The Central Exception Reporting Sample Application Quick-Start FAQ

                                                      Christoph Knabe, 2022-05-06

1 Introduction

The Central Exception Reporting Sample Application.

• Demonstrates how to use Central Exception Reporting with various interface frameworks.
• It was the companion material to a german article about Central Exception Reporting in the JavaMagazin 11.07 pages 23-27.
• It's a little CRUD application for managing clients. You can create, edit, list, and delete clients.
• You can run it in 5 variants: {Struts|Swing} * {Java|AspectJ} + JavaFX*Java

What platform does this application now run on?

• JDK 8, and
• Maven 3

In the Maven POMs it is configured to use

• Java 8, or AspectJ 8 respectively
• Jetty 9 (Servlet 3.0 container)
• Struts 1.3.10
• MulTEx 8.4 (an exception message text framework)

The file pom.xml manages the Struts, Swing, and JavaFX application using simple Java, and framework specific mechanisms or the Template Method Pattern for Centralized Exception Reporting.

The file aspect-pom.xml manages the Struts and Swing application using AspectJ and comfortable aspect-oriented mechanisms for Centralized Exception Reporting.

For all examples is assumed that your default JDK is JDK 8 with JavaFX included. If that is not the case, see below section Troubleshooting.

2. Usage

2.1 How to run the Struts web application using plain Java?

• type mvn clean jetty:run at the command prompt for the web app using Struts specific ExceptionHandler.
• Browse http://localhost:8080/
• Click on "Create a Client"
• Type in and Save some clients, they will be stored in file Persistence.ser in the working directory
• Observe exception messages after data errors (e.g. empty birth date, birth date with some period characters)
• You can see the stack trace of an error message by clicking on the link "Details".
• Click button List to see the entered clients.
• Provoke a low-level exception by making the file Persistence.ser read-only and trying to Save a client. You will see the presentation of an exception chain.
• Stop the web app by typing <Ctrl/C> in the command window.

2.2 How to run the Swing application using plain Java?

• type mvn clean integration-test at the command prompt for the Swing app using Template Method Pattern.
• This uses the file pom.xml and the main class swing_ui.ClientSwingApplication.
• A GUI will appear, where you can do the same things as above.
• You can see the stack trace of an error message by clicking on the button "Show Stack Trace".
• Stop the application by closing all windows of it.

2.3 How to run the JavaFX application using plain Java?

• Type mvn clean integration-test -Pfx at the command prompt for the JavaFX app using Template Method Pattern.
• This uses the file pom.xml and the main class fx_ui.ClientFxApplication.
• A GUI will appear, where you can do the same things as above.
• You can see the stack trace of an error message by clicking on the button "Details".
• Stop the application by closing all windows of it.

2.4 How to run the Struts web application using AspectJ?

• Type mvn -f aspect-pom.xml clean jetty:run at the command prompt for the web app using AspectJ for exception reporting.
• In the stack traces you can see, that exceptions are caught by an around advice.

2.5 How to run the Swing application using AspectJ?

• type mvn -f aspect-pom.xml clean integration-test at the command prompt for the Swing app using AspectJ for exception reporting.
• In the stack traces you can see, that exceptions are caught by an around advice.

3 Other Questions

Where are the Message Resources?

• In the file MessageResources.properties. The original, which you may edit, is under src/main/resources/

Why did the changes to my MessageResources.properties or other resource file disappear? Why didn't the changes to my MessageResources.properties or other resource file appear?

• The original resource files are under src/main/resources/ and copied to target/classes/ during a build. Change the content of src/main/resources/MessageResources.properties and rebuild before running it again. The exception message texts extracted from the JavaDoc comments of all exceptions under src/main/java/ are collected during the process-classes phase by the ExceptionMessagesDoclet as configured for the maven-javadoc-plugin.

Where is the article?

It is in subdirectory doc in various formats.

4 Troubleshooting

4.1 The JavaFX classes are not found on Linux:

Most distributions of JDK 8 on Linux do not contain JavaFX. If you have that problem, you should get the Liberica JDK 8 by https://sdkman.io/ Then you should either use it as default or prefix the Maven command by ./javafx8.sh as in the following example: ./javafx8.sh mvn clean integration-test For that you have to update the JDK version number in this script jdkVersion=8.0.332.fx-librca to your currently installed version.

4.2 Your Maven is too old

If you have that problem, you should use the Maven Wrapper, which is delivered with this project. Then you should call it e.g. ./mvnw clean integration-test If you want to additionally enforce the specific JavaFX JDK you can combine both modifications: ./javafx8.sh ./mvnw clean integration-test That you can do with all Maven calls shown in this README.

5 Repository History

• Originally stored at http://excrep.berlios.de/ by CVS
• From 2017-11-06 at https://app.assembla.com/spaces/excrep/git/source
• From 2022-05-04 at https://github.com/christophknabe/excrep/