java - Struts2 Wildcard Mapping - more specific one is being handled by generic one

Question

I'm currently playing around with my Struts2 config for wildcard testing and I'm stuck with this one.

    <action name="/*/*" class="checkBlogUrl" method="testing">
        <param name="blogSiteUrl">{1}</param>
        <param name="test">{2}</param>
        <result name="success">/WEB-INF/jsp/cmsPages/index.jsp</result>
    </action>
    
    <action name="/*/postPreview1" class="blogPostAction" method="test">
        <param name="blogSiteUrl">{1}</param>
        <result name="success">/WEB-INF/jsp/cmsPages/templatePicker.jsp</result>
    </action>

If I access myurl.com/hello/hi I will be redirected to index.jsp.

But if I access myurl.com/hello/postPreview1 I will also be redirected to index.jsp instead of templatePicker.jsp.

Am I doing something wrong here? The struts wildcard doc said that the last one will win

EDIT:

Just tried to switch them around and it worked! Am I misreading the doc?

Answer 1

You are using slashes in action name, that incorrectly works with wildcard mapper. As I said in the linked answer, the best pattern matcher in this case is the regex pattern matcher.

<constant name="struts.patternMatcher" value="regex"/>

See Advanced Wildcards.

<action name="/{blogSiteUrl}/{test}" class="checkBlogUrl" method="testing">
    <result name="success">/WEB-INF/jsp/cmsPages/index.jsp</result>
</action>

<action name="/{blogSiteUrl}/postPreview1" class="blogPostAction" method="test">
    <result name="success">/WEB-INF/jsp/cmsPages/templatePicker.jsp</result>
</action>

---

About docs for wildcard mapper. Lets look at the example blank application:

<package name="example" namespace="/example" extends="default">

    <action name="HelloWorld" class="example.HelloWorld">
        <result>/WEB-INF/jsp/example/HelloWorld.jsp</result>
    </action>

    <action name="Login_*" method="{1}" class="example.Login">
        <result name="input">/WEB-INF/jsp/example/Login.jsp</result>
        <result type="redirectAction">Menu</result>
    </action>

    <action name="*" class="example.ExampleSupport">
        <result>/WEB-INF/jsp/example/{1}.jsp</result>
    </action>

    <!-- Add actions here -->
</package>

---

So URLs will be matched in the order:

1. http://localhost:8080/example/HelloWorld
2. http://localhost:8080/example/Login_input
3. http://localhost:8080/example/Register

I would say that more specific mapping goes before less specific/common mapping and it wins because it's found first in the order of action configs. Everything that doesn't match the ordered configs fall into last mapping which is less specific.