forge-from-scratch: Shows How Forge Can Generate an Application

Author: Lincoln Baxter, Matej Briskar
Level: Intermediate
Technologies: Forge
Summary: The forge-from-scratch quickstart demonstrates how JBoss Forge can generate a Java EE (JPA, EJB, JAX-RS, JSF) web-enabled database application.
Target Product: JBoss EAP
Source: https://github.com/jboss-developer/jboss-eap-quickstarts/

What is it?

The forge-from-scratch quickstart demonstrates how to create a fully Java EE compliant project using JBoss Forge and Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio 9.1 or later and deploy it to Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7 or later.

Once generated, the sample project will be a standard Maven 3, Java Web project with JPA, EJB, CDI, JSF with complete JAX-RS endpoints for all data Entities. It will also provide views to Create, Read, Update, and Delete records.

But that is not all! You can use Forge on your new or existing projects to continue to enhance any application.

Note: This quickstart uses the H2 database included with Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7. It is a lightweight, relational example datasource that is used for examples only. It is not robust or scalable, is not supported, and should NOT be used in a production environment!

System requirements

The application this project produces is designed to be run on Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7 or later.

All you need to build this project is Java 8.0 (Java SDK 1.8) or later and Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio 9.1 or greater. This version of JBoss Developer Studio embeds Maven 3.3.3, so you do not need to install it separately.

Run the Quickstart in Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio

JBoss Developer Studio 9.1 ships with Forge 3.0.1.Final. Because the Forge syntax changed in Forge 3.0, the generate.fsh script that ships with this quickstart was updated to use the new syntax and no longer works with previous releases of JBoss Developer Studio. For this reason, you must use JBoss Developer Studio 9.1 or greater to run this example.

Generate and Build the Application

1. Start JBoss Developer Studio.

2. Open the Forge Console Window. To open it, navigate to menu item Window -> Show View -> Other. Locate Forge -> Forge Console and click OK.

3. Click the Start button (green triangle) in top right corner of the Forge Console to start the default Forge runtime.

4. In the Forge Console Window, navigate to the root directory of this quickstart.

    $ cd QUICKSTART_HOME/forge-from-scratch/
   

5. Notice there is a file in this directory named generate.fsh. Run this file from the Forge console using the run command:

    $ run generate.fsh
   

6. At this point, Forge creates the new project and builds it.

   • The script issues this command: $ project-new --named forge-example --top-level-package org.example;
   • You next see the console message: ***SUCCESS*** Project named 'forge-example' has been created.
   • This is followed by a dialog saying User Operation is waiting for "Importing Forge project" to complete..
   • After a number of ***SUCCESS*** messages, you see ***SUCCESS*** Build Success near the end of the console output.

   Note: After you run the run generate.fsh command, you will see the following warnings for the generated files. You can ignore these warnings.

      The serializable class Address does not declare a static final serialVersionUID field of type long
      The serializable class Customer does not declare a static final serialVersionUID field of type long
      The serializable class Item does not declare a static final serialVersionUID field of type long
      The serializable class ProductOrder does not declare a static final serialVersionUID field of type long
      The serializable class Profile does not declare a static final serialVersionUID field of type long
      The serializable class ZipCode does not declare a static final serialVersionUID field of type long
      location references to "/faces/error.xhtml" that does not exist in web content
   

What Did This Create?

This quickstart created a native Java EE 7 application.

• After the command completes, look in your QUICKSTART_HOME/forge-from-scratch/ folder. You see a folder with the name forge-example.
• This project also appears in the Project Explorer view in JBoss Developer Studio.
• Browse through this project to see the code that was generated as a result of this command.

Deploy the Generated Application

1. If you have not yet done so, add the JBoss EAP 7 runtime server to Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio. For general information about how to import a quickstart, add a JBoss EAP server, and build and deploy a quickstart, see Use JBoss Developer Studio or Eclipse to Run the Quickstarts.
2. Right-click on the project name and choose Run As --> Run on Server. If you have more than one server, choose the JBoss EAP 7 Runtime server. Then click Finish.
3. Upon successful deployment, a Welcome to Forge Window opens with the application running at the following URL: http://localhost:8080/forge-example/

Server Log: Expected warnings and errors

Note: You will see the following warnings in the server log. You can ignore these warnings.

HHH000059: Defining hibernate.transaction.flush_before_completion=true ignored in HEM
HHH000431: Unable to determine H2 database version, certain features may not work

Access the Running Application

The application appears in a 'Welcome to Forge' Window and displays the following:

Welcome to Forge
    
Your application is running. 

The following entities are displayed on the lower left side of the page:

• Address
• Customer
• Item
• Product Order
• Profile
• Zip Code

When you click on an entity, you are provided with a form that allows you to:

• Search for an existing entity
• Create a new entity
• Edit or delete an existing entity

The running application also provides links to find more information about the Forge.

Undeploy the Application

When you are ready to undeploy the application from JBoss EAP:

1. Go to the Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio Servers window.

2. Expand the JBoss EAP Server to see the list of deployed applications.

3. Choose the forge-example project created by this quickstart, right-click, and choose Remove.

4. Click OK when asked if you are sure you want to remove resource from the server. You should see the following message:

    INFO  [org.jboss.as.server] (DeploymentScanner-threads - 1) WFLYSRV0009: Undeployed "forge-example.war" (runtime-name: "forge-example.war")
   

Next Steps

Open generate.fsh and take a look inside! There is not much magic happening here. All of the commands used to generate this project are clearly listed just as if they were typed by your own hands.

Play around with creating more entities, relationships, UI, and generating JAX-RS endpoints,all with just a few simple commands.