What is 'lookup for a class'

[M Mehta]

Hi,

I have recently started learning struts. I have a very basic question. What does the term 'lookup a class' mean. How it happens in struts.

Thanks,
Mehta

[Merrill Higginson]

Originally posted by Me Mehta:
What does the term 'lookup a class' mean. How it happens in struts.

I suspect that what you're referring to is the fact that you idenitfy a class when you create a Struts action mapping, and then Struts "looks up" the class and executes the execute method on it. The term "lookup" refers to the way Struts finds the class in the class path, instantiates it, and then calls a method on it. Example:

<action name="myForm" path="/myAction.do" type="com.mycompany.MyAction" />

Given this action mapping, when a user enters the URL http://myserver.com/myApp/myAction.do, Struts "looks up" the class com.mycompany.MyAction, instantiates it, and calls its execute method.