Q:

Difference between forward and sendRedirect?

A:

When you invoke a forward request, the request is sent to another resource on the server, without the client being informed that a different resource is going to process the request. This process occurs completly with in the web container. When a sendRedirtect method is invoked, it causes the web container to return to the browser indicating that a new URL should be requested. Because the browser issues a completly new request any object that are stored as request attributes before the redirect occurs will be lost. This extra round trip a redirect is slower than forward.

Q:

What are the different scope valiues for the <jsp:useBean>?

A:

The different scope values for <jsp:useBean> are

1. page
2. request
3.session
4.application

Q:

Explain the life-cycle mehtods in JSP?

A:

THe generated servlet class for a JSP page implements the HttpJspPage interface of the javax.servlet.jsp package. Hte HttpJspPage interface extends the JspPage interface which inturn extends the Servlet interface of the javax.servlet package. the generated servlet class thus implements all the methods of the these three interfaces. The JspPage interface declares only two mehtods - jspInit() and jspDestroy() that must be implemented by all JSP pages regardless of the client-server protocol. However the JSP specification has provided the HttpJspPage interfaec specifically for the JSp pages serving HTTP requests. This interface declares one method _jspService().
The jspInit()- The container calls the jspInit() to initialize te servlet instance.It is called before any other method, and is called only once for a servlet instance.
The _jspservice()- The container calls the _jspservice() for each request, passing it the request and the response objects.
The jspDestroy()- The container calls this when it decides take the instance out of service. It is the last method called n the servlet instance.

Q:

How do I prevent the output of my JSP or Servlet pages from being cached by the browser?

A:

You will need to set the appropriate HTTP header attributes to prevent the dynamic content output by the JSP page from being cached by the browser. Just execute the following scriptlet at the beginning of your JSP pages to prevent them from being cached at the browser. You need both the statements to take care of some of the older browser versions.

<%
response.setHeader("Cache-Control","no-store"); //HTTP 1.1
response.setHeader("Pragma\","no-cache"); //HTTP 1.0
response.setDateHeader ("Expires", 0); //prevents caching at the proxy server
%>

Q:

How does JSP handle run-time exceptions?

A:

You can use the errorPage attribute of the page directive to have uncaught run-time exceptions automatically forwarded to an error processing page. For example:
<%@ page errorPage=\"error.jsp\" %> redirects the browser to the JSP page error.jsp if an uncaught exception is encountered during request processing. Within error.jsp, if you indicate that it is an error-processing page, via the directive: <%@ page isErrorPage=\"true\" %> Throwable object describing the exception may be accessed within the error page via the exception implicit object. Note: You must always use a relative URL as the value for the errorPage attribute.

Q:

How can I implement a thread-safe JSP page? What are the advantages and Disadvantages of using it?

A:

You can make your JSPs thread-safe by having them implement the SingleThreadModel interface. This is done by adding the directive <%@ page isThreadSafe="false" %> within your JSP page. With this, instead of a single instance of the servlet generated for your JSP page loaded in memory, you will have N instances of the servlet loaded and initialized, with the service method of each instance effectively synchronized. You can typically control the number of instances (N) that are instantiated for all servlets implementing SingleThreadModel through the admin screen for your JSP engine. More importantly, avoid using the tag for variables. If you do use this tag, then you should set isThreadSafe to true, as mentioned above. Otherwise, all requests to that page will access those variables, causing a nasty race condition. SingleThreadModel is not recommended for normal use. There are many pitfalls, including the example above of not being able to use <%! %>. You should try really hard to make them thread-safe the old fashioned way: by making them thread-safe .

Q:

How do I use a scriptlet to initialize a newly instantiated bean?

A:

A jsp:useBean action may optionally have a body. If the body is specified, its contents will be automatically invoked when the specified bean is instantiated. Typically, the body will contain scriptlets or jsp:setProperty tags to initialize the newly instantiated bean, although you are not restricted to using those alone.

The following example shows the “today” property of the Foo bean initialized to the current date when it is instantiated. Note that here, we make use of a JSP expression within the jsp:setProperty action.

<jsp:useBean id="foo" class="com.Bar.Foo" >

<jsp:setProperty name="foo" property="today"
value="<%=java.text.DateFormat.getDateInstance().format(new java.util.Date()) %>" / >

<%-- scriptlets calling bean setter methods go here --%>

</jsp:useBean >

Q:

How can I prevent the word "null" from appearing in my HTML input text fields when I populate them with a resultset that has null values?

A:

You could make a simple wrapper function, like

<%!
String blanknull(String s) {
return (s == null) ? \"\" : s;
}
%>

then use it inside your JSP form, like

<input type="text" name="lastName" value="<%=blanknull(lastName)% >" >

Q:

What's a better approach for enabling thread-safe servlets and JSPs? SingleThreadModel Interface or Synchronization?

A:

Although the SingleThreadModel technique is easy to use, and works well for low volume sites, it does not scale well. If you anticipate your users to increase in the future, you may be better off implementing explicit synchronization for your shared data. The key however, is to effectively minimize the amount of code that is synchronzied so that you take maximum advantage of multithreading.

Also, note that SingleThreadModel is pretty resource intensive from the server\'s perspective. The most serious issue however is when the number of concurrent requests exhaust the servlet instance pool. In that case, all the unserviced requests are queued until something becomes free - which results in poor performance. Since the usage is non-deterministic, it may not help much even if you did add more memory and increased the size of the instance pool.

Q:

What is the difference b/w variable declared inside a declaration part and variable declared in scriplet part?

A:

Variable declared inside declaration part is treated as a global variable.that means after convertion jsp file into servlet that variable will be in outside of service method or it will be declared as instance variable.And the scope is available to complete jsp and to complete in the converted servlet class.where as if u declare a variable inside a scriplet that variable will be declared inside a service method and the scope is with in the service method.

Q:

Is there a way to execute a JSP from the comandline or from my own application?

A:

There is a little tool called JSPExecutor that allows you to do just that. The developers (Hendrik Schreiber <hs@webapp.de> & Peter Rossbach <pr@webapp.de>) aim was not to write a full blown servlet engine, but to provide means to use JSP for generating source code or reports. Therefore most HTTP-specific features (headers, sessions, etc) are not implemented, i.e. no reponseline or header is generated. Nevertheless you can use it to precompile JSP for your website.