How to cause a "back button' from a java servlet? - java

I have a form on page A. It submits some data to a java servlet on servlet B. Servlet B does some error checking. If that checking shows errors I'd like to send the user back to page A via a back button type action (which keeps the data in the form). Is there a way to do this in a Java servlet response? In case it matters, this is in Google AppEngine's Java platform.

No, you can't do that. What you can do though, is send back the HTML markup of the page containing the form, and prepopulate the form with the values submitted by the user:
<input type="text" value="hello" />
displays a text field populated with hello.
Basically all the MVC frameworks allow doing that quite easily.

Use RequestDispacter object and navigate it to first servlet or jsp page with that error

Related

Update the database from submit option

I have a jsp page having a 'submit' option for input.On clicking it i want to update the value of a table called tbIndividual.What can be the best approach to do it?
On jsp page i have somthing like this :
User Name : <%=rs.getString(2)%>
First Name : <%=rs.getString(4)%>
Last Name : <%=rs.getString(5)%>
Email Id : <%=rs.getString(6)%>
Contact : <%=rs.getString(7)%>
<input type="submit" value="ADD"></input>
And now i want to update the value of status of that particular individual from 'NO' to 'WAIT' state.On click of this submit button.
Is making new servlet for this task a good option or doing the code in jsp a better one ?
If i need to make a new servlet then what will be the code for it on jsp page .?Please help.
If you are trying to learn servlet with this project then you should create a separate servlet where you will perform your business logic (e.g addition of element in Db) and jsp should be kept away from business logic because role of jsp is to render the output not to produce the output.
If this is a project for production purposes, then you should ( IMO you must ) opt some web framework. As framework will reduce your effort, headache and increase productivity.
First of all, there are certain things you need to understand while developing web applications in Java. I have a few recommendations and inputs
Please don't use Scriptlets. Scriptlets are deprecated and they make your code clumsy and the maintainance will be hard. Use JSTL
You need to create a form in your html to have a set of variables to push them to the server on clicking submit button. The form will have an action attribute which contains the URL where the request should be sent
Create a Servlet and map with the action URL and write the doPost method which can receive the form parameters and do the business logic whatever changing the status from NO to WAIT or anything else
Please take a note that you need to have Session variables in order to have the store the data in between requests from the same client. eg browser.
Is making new servlet for this task a good option or doing the code in jsp a better one ?
Writing a new servlet is a good option, than doing the business logic in jsp page. jsp is meant for presentation, just view. They shouldn't be used to perform business logic
If i need to make a new servlet then what will be the code for it on jsp page .?
JSP should just have all the necessary html elements and attributes like form, action attribute etc.. to post the parameters in the request to the action URL. Please note the method attribute of form. You should use HTTP POST method for posting form parameters to the server
Note : Finally, Writing Servlets are also NOT recommended. Instead, you should opt for webframeworks like Spring MVC , Struts etc. Please go through the link to understand about web frameworks answered by #BaluC
Hope this clarifies.

call a java method when Click on a html button without using javascript

i work on JSP and i want to call a java method(Function) on Click on a html button without using<script></script>.how?
i try to write this code:
<button onclick="<%po.killThread();%>">
<font size="4">Kill</font>
</button>
but it doesn't work... so please help me.
thanks
You're misunderstanding how server-side programming works. When you load that page, the webserver will get to the line <button onclick="<%po.killThread();%>"> and will immediately parse and execute the JSP snippet, in your case po.killThread(), and replace everything between the <% and %> with the return value of that method, if any. And all these happens on server side, before client receives any thing. (Note that this will only happen if that page is not already been loaded and compiled into a Servlet by the server.)
Thus, the HTML that client receives, will be something like, <button onclick="some return value or nothing">, which means that nothing will happen when you press the button. If you want to execute further JSP commands on the button press you will need to make a new request to the server - for example, by redirecting the page.
This will call the function killThread when you open the website.
Try to redirect to another jsp which calls the function.
this will not run at all because after the jsp page is compiled it will return the po.killThread() value but will not call this method
You can see this by viewing the page source
JSP is a server-side technology. Did I say server-side?
In order to understand how JSP works and to clear any misconception, JavaRanch Journal (Vol. 4, No. 2): The Secret Life of JavaServer Pages is a very good read.
An excerpt from the same,
JSP is a templating technology best-suited to the delivery of dynamic text documents in a format that is white-space agnostic.
Template text within a JSP page (which is anything that is not a dynamic element), to include all white-space and line terminators, becomes part of the final document.
All dynamic elements in a JSP are interpreted on the server and once the document is sent to the client, no further dynamic interaction is possible (short of requesting the same or another document).
If you are using JSPs, then to perform some method calles, you will have to write a servlet and then call the method in doPost or doGet method of servlet.
On the other hand, if you want to make things simpler, use JSF framework which will help you achieve your objective as JSF supports event handling.

JSP{ - HTML Form - Submit Action - How to send to Java class for processing

I have a JSP html based form. I want to do the post through my java code, i.e HttpURLConnection, OutputStreamWriter etc..
How do I make my form action process point towards my java class that is to do this post?
My aim is to have a:
JSP page that has a form,
Submit form
Processing and response called out my java code that will generate a response (this is working fine)
Response returned to the calling JSP page.
Really my issue is submitting the form, and send the processing to my java class?
Ok, here is an easy example on how to use servlet. What you actually need is a Servlet. A servlet is actually a java class. Check this example, replace form.html with your jsp and let me know if you have issues. This is a brief description of what a servlet is.

How to re-populate form fields on a jsp page after failed server validation

I have a very simple Java MVC web application and am using a servlet to handle form validation. If the form is validated, the request is forwarded to the appropriate view. However, if the form fails validation, the request is forwarded back to the form, which then displays the appropriate error message(s).
My question is this -- what is the most efficient way to re-populate all of the form fields with the data that was originally entered in the form by the user?
I am not using an MVC framework, just simple HttpServlets as the controller with .jsp as the view.
The easiest and probably least effort is to just use
<input name="foo" type="text" value="${param.foo}"/>
This should default to "" when the user first visits the form.
A little more can be done to create a custom tag which binds to the request. However this is probably not the solution you were looking for.
Edit: You may want to use <c:out value="${param.foo}"/> to protect against XSS attack.
Pass the fields back to the jsp as part of the request object. request.setAttribute(..)
Use those attributes to set the form fields.

how to show "data loading" in a jsp page using servlets

we have a classic JSP + Servlets application and would like to show "Content is loading" sort of message when data in the page takes a while to load.
Is there an easy way to do this via JS?
Scenario:
Page1 (a.jsp) -> select drop downs ->
click search //data is sent back to
server for db
URL changes to (b.jsp), white page is shown, then data load after 30ish seconds
for those 30 seconds I want to show a spinner or some message.
adding ajax or jquery would require a design change which we can not do right now. Though the application already uses jQuery for other stuff but b.jsp is making the DB call from that page...
calling DB in jsp would be very much frowned upon. given the premise of the question, you could
//b.jsp
<div id="msg">data is loading...</div>
<%
out.flush();
db.performanLengthJob();
%>
<script> $("msg").remove(); </script>
<p>Data is loaded!</p>
AJAX is the way to do it. You'll need something on the server side to help you keep track of progress.
Load your data (in b.jsp) with ajax request.
Make a JS function which starts on load, let it show your message ('30 seconds left') and then let it perform ajax request to load necessary data.
I recommend you to use some js-framework, like jQuery, it'll make things much simplier.
In order to handle ajax-request on the server-side you'll need to create one more servlet and map it to some url, like your_app_name/ajaxsupport. This servlet should return data in some convenient format (it can be plain text, or xml, or JSON or whatever else). On the client you'll process received data and show it.
A quick solution can be to use onbeforeunload JS event of your base page html body s.g. like
<body onbeforeunload="$("yourComponent").show();">

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