2011/08/05 - Jakarta Cactus has been retired.

For more information, please explore the Attic.

Forewords and Requirements

First of all, you need to download the Cactus distribution

Step 1: Create JBuilder libraries

Let's assume the following conventions: {Cactus dir} is the directory where you have unzipped the Cactus distribution or sources. Let's also assume {Tomcat dir} to be the Tomcat directory.

jbuilder libraries

Create the JUnit library

Create a JUnit library and include junit.jar.

Create the Cactus library

Create a Cactus library containing cactus.jar and aspectjrt.jar (you can actually create a separate library for AspectJ if you wish).

You can also add the source file directories in the source tab. This way, you will be able to debug inside cactus sources.

Create the tomcat library

Create another library named tomcat and add all the jar files from {Tomcat dir}/lib.

If you use JBuilder 4 Enterprise or JBuilder 4 Professionnal, you don't need to create this library because Tomcat 3.1 is provided with those versions.

Step 2: Set up the cactus.properties file

Edit a new file named cactus.properties (see the Configuration Howto tutorial for more details on cactus.properties).

Copy your cactus.properties file to a directory present in your classpath. You can copy it to a directory and add this directory in the class tab of the cactus library.

Step 3: Configure Tomcat Environment

Create a cactus webapp

Create and edit the file {Tomcat dir}/webapps/cactus/WEB-INF/web.xml. Here is an example for Servlet API 2.2: 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<!DOCTYPE web-app
    PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.2//EN"
    "http://java.sun.com/j2ee/dtds/web-app_2_2.dtd">

<web-app>
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>ServletRedirector</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>org.apache.cactus.server.ServletTestRedirector</servlet-class>
    </servlet>

    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>ServletRedirector</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/ServletRedirector</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>
</web-app>
You can edit {Tomcat dir}/conf/web.xml instead if you prefer.

You can also edit the web.xml file of the webapp where is located the servlet(s) you want to test.

Don't forget to modify cactus.properties file accordingly.

Step 4: Configure your project

  1. Put -classic -Dtomcat.home="{Tomcat dir}" as the VM parameters for your project and org.apache.tomcat.startup.Tomcat as the main class.
  2. Add the following libraries in the Required Libraries tab in the project properties:
    • tomcat
    • servlet
    • junit
    • cactus
    jbuilder libraries

Step 5: Test and debug your servlet

Test your servlet

  1. Start Tomcat using the Run/Run Project menu.
  2. Run your unit tests: right click on the file containing your test case and click on run

Debug your servlet and your tests

You can easily print the results of the methods on the server-side itself. You can also start Tomcat in debug mode (Run/debug project). This way, you can stop at breakpoints on methods that are executed on the server side (void testXXX() for example) If you right click on the file containing your test case and click on debug, you can stop at breakpoints on methods that are executed on the client side like void endXXX(WebResponse) or void beginXXX(WebRequest)