difference between type and forward???

[subho saha]

I am new to struts. Can somebody explain to me the difference between forward and type attributes of action element in struts-config.xml.
In books it is written type is used when we want to use an action and forward when we donot want an action to happen.But i want to know when should i use type and when forward in building a project..They seem to do the same job.What is the actual difference.

I am confused.
[ December 18, 2005: Message edited by: subho saha ]

[Merrill Higginson]

My view of this is that in almost every case, you will use Type instead of Forward. Using Type causes struts to call your action before forwarding to a JSP. In a real application, there is almost always some processing you want to do before displaying a JSP.

About the only thing I use the forward option for is when I have a simple jsp that requires no setup to display, but I don't really want the user to see xyz.jsp as the url on the browser. So, I set up an xyz action that forwards to xyz.jsp. That way the user sees xyz.do as the url on the browser.
[ December 18, 2005: Message edited by: Merrill Higginson ]

[pax smith]

Forward simply transfer the control to another JSP without having action class between them

Type refres to a action class that will be executed before JSP executes. It performs all the work perior to JSP.