Karapan Sapi is a generator that automatically create SQL DDL, Java Bean, DAOs, Struts Action and Struts Form code, Struts configuration, web.xml and Ant build file. It also creates .jsp for create, retrieve, update, delete and list operations, and is i18n ready.

Check it out at:
  http://javanovic.hypermart.net

What do people think about the code generators that are coming out in the industry?

More Info
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As Tiles and Validator are included in Struts 1.1b1, Karapan Sapi also uses them in the generated code. Karapan Sapi is a developers code generator, aiming to help automate development while not dumbing down the architecture by hiding the details. Karapan Sapi is licensed under LGPL.

Karapan Sapi will generate massive volumes of your projects code, all adhering to best practice. Developers can then take this code and add to it as their project requires.

Karapan Sapi's input are small XML config files. The outputs it generates are:
- Database creation scripts (SQL DDL)
- struts-config.xml
- web.xml
- tiles-def.xml
- validation.xml
- StrutsAction
- StrutsForm
- DAO
- JavaBean
- Pager utility (for listing a long list)
- Startup filter (for loading object on session startup)
- Startup plugin (for loading object on application startup)
- .JSP files
- build.xml (ant build file)

If you want a truly automated way of constructing software applications, check out

http://www.bowstreet.com/downloads/

The product description page starts out - In today's economy - bla bla bla. Sorry, I didn't get past the marketing

Bowstreet is one of the worst products out there.
Stay away.

4 those who don't know .... http://jakarta.apache.org/struts/resources/guis.html
you'll find more experiments,
right now i'm testing this one

It looks pretty interesting, unfortunately, the GUI isn't written in Java and only supports Win32. What I want is a struts management app (like the Struts Console) that I can plug in to my editor, jEdit. The closest I've found so far is a project called River North or Struts Builder (Struts Console is not open source). Anyone know of any other projects?

Don

If you use Eclipse or JBuilder, you can check http://easystruts.sourceforce.net

Easy Struts include some wizards for Struts generation (action, form, jsp...).

Current version is 0.4.2, in next version, a Struts Config File Editor (like struts-console) will be added in Eclipse version.

-Emmanuel

Beware of the link posted in this article.....it pops up a bunch of annoying ads. Didn't get to even read / evaluate the product...spent all my time closing browser windows :-)

Not if you're running Mozilla blocking unrequested windows. :) Don't forget kids, when browsing the web, always use protection.

Don

The web site's popup windows are so annoying, I consider it a waste of time just to visit it. Not for me, thanks.

Kaparan Sapi is released under GNU LPGL folks!
Probably the author would consider putting it in sourceforge.. so that visitors won't get annoyed by popups...

Hello,

I'm sorry that I forgot to mirror at SourceForge. Now, here is the mirror:
  http://strutsgenerator.sourceforge.net/

I checked the sourceforge project but I did not find any sample code.Can you include the output generated by the product as an example on ure site ...?
This will give an idea of the quality of the code being generated ..esp the DAOs etc..

-pat

Well, I did in the previous version. I postpone publishing sample of generated code until I make a good sample. Hope will be done in 2 weeks, please be patient.

-roel-

As for the question:

"What do people think about the code generators that are coming out in the industry?"

I've done a fair amount of work on code generators and used a few as well, and for many things there is a better approach.

Most technologies around today are not very dynamic, they require a great deal of static code. What's even worse is technologies like EJB that require a bunch of static code AND a bunch of dynamic configuration and run-time implementation of interfaces.

I am one of the founders of the Open For Business project, and this is the approach that we originally took. When our initial code generation templates and "entity" definitions were done we were generating about 1 million lines of SQL, Java, JSP, and XML deployment descriptors. What a mess!

So, we decided to go with a more dynamic approach. It is definately a different paradigm and requires a slightly different way of doing certain things, but it makes your code much less verbose.

The idea is that you describe what you want (such as the definition of an entity) and let a generic API do the work based on that definition.

The idea isn't new, but seems to be somewhat tricky to pin down for many applications because it really is just a higher level abstraction.

In OFBiz the Entity Engine resulted in about 15,000 lines of Java and JSP code and our current entity definition XML files total about 12,500 lines. And that's it for persistence.

So, while static generated code is definately a step above writing all of the redundant stuff yourself, why not go with a dynamic approach that uses high level configurations and APIs to get what you want without all of the redundancy?

Later,
-David Joens