Introduction to the WAF Developer Guide
The Red Hat Web Application Framework is a platform for writing database-backed web applications
in Sun’s Java®. Applications leverage Web Application Framework APIs to enable the authoring of
persistent structured data andto retrieve and displaythe data ascontent. The framework also integrates
services such as search, versioning, and permissions into its basic objects, enabling applications to
leverage framework services with little or no extra work.
The Web Application Framework domain layer models basic concepts such as users, groups, and
permissions and hasbeen proven and refinedon hundreds of production deployments. A userinterface
(UI) framework, UI component library designed for the rapid development and reuse of web user
interfaces, and a powerful object-relational persistence engine are also part of the framework.
Please enjoy this guide and report any bugs with the documentation to http://bugzilla.redhat.com/.
Please report using the unique component name for this guide:
rhea-dg-waf-en(EN)-6.1-Print-RHI (2004-03-29-T16:20-0800)
1. Assumptions About WAF Developers
This manual assumes that the reader is familiar with the Java programming language, HTML, and
relational databases. Familiarity with the J2EE Servlet and JSP specifications, XML, and XSLT are
also helpful. Anunderstanding of the UMLand basic object-relational mapping concepts will help the
reader understand thepersistence system. Formore information, see Section7.1 Developer Education.
2. Document Conventions
When you read this manual, certain words are represented in different fonts, typefaces, sizes, and
weights. This highlighting is systematic; different words are represented in the same style to indicate
their inclusion in a specific category. The types of words that are represented this way include the
following:
command
Linux commands (and other operating system commands, when used) are represented this way.
This style should indicate to you that you can type the word or phrase on the command line
and press [Enter] to invoke a command. Sometimes a command contains words that would be
displayed in a different style on theirown (such asfile names). Inthese cases, they are considered
to be part of the command, so the entire phrase is displayed as a command. For example:
Use thecat testfile commandto view the contents ofa file, namedtestfile, inthe current
working directory.
file name
File names, directory names, paths, andRPM package names are represented this way. Thisstyle
should indicate that a particular file or directory exists by that name on your system. Examples:
The .bashrcfile in your homedirectory contains bash shell definitions and aliases foryour own
use.
The /etc/fstab file contains information about different system devices and file systems.
Install the webalizer RPM if you want to use a Web server log file analysis program.
