Seam FrameworkCommunity Documentation
One aspect of JBoss Seam is its RAD (Rapid Application Development) capability. While not synonymous with RAD, one interesting tool in this space is dynamic languages. Until recently, choosing a dynamic language was required choosing a completely different development platform (a development platform with a set of APIs and a runtime so great that you would no longer want to use you old legacy Java [sic] APIs anymore, which would be lucky because you would be forced to use those proprietary APIs anyway). Dynamic languages built on top of the Java Virtual Machine, and Groovy in particular broke this approach in silos.
JBoss Seam now unites the dynamic language world with the Java EE world by seamlessly integrating both static and dynamic languages. JBoss Seam lets the application developer use the best tool for the task, without context switching. Writing dynamic Seam components is exactly like writing regular Seam components. You use the same annotations, the same APIs, the same everything.
Groovy is an agile dynamic language based on the Java language but with additional features inspired by Python, Ruby and Smalltalk. The strengths of Groovy are twofold:
Java syntax is supported in Groovy: Java code is Groovy code, making the learning curve very smooth
Groovy objects are Java objects, and Groovy classes are Java classes: Groovy integrates smoothly with existing Java libraries and frameworks.
There is not much to say about it. Since a Groovy object is a Java object, you can virtually write any Seam component, or any class for what it worth, in Groovy and deploy it. You can also mix Groovy classes and Java classes in the same application.
As you should have noticed by now, Seam uses annotations heavily. Be sure to use Groovy 1.1 or above for annotation support. Here are some example of groovy code used in a Seam application.
@Entity
@Name("hotel")
class Hotel implements Serializable
{
@Id @GeneratedValue
Long id
@Size(max=50) @NotNull
String name
@Size(max=100) @NotNull
String address
@Size(max=40) @NotNull
String city
@Size(min=2, max=10) @NotNull
String state
@Size(min=4, max=6) @NotNull
String zip
@Size(min=2, max=40) @NotNull
String country
@Column(precision=6, scale=2)
BigDecimal price
@Override
String toString()
{
return "Hotel(Seam Reference Guide,${address},${city},${zip})"
}
}
Groovy natively support the notion of properties (getter/setter), so there is no need to
explicitly write verbose getters and setters: in the previous example, the hotel class can be
accessed from Java as hotel.getCity()
, the getters and setters being generated by the
Groovy compiler. This type of syntactic sugar makes the entity code very concise.
Writing Seam components in Groovy is in no way different than in Java: annotations are used to mark the class as a Seam component.
@Scope(ScopeType.SESSION)
@Name("bookingList")
class BookingListAction implements Serializable
{
@In EntityManager em
@In User user
@DataModel List<Booking> bookings
@DataModelSelection Booking booking
@Logger Log log
@Factory public void getBookings()
{
bookings = em.createQuery('''
select b from Booking b
where b.user.username = :username
order by b.checkinDate''')
.setParameter("username", user.username)
.getResultList()
}
public void cancel()
{
log.info("Cancel booking: #{bookingList.booking.id} for #{user.username}")
Booking cancelled = em.find(Booking.class, booking.id)
if (cancelled != null) em.remove( cancelled )
getBookings()
FacesMessages.instance().add("Booking cancelled for confirmation number #{bookingList.booking.id}", new Object[0])
}
}
Seam gen has a transparent integration with Groovy. You can write Groovy code in seam-gen backed
projects without any additional infrastructure requirement. When writing a Groovy entity, simply place
your .groovy
files in src/main
. Unsurprisingly, when writing
an action, simply place your .groovy
files in
src/hot
.
Deploying Groovy classes is very much like deploying Java classes (surprisingly, no need to write nor comply with a 3-letter composite specification to support a multi-language component framework).
Beyond standard deployments, JBoss Seam has the ability, at development time, to redeploy JavaBeans Seam
component classes without having to restart the application, saving a lot of time in the development / test
cycle. The same support is provided for GroovyBeans Seam components when the .groovy
files are deployed.
A Groovy class is a Java class, with a bytecode representation just like a Java class. To deploy, a Groovy entity, a Groovy Session bean or a Groovy Seam component, a compilation step is necessary. A common approach is to use the gmaven-plugin maven plugin. Once compiles, a Groovy class is in no way different than a Java class and the application server will treat them equally. Note that this allow a seamless mix of Groovy and Java code.
JBoss Seam natively supports the deployment of .groovy
files (ie without
compilation) in incremental hotdeployment mode (development only). This enables a very fast edit/test
cycle. To set up .groovy deployments, follow the configuration at Section 2.8, “Seam and incremental hot deployment” and deploy your Groovy code (.groovy
files) into the WEB-INF/dev
directory. The GroovyBean components will be picked up
incrementally with no need to restart the application (and obviously not the application server either).
Be aware that the native .groovy file deployment suffers the same limitations as the regular Seam hotdeployment:
The components must be JavaBeans or GroovyBeans. They cannot be EJB3 bean
Entities cannot be hotdeployed
The hot-deployable components will not be visible to any classes deployed outside of
WEB-INF/dev
Seam debug mode must be enabled
Seam-gen transparently supports Groovy files deployment and compilation. This includes the native
.groovy
file deployment in development mode (compilation-less). If you create a
seam-gen project of type WAR, Java and Groovy classes in src/hot
will
automatically be candidate for the incremental hot deployment. If you are in production mode, the Groovy
files will simply be compiled before deployment.
You will find a live example of the Booking demo written completely in Groovy and supporting
incremental hot deployment in examples/groovybooking
.