Interceptor is a core component with XWork2. XWork2 has been designed with action interception in mind from ground up. Basically and interceptor wrappes around XWork2 Action. It is cappable of influencing the overall result, and hence affecting which result eventually get executed. In the process it have access to XWork2 Action, its proxy (ActionProxy), ActionInvocation etc. such that the interceptor could inspect the internals of XWork2 before comming up with a overall conclusion of what it should do.

Default interceptors that comes with XWork2

<interceptor name="timer" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.TimerInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="logger" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.LoggingInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="chain" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.ChainingInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="staticParams" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.StaticParametersInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="params" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.ParametersInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="filterParams" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.ParameterFilterInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="removeParams" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.ParameterRemoverInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="modelDriven" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.ModelDrivenInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="scopedModelDriven"
             class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.ScopedModelDrivenInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="validation" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.validator.ValidationInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="workflow" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.DefaultWorkflowInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="prepare" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.PrepareInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="conversionError" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.ConversionErrorInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="alias" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.AliasInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="exception" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.ExceptionMappingInterceptor"/>
<interceptor name="i18n" class="com.opensymphony.xwork2.interceptor.I18nInterceptor"/>