-default" abstract="yes">
        <result-types>
            <result-type name="tiles" default="true" class="org.apache.struts2.views.tiles.TilesResult" />
            <result-type name="json" class="org.apache.struts2.json.JSONResult"/>
        </result-types>
    
        <interceptors>
            <interceptor name="json" class="org.apache.struts2.json.JSONInterceptor"/>
            <!-- <interceptor name="requestConstants" class="com.ibm.gbs.vdp.constants.ConstantsInterceptor" /> -->
            
            <interceptor-stack name="mainStack">
                <interceptor-ref name="defaultStack"/>
                <interceptor-ref name="json" />
                <!-- <interceptor-ref name="session" /> -->
                <!-- <interceptor-ref name="requestConstants" /> -->
            </interceptor-stack>
        </interceptors>
        
        <default-interceptor-ref name="mainStack" />
        
        <global-results>
            <result name="login" type="tiles">login</result>
        </global-results>
        
    </package>
 
    <!-- package start -->
    <package name="main" extends="base" namespace="/">
        <action name="login">
            <result type="tiles">login</result>
        </action>
        
        <action name="logout" class="com.gswt.common.action.LogoutAction">
            <result name="success">login</result>
        </action>
        
        <action name="*" class="com.installation.action.PageAction">
            <result type="tiles">standard-page</result>
        </action>
    </package>
    <!-- package end -->
    
    <!-- package start -->
    <package name="licenses" extends="base" namespace="/licenses">
        
    </package>
    <!-- package end -->
    
    <!-- package start -->
    <package name="checklists" extends="base" namespace="/checklists">
        
    </package>
    <!-- package end -->
    
    <!-- package start -->
    <package name="error" extends="base" namespace="/error">
        <action name="404">
            <result type="tiles">error-404</result>
        </action>
    </package>
    <!-- package end -->
 
</struts>

And here's an example of the error I receive:

There is no Action mapped for namespace [/] and action name [page] associated with context path []. - [unknown location]
    com.opensymphony.xwork2.DefaultActionProxy.prepare(DefaultActionProxy.java:185)
    org.apache.struts2.impl.StrutsActionProxy.prepare(StrutsActionProxy.java:63)
    org.apache.struts2.impl.StrutsActionProxyFactory.createActionProxy(StrutsActionProxyFactory.java:39)
    com.opensymphony.xwork2.DefaultActionProxyFactory.createActionProxy(DefaultActionProxyFactory.java:58)
    org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.Dispatcher.serviceAction(Dispatcher.java:553)
    org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.ng.ExecuteOperations.executeAction(ExecuteOperations.java:77)
    org.apache.struts2.dispatcher.ng.filter.StrutsPrepareAndExecuteFilter.doFilter(StrutsPrepareAndExecuteFilter.java:99)
    com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.FilterInstanceWrapper.doFilter(FilterInstanceWrapper.java:190)
    com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterChain.doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:125)
    com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterChain._doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:80)
    com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterManager.doFilter(WebAppFilterManager.java:908)
    com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterManager.invokeFilters(WebAppFilterManager.java:997)
    com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.extension.DefaultExtensionProcessor.invokeFilters(DefaultExtensionProcessor.java:1079)
    com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.extension.DefaultExtensionProcessor.handleRequest(DefaultExtensionProcessor.java:999)
    com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.webapp.WebApp.handleRequest(WebApp.java:3954)
    com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.webapp.WebGroup.handleRequest(WebGroup.java:276)
    com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.WebContainer.handleRequest(WebContainer.java:945)
    com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.WSWebContainer.handleRequest(WSWebContainer.java:1592)
    com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.channel.WCChannelLink.ready(WCChannelLink.java:191)
    com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.handleDiscrimination(HttpInboundLink.java:453)
    com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.handleNewRequest(HttpInboundLink.java:515)
    com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.processRequest(HttpInboundLink.java:306)
    com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.ready(HttpInboundLink.java:277)
    com.ibm.ws.ssl.channel.impl.SSLConnectionLink.determineNextChannel(SSLConnectionLink.java:1049)
    com.ibm.ws.ssl.channel.impl.SSLConnectionLink$MyReadCompletedCallback.complete(SSLConnectionLink.java:643)
    com.ibm.ws.ssl.channel.impl.SSLReadServiceContext$SSLReadCompletedCallback.complete(SSLReadServiceContext.java:1784)
    com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.AioReadCompletionListener.futureCompleted(AioReadCompletionListener.java:175)
    com.ibm.io.async.AbstractAsyncFuture.invokeCallback(AbstractAsyncFuture.java:217)
    com.ibm.io.async.AsyncChannelFuture.fireCompletionActions(AsyncChannelFuture.java:161)
    com.ibm.io.async.AsyncFuture.completed(AsyncFuture.java:138)
    com.ibm.io.async.ResultHandler.complete(ResultHandler.java:204)
    com.ibm.io.async.ResultHandler.runEventProcessingLoop(ResultHandler.java:775)
    com.ibm.io.async.ResultHandler$2.run(ResultHandler.java:905)
    com.ibm.ws.util.ThreadPool$Worker.run(ThreadPool.java:1656)

What am I missing or doing wrong?

Answer 1

Since you are using advanced wildcards then your action name should be a valid regex expression to match the configuration.

Like so

<action name="{.*}" class="com.installation.action.PageAction">
   <result type="tiles">standard-page</result>
</action>