JSP

Java Server Pages

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JSP
 JSP technology is used to create web application just
like Servlet technology. It can be thought of as an
extension to servlet because it provides more
functionality than servlet such as expression
language, jstl etc.

 A JSP page consists of HTML tags and JSP tags. The

jsp pages are easier to maintain than servlet because
we can separate designing and development. It
provides some additional features such as Expression
Language, Custom Tag etc.
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Advantage of JSP over
Servlet
There are many advantages of JSP over servlet. They are as follows:
1) Extension to Servlet
JSP technology is the extension to servlet technology. We can use all the features of servlet in
JSP. In addition to, we can use implicit objects, predefined tags, expression language and
Custom tags in JSP, that makes JSP development easy.

2) Easy to maintain
JSP can be easily managed because we can easily separate our business logic with
presentation logic. In servlet technology, we mix our business logic with the presentation
logic.

3) Fast Development: No need to recompile and redeploy

If JSP page is modified, we don't need to recompile and redeploy the project. The servlet code
needs to be updated and recompiled if we have to change the look and feel of the application.

4) Less code than Servlet

In JSP, we can use a lot of tags such as action tags, jstl, custom tags etc. that reduces the code.
Moreover, we can use EL, implicit objects etc.

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 Life cycle of a JSP Page
The JSP pages follows these phases:

 Translation of JSP Page

 Compilation of JSP Page
 Classloading (class file is loaded by the classloader)
 Instantiation (Object of the Generated Servlet is created).
 Initialization ( jspInit() method is invoked by the container).
 Reqeust processing ( _jspService() method is invoked by the container).
 Destroy ( jspDestroy() method is invoked by the container).

Note: jspInit(), _jspService() and jspDestroy() are the life cycle

methods of JSP.
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As depicted in the above diagram, JSP page is translated into servlet by the help of JSP
translator. The JSP translator is a part of web server that is responsible to translate the
JSP page into servlet. After that Servlet page is compiled by the compiler and gets
converted into the class file. Moreover, all the processes that happens in servlet is
performed on JSP later like initialization, committing response to the browser and
destroy.

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Creating a simple JSP Page
 To create the first jsp page, write some html code as given below, and save it
by .jsp extension. We have save this file as index.jsp. Put it in a folder and paste the
folder in the web-apps directory in apache tomcat to run the jsp page.
 index.jspLet's see the simple example of JSP, here we are using the scriptlet tag to
put java code in the JSP page.

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Do I need to follow directory
structure to run a simple JSP ?
No, there is no need of directory structure if you
don't have class files or tld files. For example, put
jsp files in a folder directly and deploy that
folder.It will be running fine.But if you are using
bean class, Servlet or tld file then directory
structure is required.

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Directory structure of JSP
The directory structure of JSP page is same as servlet. We contains the jsp
page outside the WEB-INF folder or in any directory.

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The JSP API

The JSP API consists of two packages:

 javax.servlet.jsp
 javax.servlet.jsp.tagext

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javax.servlet.jsp package
The javax.servlet.jsp package has two interfaces and classes.The two
interfaces are as follows:
 JspPage
 HttpJspPage

The classes are as follows:

 JspWriter
 PageContext
 JspFactory
 JspEngineInfo
 JspException
 JspError

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JSP Scriptlet tag (Scripting
elements)
In JSP, java code can be written inside the jsp page using the
scriptlet tag. Let's see what are the scripting elements first.

JSP Scripting elements

The scripting elements provides the ability to insert java code
inside the jsp. There are three types of scripting elements:
 scriptlet tag
 expression tag
 declaration tag

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JSP scriptlet tag

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Example of JSP scriptlet tag that
prints the user name
In this example, we have created two files index.html and welcome.jsp. The
index.html file gets the username from the user and the welcome.jsp file prints the
username with the welcome message.

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JSP expression tag
The code placed within JSP expression tag is written to the output stream of the
response. So you need not write out.print() to write data. It is mainly used to print the
values of variable or method.

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Example of JSP expression tag
that prints current time
To display the current time, we have used the getTime() method of Calendar class.
The getTime() is an instance method of Calendar class, so we have called it after
getting the instance of Calendar class by the getInstance() method.

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Example of JSP expression tag that
prints the user name
 In this example, we are printing the username using the expression tag. The
index.html file gets the username and sends the request to the welcome.jsp file,
which displays the username.

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JSP Declaration Tag

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Difference between JSP Scriptlet tag
and Declaration tag

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Example of JSP declaration tag
that declares field

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Example of JSP declaration tag that
declares method

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JSP directives

The jsp directives are messages that tells the web container
how to translate a JSP page into the corresponding servlet.
There are three types of directives:
 page directive
 include directive
 taglib directive

Syntax of JSP Directive

<%@ directive attribute="value" %>

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JSP page directive
The page directive defines attributes that apply to an entire JSP page.
Syntax of JSP page directive

<%@ page attribute="value" %>

Attributes of JSP page directive
import contentType
extends info
buffer language
isELIgnored isThreadSafe
autoFlush session
pageEncoding errorPage
isErrorPage

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1)import

The import attribute is used to import class,interface or all the

members of a package.It is similar to import keyword in java
class or interface
.

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2)contentType
The contentType attribute defines the MIME(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension)
type of the HTTP response.The default value is "text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1“
<%@ page contentType=application/msword %>
3)extends
The extends attribute defines the parent class that will be inherited by the generated
servlet.It is rarely used.
4)info
This attribute simply sets the information of the JSP page which is retrieved later by
using getServletInfo() method of Servlet interface.
<%@ page info="composed by Sonoo Jaiswal" %>
5)buffer
The buffer attribute sets the buffer size in kilobytes to handle output generated by
the JSP page.The default size of the buffer is 8Kb.
<%@ page buffer="16kb" %>
6)language
The language attribute specifies the scripting language used in the JSP page. The
default value is "java".

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7)isELIgnored
We can ignore the Expression Language (EL) in jsp by the isELIgnored attribute. By
default its value is false i.e. Expression Language is enabled by default. We see
Expression Language later.
<%@ page isELIgnored="true" %>//Now EL will be ignored
8)isThreadSafe
Servlet and JSP both are multithreaded.If you want to control this behaviour of JSP
page, you can use isThreadSafe attribute of page directive.The value of isThreadSafe
value is true.If you make it false, the web container will serialize the multiple
requests, i.e. it will wait until the JSP finishes responding to a request before passing
another request to it.If you make the value of isThreadSafe attribute like:
<%@ page isThreadSafe="false" %>
9)errorPage
The errorPage attribute is used to define the error page, if exception occurs in the
current page, it will be redirected to the error page.
<%@ page errorPage="myerrorpage.jsp" %>
10)isErrorPage
The isErrorPage attribute is used to declare that the current page is the error page.
<%@ page isErrorPage="true" %>

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Jsp Include Directive

The include directive is used to include the contents of any

resource it may be jsp file, html file or text file. The include
directive includes the original content of the included resource
at page translation time (the jsp page is translated only once so
it will be better to include static resource).
Advantage of Include directive
Code Reusability

Syntax of include directive

<%@ include file="resourceName" %>

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Example of include directive

In this example, we are including the content of the

header.html file. To run this example you must create an
header.html file.

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JSP Taglib directive
The JSP taglib directive is used to define a tag library
that defines many tags. We use the TLD (Tag Library
Descriptor) file to define the tags. In the custom tag
section we will use this tag so it will be better to learn
it in custom tag.
Syntax JSP Taglib directive
<%@ taglib uri="uriofthetaglibrary" prefix="prefixoftaglibrary" %>

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Example of JSP Taglib
directive
suppose the custlib tag library contains a tag
called hello. If you wanted to use the hello tag with a
prefix of mytag, your tag would be <mytag:hello> and it
will be used in your JSP file as follows −

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Exception Handling in JSP

The exception is normally an object that is thrown at runtime.

Exception Handling is the process to handle the runtime
errors. There may occur exception any time in your web
application. So handling exceptions is a safer side for the web
developer.

In JSP, there are two ways to perform exception handling:

1) By errorPage and isErrorPage attributes of page directive
2) By <error-page> element in web.xml file

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Example of exception handling in jsp by the
elements of page directive

In this case, you must define and create a page to handle the
exceptions, as in the error.jsp page. The pages where may
occur exception, define the errorPage attribute of page
directive, as in the process.jsp page.
There are 3 files:
 index.jsp for input values
 process.jsp for dividing the two numbers and displaying the
result
 error.jsp for handling the exception

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Example

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Example of exception handling in jsp
by specifying the error-page element
inThis approach is better because
web.xml file
you don't need to specify the errorPage
attribute in each jsp page. Specifying the single entry in the web.xml file
will handle the exception. In this case, either specify exception-type or
error-code with the location element. If you want to handle all the
exception, you will have to specify the java.lang.Exception in the
exception-type element. Let's see the simple example:

 There are 4 files:

 web.xml file for specifying the error-page element
 index.jsp for input values
 process.jsp for dividing the two numbers and displaying the result
 error.jsp for displaying the exception

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1) web.xml file if you want to
handle any exception
 <web-app>


 <error-page>
 <exception-type>java.lang.Exception</exception-type>
 <location>/error.jsp</location>
 </error-page>


 </web-app>

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 1) web.xml file if you want to handle the exception for a
specific error code
 <web-app>


 <error-page>
 <error-code>500</error-code>
 <location>/error.jsp</location>
 </error-page>


 </web-app>

2) index.jsp file is same as previous

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 3) process.jsp
Now, you don't need to specify the errorPage attribute of page directive in the jsp
page.
 <%@ page errorPage="error.jsp" %>
 <%


 String num1=request.getParameter("n1");
 String num2=request.getParameter("n2");


 int a=Integer.parseInt(num1);
 int b=Integer.parseInt(num2);
 int c=a/b;
 out.print("division of numbers is: "+c);


%>
4) error.jsp file is same as previous

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JSP Action Tags
There are many JSP action tags or elements. Each JSP action tag is used to perform
some specific tasks. The action tags are used to control the flow between pages and
to use Java Bean. The Jsp action tags are given below.

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jsp:forward action tag
The jsp:forward action tag is used to forward the request to another
resource it may be jsp, html or another resource.

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Example of jsp:forward action tag
without parameter

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Example of jsp:forward action tag
with parameter

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jsp:include action tag
 The jsp:include action tag is used to include the
content of another resource it may be jsp, html or
servlet.
 The jsp include action tag includes the resource at
request time so it is better for dynamic
pages because there might be changes in future.
 The jsp:include tag can be used to include static as
well as dynamic pages.

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Custom Tags in JSP
Custom tags are user-defined tags. They eliminates the possibility
of scriptlet tag and separates the business logic from the JSP page.
The same business logic can be used many times by the use of
custom tag.
Advantages of Custom Tags
The key advantages of Custom tags are as follows:
 Eliminates the need of scriptlet tag The custom tags eliminates the
need of scriptlet tag which is considered bad programming approach
in JSP.
 Separation of business logic from JSP The custom tags separate
the the business logic from the JSP page so that it may be easy to
maintain.
 Re-usability The custom tags makes the possibility to reuse the
same business logic again and again.
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Syntax to use custom tag
There are two ways to use the custom tag. They are given
below:

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MVC in JSP
MVC stands for Model View and Controller. It is a design
pattern that separates the business logic, presentation logic
and data.
 Controller acts as an interface between View and Model.
Controller intercepts all the incoming requests.
 Model represents the state of the application i.e. data. It can
also have business logic.
 View represents the presentaion i.e. UI(User Interface).

Advantage of MVC (Model 2) Architecture

 Navigation Control is centralized
 Easy to maintain the large application
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MVC Example in JSP
In this example, we are using servlet as a controller, jsp as a
view component, Java Bean class as a model.
In this example, we have created 5 pages:
 index.jsp a page that gets input from the user.
 ControllerServlet.java a servlet that acts as a controller.
 login-success.jsp and login-error.jsp files acts as view
components.
 web.xml file for mapping the servlet.

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Database connectivity with JSP

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