Login - revisited

[David Pizon]

I am a Struts newbie attempting to write a login app.

Most (if not all) of the examples I have found online use three JSP pages:

login.jsp (prompts user for username/password, re-displays if invalid)
fail.jsp (username/password valid but incorrect)
success.jsp (username/password was correct)



I would like to change my app to have use only two JSP pages:

login.jsp (prompts user for username/password, re-displays if invalid, re-displays if incorrect)
success.jsp (username/password was correct)

I have an Action which validates user input and, if valid, invokes a bean to authenticate the user.

I presume I need three findForwards in my Action:
return (mapping.findForward(this.FORWARD_invalid));
return (mapping.findForward(this.FORWARD_incorrect));
return (mapping.findForward(this.FORWARD_success));

How do I let the login.jsp page know which error condition to display ("invalid field", "could not authenticate", or no error)?

Am I on the right track?

[Marc Peabody]

If user fails authentication, add an ActionError/ActionMessage from the Action and then forward the user to the input forward.

Then in your login.jsp make sure to have the html:errors/messages tag to display the error.

[David Pizon]

"add an ActionError/ActionMessage from the Action"

Right... how do I do that?

public ActionForward execute(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception;

I want to keep authentication in the LoginAction separate from validation in the LoginForm. Can I stuff an ActionErrors() object in an ActionForward() object?