Java Server Pages

Tutorial

JSP Overview

ava Server Pages (JSP) is a technology for developing web pages that support dynamic content which

helps developers insert java code in HTML pages by making use of special JSP tags, most of which start with <
% and end with %>.
A JavaServer Pages component is a type of Java servlet that is designed to fulfill the role of a user interface for a
Java web application. Web developers write JSPs as text files that combine HTML or XHTML code, XML
elements, and embedded JSP actions and commands.
Using JSP, you can collect input from users through web page forms, present records from a database or
another source, and create web pages dynamically.
JSP tags can be used for a variety of purposes, such as retrieving information from a database or registering
user preferences, accessing JavaBeans components, passing control between pages and sharing information
between requests, pages etc.

Why Use JSP?

JavaServer Pages often serve the same purpose as programs implemented using the Common Gateway
Interface (CGI). But JSP offer several advantages in comparison with the CGI.
Performance is significantly better because JSP allows embedding Dynamic Elements in HTML Pages
itself instead of having a separate CGI files.
JSP are always compiled before it's processed by the server unlike CGI/Perl which requires the server
to load an interpreter and the target script each time the page is requested.
JavaServer Pages are built on top of the Java Servlets API, so like Servlets, JSP also has access to all
the powerful Enterprise Java APIs, including JDBC, JNDI, EJB, JAXP etc.
JSP pages can be used in combination with servlets that handle the business logic, the model
supported by Java servlet template engines.
Finally, JSP is an integral part of J2EE, a complete platform for enterprise class applications. This means that
JSP can play a part in the simplest applications to the most complex and demanding.

Advantages of JSP:
Following is the list of other advantages of using JSP over other technologies:
vs. Active Server Pages (ASP): The advantages of JSP are twofold. First, the dynamic part is written in
Java, not Visual Basic or other MS specific language, so it is more powerful and easier to use. Second, it
is portable to other operating systems and non-Microsoft Web servers.
vs. Pure Servlets: It is more convenient to write (and to modify!) regular HTML than to have plenty of
println statements that generate the HTML.
vs. Server-Side Includes (SSI): SSI is really only intended for simple inclusions, not for "real" programs
that use form data, make database connections, and the like.
vs. JavaScript: JavaScript can generate HTML dynamically on the client but can hardly interact with the
web server to perform complex tasks like database access and image processing etc.
vs. Static HTML: Regular HTML, of course, cannot contain dynamic information.

JSP Environment Setup

development environment is where you would develop your JSP programs, test them and finally run

them.

This chapter will guide you to setup your JSP development environment which involves following steps:

Setting up Java Development Kit

This step involves downloading an implementation of the Java Software Development Kit (SDK) and setting up
PATH environment variable appropriately.
You can download SDK from Oracle's Java site: Java SE Downloads.
Once you download your Java implementation, follow the given instructions to install and configure the setup.
Finally set PATH and JAVA_HOME environment variables to refer to the directory that contains java and javac,
typically java_install_dir/bin and java_install_dir respectively.
If you are running Windows and installed the SDK in C:\jdk1.5.0_20, you would put the following line in your
C:\autoexec.bat file.
set PATH=C:\jdk1.5.0_20\bin;%PATH%
set JAVA_HOME=C:\jdk1.5.0_20
Alternatively, on Windows NT/2000/XP, you could also right-click on My Computer, select Properties, then
Advanced, then Environment Variables. Then, you would update the PATH value and press the OK button.
On Unix (Solaris, Linux, etc.), if the SDK is installed in /usr/local/jdk1.5.0_20 and you use the C shell, you would
put the following into your .cshrc file.
setenv PATH /usr/local/jdk1.5.0_20/bin:$PATH
setenv JAVA_HOME /usr/local/jdk1.5.0_20
Alternatively, if you use an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) like Borland JBuilder, Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA,
or Sun ONE Studio, compile and run a simple program to confirm that the IDE knows where you installed Java.

Setting up Web Server: Tomcat

A number of Web Servers that support JavaServer Pages and Servlets development are available in the market.
Some web servers are freely downloadable and Tomcat is one of them.
Apache Tomcat is an open source software implementation of the JavaServer Pages and Servlet technologies
and can act as a standalone server for testing JSP and Servlets and can be integrated with the Apache Web
Server. Here are the steps to setup Tomcat on your machine:
Download latest version of Tomcat from http://tomcat.apache.org/.
Once you downloaded the installation, unpack the binary distribution into a convenient location. For example
in C:\apache-tomcat-5.5.29 on windows, or /usr/local/apache-tomcat-5.5.29 on Linux/Unix and create
CATALINA_HOME environment variable pointing to these locations.
Tomcat can be started by executing the following commands on windows machine:
%CATALINA_HOME%\bin\startup.bat
or
C:\apache-tomcat-5.5.29\bin\startup.bat
Tomcat can be started by executing the following commands on Unix (Solaris, Linux, etc.) machine:
$CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
or
/usr/local/apache-tomcat-5.5.29/bin/startup.sh
After a successful startup, the default web applications included with Tomcat will be available by visiting
http://localhost:8080/. If everything is fine then it should display following result:

Further information about configuring and running Tomcat can be found in the documentation included here, as
well as on the Tomcat web site: http://tomcat.apache.org
Tomcat can be stopped by executing the following commands on windows machine:
%CATALINA_HOME%\bin\shutdown
or

C:\apache-tomcat-5.5.29\bin\shutdown
Tomcat can be stopped by executing the following commands on Unix (Solaris, Linux, etc.) machine:
$CATALINA_HOME/bin/shutdown.sh
or
/usr/local/apache-tomcat-5.5.29/bin/shutdown.sh

Setting up CLASSPATH
Since servlets are not part of the Java Platform, Standard Edition, you must identify the servlet classes to the
compiler.
If you are running Windows, you need to put the following lines in your C:\autoexec.bat file.
set CATALINA=C:\apache-tomcat-5.5.29
set CLASSPATH=%CATALINA%\common\lib\jsp-api.jar;%CLASSPATH%

Alternatively, on Windows NT/2000/XP, you could also right-click on My Computer, select Properties, then
Advanced, then Environment Variables. Then, you would update the CLASSPATH value and press the OK button.
On Unix (Solaris, Linux, etc.), if you are using the C shell, you would put the following lines into your .cshrc file.
setenv CATALINA=/usr/local/apache-tomcat-5.5.29
setenv CLASSPATH $CATALINA/common/lib/jsp-api.jar:$CLASSPATH
NOTE: Assuming that your development directory is C:\JSPDev (Windows) or /usr/JSPDev (Unix) then you would
need to add these directories as well in CLASSPATH in similar way as you have added above.

JSP Architecture

he web server needs a JSP engine ie. container to process JSP pages. The JSP container is responsible

for intercepting requests for JSP pages. This tutorial makes use of Apache which has built-in JSP container to
support JSP pages development.
A JSP container works with the Web server to provide the runtime environment and other services a JSP needs. It
knows how to understand the special elements that are part of JSPs.
Following diagram shows the position of JSP container and JSP files in a Web Application.

JSP Processing:
The following steps explain how the web server creates the web page using JSP:
As with a normal page, your browser sends an HTTP request to the web server.
The web server recognizes that the HTTP request is for a JSP page and forwards it to a JSP engine. This is
done by using the URL or JSP page which ends with .jsp instead of .html.
The JSP engine loads the JSP page from disk and converts it into a servlet content. This conversion is very
simple in which all template text is converted to println( ) statements and all JSP elements are converted to
Java code that implements the corresponding dynamic behavior of the page.

The JSP engine compiles the servlet into an executable class and forwards the original request to a servlet
engine.
A part of the web server called the servlet engine loads the Servlet class and executes it. During execution,
the servlet produces an output in HTML format, which the servlet engine passes to the web server inside an
HTTP response.
The web server forwards the HTTP response to your browser in terms of static HTML content.
Finally web browser handles the dynamically generated HTML page inside the HTTP response exactly as if
it were a static page.
All the above mentioned steps can be shown below in the following diagram:

Typically, the JSP engine checks to see whether a servlet for a JSP file already exists and whether the
modification date on the JSP is older than the servlet. If the JSP is older than its generated servlet, the JSP
container assumes that the JSP hasn't changed and that the generated servlet still matches the JSP's contents.
This makes the process more efficient than with other scripting languages (such as PHP) and therefore faster.
So in a way, a JSP page is really just another way to write a servlet without having to be a Java programming wiz.
Except for the translation phase, a JSP page is handled exactly like a regular servlet

JSP Life Cycle

his chapter will explain how to install Hibernate and other associated packages to prepare a develop

environment for the Hibernate applications. We will work with MySQL database to experiment with Hibernate
examples, so make sure you already have setup for MySQL database. For a more detail on MySQL you can
check our MySQL Tutorial.
The key to understanding the low-level functionality of JSP is to understand the simple life cycle they follow.
A JSP life cycle can be defined as the entire process from its creation till the destruction which is similar to a
servlet life cycle with an additional step which is required to compile a JSP into servlet.
The following are the paths followed by a JSP
Compilation
Initialization
Execution
Cleanup
The four major phases of JSP life cycle are very similar to Servlet Life Cycle and they are as follows:

JSP Compilation:
When a browser asks for a JSP, the JSP engine first checks to see whether it needs to compile the page. If the
page has never been compiled, or if the JSP has been modified since it was last compiled, the JSP engine
compiles the page.
The compilation process involves three steps:
Parsing the JSP.
Turning the JSP into a servlet.
Compiling the servlet.

JSP Initialization:
When a container loads a JSP it invokes the jspInit() method before servicing any requests. If you need to perform
JSP-specific initialization, override the jspInit() method:
public void jspInit(){
// Initialization code...
}
Typically initialization is performed only once and as with the servlet init method, you generally initialize database
connections, open files, and create lookup tables in the jspInit method.

JSP Execution:
This phase of the JSP life cycle represents all interactions with requests until the JSP is destroyed.

Whenever a browser requests a JSP and the page has been loaded and initialized, the JSP engine invokes the
_jspService() method in the JSP.
The _jspService() method takes an HttpServletRequest and an HttpServletResponse as its parameters as
follows:
void _jspService(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)

// Service handling code...

}
The _jspService() method of a JSP is invoked once per a request and is responsible for generating the response
for that request and this method is also responsible for generating responses to all seven of the HTTP methods ie.
GET, POST, DELETE etc.

JSP Cleanup:
The destruction phase of the JSP life cycle represents when a JSP is being removed from use by a container.
The jspDestroy() method is the JSP equivalent of the destroy method for servlets. Override jspDestroy when you
need to perform any cleanup, such as releasing database connections or closing open files.
The jspDestroy() method has the following form:
public void jspDestroy()
{
// Your cleanup code goes here.
}

JSP Syntax

his chapter will give basic idea on simple syntax (ie. elements) involved with JSP development:

The Scriptlet:
A scriptlet can contain any number of JAVA language statements, variable or method declarations, or expressions
that are valid in the page scripting language.
Following is the syntax of Scriptlet:
<% code fragment %>
You can write XML equivalent of the above syntax as follows:
<jsp:scriptlet>
code fragment
</jsp:scriptlet>

Any text, HTML tags, or JSP elements you write must be outside the scriptlet. Following is the simple and first
example for JSP:
<html>
<head><title>Hello World</title></head>
<body>
Hello World!<br/>
<%
out.println("Your IP address is " +
request.getRemoteAddr()); %>
</body>
</html>
NOTE: Assuming that Apache Tomcat is installed in C:\apache-tomcat-7.0.2 and your environment is setup as per
environment setup tutorial.
Let us keep above code in JSP file hello.jsp and put this file in C:\apache-tomcat-7.0.2\webapps\ROOTdirectory
and try to browse it by giving URL http://localhost:8080/hello.jsp. This would generate following result:

JSP Declarations:
A declaration declares one or more variables or methods that you can use in Java code later in the JSP file. You
must declare the variable or method before you use it in the JSP file.
Following is the syntax of JSP Declarations:
<%! declaration; [ declaration; ]+ ... %>
You can write XML equivalent of the above syntax as follows:
<jsp:declaration>
code fragment
</jsp:declaration>
Following is the simple example for JSP Declarations:
<%! int i = 0; %> <
%! int a, b, c; %>
<%! Circle a = new Circle(2.0); %>

JSP Expression:
A JSP expression element contains a scripting language expression that is evaluated, converted to a String, and
inserted where the expression appears in the JSP file.
Because the value of an expression is converted to a String, you can use an expression within a line of text,
whether or not it is tagged with HTML, in a JSP file.
The expression element can contain any expression that is valid according to the Java Language Specification but
you cannot use a semicolon to end an expression.
Following is the syntax of JSP Expression:
<%= expression %>
You can write XML equivalent of the above syntax as follows:

<jsp:expression>
expression
</jsp:expression>
Following is the simple example for JSP Expression:
<html>
<head><title>A Comment Test</title></head>
<body>
<p>
Today's date: <%= (new java.util.Date()).toLocaleString()%>
</p>
</body>
</html>
This would generate following result:

Today's date: 11-Sep-2010 21:24:25

JSP Comments:
JSP comment marks text or statements that the JSP container should ignore. A JSP comment is useful when you
want to hide or "comment out" part of your JSP page.
Following is the syntax of JSP comments:
<%-- This is JSP comment --%>
Following is the simple example for JSP Comments:
<html>
<head><title>A Comment Test</title></head>
<body>
<h2>A Test of Comments</h2>
<%-- This comment will not be visible in the page source -%> </body>
</html>
This would generate following result:

A Test of Comments
There are a small number of special constructs you can use in various cases to insert comments or characters
that would otherwise be treated specially. Here's a summary:
Syntax

Purpose

<%-- comment --%>

A JSP comment. Ignored by the JSP engine.

<!-- comment -->

An HTML comment. Ignored by the browser.

<\%

Represents static <% literal.

%\>

Represents static %> literal.

\'

A single quote in an attribute that uses single quotes.

\"

A double quote in an attribute that uses double quotes.

JSP Directives:
A JSP directive affects the overall structure of the servlet class. It usually has the following form:
<%@ directive attribute="value" %>
There are three types of directive tag:
Directive

Description

<%@ page ... %>

Defines page-dependent attributes, such as scripting language, error page, and

buffering requirements.

<%@ include ... %>

Includes a file during the translation phase.

<%@ taglib ... %>

Declares a tag library, containing custom actions, used in the page

We would explain JSP directive in separate chapter JSP - Directives

JSP Actions:
JSP actions use constructs in XML syntax to control the behavior of the servlet engine. You can dynamically
insert a file, reuse JavaBeans components, forward the user to another page, or generate HTML for the Java
plugin.
There is only one syntax for the Action element, as it conforms to the XML standard:
<jsp:action_name attribute="value" />
Action elements are basically predefined functions and there are following JSP actions available:
Syntax

Purpose

jsp:include

Includes a file at the time the page is requested

jsp:include

Includes a file at the time the page is requested

jsp:useBean

Finds or instantiates a JavaBean

jsp:setProperty

Sets the property of a JavaBean

jsp:getProperty

Inserts the property of a JavaBean into the output

jsp:forward

Forwards the requester to a new page

jsp:plugin

Generates browser-specific code that makes an OBJECT or EMBED tag for the
Java plugin

jsp:element

Defines XML elements dynamically.

jsp:attribute

Defines dynamically defined XML element's attribute.

jsp:body

Defines dynamically defined XML element's body.

jsp:text

Use to write template text in JSP pages and documents.

We would explain JSP actions in separate chapter JSP - Actions

JSP Implicit Objects:

JSP supports nine automatically defined variables, which are also called implicit objects. These variables are:
Objects

Description

request

This is the HttpServletRequest object associated with the request.

response

This is the HttpServletResponse object associated with the response to the client.

out

This is the PrintWriter object used to send output to the client.

session

This is the HttpSession object associated with the request.

application

This is the ServletContext object associated with application context.

config

This is the ServletConfig object associated with the page.

pageContext

This encapsulates use of server-specific features like higher

performance JspWriters.

page

This is simply a synonym for this, and is used to call the methods defined by the
translated servlet class.

Exception

The Exception object allows the exception data to be accessed by designated JSP.

We would explain JSP Implicit Objects in separate chapter JSP - Implicit Objects.

Control-Flow Statements:
JSP provides full power of Java to be embedded in your web application. You can use all the APIs and building
blocks of Java in your JSP programming including decision making statements, loops etc.

Decision-Making Statements:
The if...else block starts out like an ordinary Scriptlet, but the Scriptlet is closed at each line with HTML text
included between Scriptlet tags.
<%! int day = 3; %>
<html>
<head><title>IF...ELSE Example</title></head>
<body>
<% if (day == 1 | day == 7) { %>
<p> Today is weekend</p>
<% } else { %>
<p> Today is not weekend</p>
<% } %>
</body>
</html>

This would produce following result:

Today is not weekend

Now look at the following switch...case block which has been written a bit differentlty using out.println()and
inside Scriptletas:
<%! int day = 3; %>
<html>
<head><title>SWITCH...CASE Example</title></head>
<body>
<%
switch(day)
{ case 0:
out.println("It\'s Sunday.");
break;
case 1:
out.println("It\'s Monday.");
break;
case 2:
out.println("It\'s Tuesday.");
break;
case 3:
out.println("It\'s Wednesday.");
break;
case 4:
out.println("It\'s Thursday.");
break;
case 5:
out.println("It\'s Friday.");
break;
default:
out.println("It's Saturday.");
}
%>
</body>
</html>
This would produce following result:

It's Wednesday.

Loop Statements:
You can also use three basic types of looping blocks in Java: for, while,and dowhile blocks in your JSP
programming.
Let us look at the following for loop example:
<%! int fontSize; %>
<html>
<head><title>FOR LOOP Example</title></head>
<body>
<%for ( fontSize = 1; fontSize <= 3; fontSize++){ %>

<font color="green" size="<%= fontSize

%>"> JSP Tutorial
</font><br /
> <%}%>
</body>
</html>
This would produce following result:
JSP Tutorial

JSP Tutorial
JSP Tutorial

Above example can be written using while loop as follows:

<%! int fontSize; %>
<html>
<head><title>WHILE LOOP
Example</title></head> <body>
<%while ( fontSize <= 3){ %>
<font color="green" size="<%= fontSize
%>"> JSP Tutorial
</font><br />
<%fontSize++;%>
<%}%>

</body>
</html>

This would also produce following result:

JSP Tutorial

JSP Tutorial
JSP Tutorial

JSP Operators:
JSP supports all the logical and arithmetic operators supported by Java. Following table give a list of all the
operators with the highest precedence appear at the top of the table, those with the lowest appear at the bottom.
Within an expression, higher precedence operators will be evaluated first.
Category

Operator

Associativity

Postfix

() [] . (dot operator)

Left to right

Unary

++ - - ! ~

Right to left

Multiplicative

*/%

Left to right

Additive

+-

Left to right

Shift

>> >>> <<

Left to right

Relational

> >= < <=

Left to right

Equality

== !=

Left to right

Bitwise AND

&

Left to right

Bitwise XOR

Left to right

Bitwise OR

Left to right

Logical AND

&&

Left to right

Logical OR

||

Left to right

Conditional

?:

Right to left

Assignment

= += -= *= /= %= >>= <<= &= ^= |=

Right to left

Comma

Left to right

JSP Literals:
The JSP expression language defines the following literals:
Boolean: true and false
Integer: as in Java
Floating point: as in Java
String: with single and double quotes; " is escaped as \", ' is escaped as \', and \ is escaped as \\.
Null: null

I will consider XML formatted file hibernate.cfg.xml to specify required Hibernate properties in my examples.
Most of the properties take their default values and it is not required to specify them in the property file unless it is
really required. This file is kept in the root directory of your application's classpath.

JSP Directives

SP directives provide directions and instructions to the container, telling it how to handle certain aspects of

JSP processing.
A JSP directive affects the overall structure of the servlet class. It usually has the following form:
<%@ directive attribute="value" %>
Directives can have a number of attributes which you can list down as key-value pairs and separated by commas.
The blanks between the @ symbol and the directive name, and between the last attribute and the closing %>, are
optional.
There are three types of directive tag:
Directive

Description

<%@ page ... %>

Defines page-dependent attributes, such as scripting language, error page, and

buffering requirements.

<%@ include ... %>

Includes a file during the translation phase.

<%@ taglib ... %>

Declares a tag library, containing custom actions, used in the page

The page Directive:

The page directive is used to provide instructions to the container that pertain to the current JSP page. You may
code page directives anywhere in your JSP page. By convention, page directives are coded at the top of the JSP
page.
Following is the basic syntax of page directive:
<%@ page attribute="value" %>
You can write XML equivalent of the above syntax as follows:
<jsp:directive.page attribute="value" />

Attributes:
Following is the list of attributes associated with page directive:
Attribute

Purpose

buffer

Specifies a buffering model for the output stream.

autoFlush

Controls the behavior of the servlet output buffer.

contentType

Defines the character encoding scheme.

errorPage

Defines the URL of another JSP that reports on Java unchecked runtime exceptions.

isErrorPage

Indicates if this JSP page is a URL specified by another JSP page's errorPage
attribute.

extends

Specifies a superclass that the generated servlet must extend

import

Specifies a list of packages or classes for use in the JSP as the Java import
statement does for Java classes.

info

Defines a string that can be accessed with the servlet's getServletInfo() method.

isThreadSafe

Defines the threading model for the generated servlet.

language

Defines the programming language used in the JSP page.

session

Specifies whether or not the JSP page participates in HTTP sessions

isELIgnored

Specifies whether or not EL expression within the JSP page will be ignored.

isScriptingEnabled

Determines if scripting elements are allowed for use.

Check more detail related to all the above attributes at Page Directive.

The include Directive:

The include directive is used to includes a file during the translation phase. This directive tells the container to
merge the content of other external files with the current JSP during the translation phase. You may code include
directives anywhere in your JSP page.
The general usage form of this directive is as follows:
<%@ include file="relative url" >
The filename in the include directive is actually a relative URL. If you just specify a filename with no associated
path, the JSP compiler assumes that the file is in the same directory as your JSP.
You can write XML equivalent of the above syntax as follows:
<jsp:directive.include file="relative url" />
Check more detail related to include directive at Include Directive.

The taglib Directive:

The JavaServer Pages API allows you to define custom JSP tags that look like HTML or XML tags and a tag
library is a set of user-defined tags that implement custom behavior.
The taglib directive declares that your JSP page uses a set of custom tags, identifies the location of the library,
and provides a means for identifying the custom tags in your JSP page.
The taglib directive follows the following syntax:
<%@ taglib uri="uri" prefix="prefixOfTag" >
Where the uri attribute value resolves to a location the container understands and the prefix attribute informs a
container what bits of markup are custom actions.
You can write XML equivalent of the above syntax as follows:
<jsp:directive.taglib uri="uri" prefix="prefixOfTag" />
Check more detail related to taglib directive at Taglib Directive.

JSP Actions

SP actions use constructs in XML syntax to control the behavior of the servlet engine. You can dynamically

insert a file, reuse JavaBeans components, forward the user to another page, or generate HTML for the Java
plugin.
There is only one syntax for the Action element, as it conforms to the XML standard:
<jsp:action_name attribute="value" />
Action elements are basically predefined functions and there are following JSP actions available:
Syntax

Purpose

jsp:include

Includes a file at the time the page is requested

jsp:include

Includes a file at the time the page is requested

jsp:useBean

Finds or instantiates a JavaBean

jsp:setProperty

Sets the property of a JavaBean

jsp:getProperty

Inserts the property of a JavaBean into the output

jsp:forward

Forwards the requester to a new page

jsp:plugin

Generates browser-specific code that makes an OBJECT or EMBED tag for the
Java plugin

jsp:element

Defines XML elements dynamically.

jsp:attribute

Defines dynamically defined XML element's attribute.

jsp:body

Defines dynamically defined XML element's body.

jsp:text

Use to write template text in JSP pages and documents.

Common Attributes:
There are two attributes that are common to all Action elements: the id attribute and the scope attribute.
Id attribute: The id attribute uniquely identifies the Action element, and allows the action to be referenced
inside the JSP page. If the Action creates an instance of an object the id value can be used to reference it
through the implicit object PageContext

Scope attribute: This attribute identifies the lifecycle of the Action element. The id attribute and the scope
attribute are directly related, as the scope attribute determines the lifespan of the object associated with the
id. The scope attribute has four possible values: (a) page, (b)request, (c)session, and (d) application.

The <jsp:include> Action

This action lets you insert files into the page being generated. The syntax looks like this:
<jsp:include page="relative URL" flush="true" />
Unlike the include directive, which inserts the file at the time the JSP page is translated into a servlet, this action
inserts the file at the time the page is requested.
Following is the list of attributes associated with include action:
Attribute

Description

page

The relative URL of the page to be included.

flush

The boolean attribute determines whether the included resource has its buffer
flushed before it is included.

Example:
Let us define following two files (a)date.jps and (b) main.jsp as follows:
Following is the content of date.jsp file:
<p>
Today's date: <%= (new java.util.Date()).toLocaleString()%>
</p>
Here is the content of main.jsp file:
<html>
<head>
<title>The include Action
Example</title> </head>
<body>
<center>
<h2>The include action Example</h2>
<jsp:include page="date.jsp" flush="true" />
</center>
</body>
</html>
Now let us keep all these files in root directory and try to access main.jsp. This would display result something like
this:

The include action Example

Today's date: 12-Sep-2010 14:54:22

The <jsp:useBean> Action

The useBean action is quite versatile. It first searches for an existing object utilizing the id and scope variables. If
an object is not found, it then tries to create the specified object.
The simplest way to load a bean is as follows:
<jsp:useBean id="name" class="package.class" />
Once a bean class is loaded, you can use jsp:setProperty and jsp:getProperty actions to modify and retrieve
bean properties.
Following is the list of attributes associated with useBean action:
Attribute

Description

class

Designates the full package name of the bean.

type

Specifies the type of the variable that will refer to the object.

beanName

Gives the name of the bean as specified by the instantiate () method of the
java.beans.Beans class.

Let us discuss about jsp:setProperty and jsp:getProperty actions before giving a valid example related to these
actions.

The <jsp:setProperty> Action

The setProperty action sets the properties of a Bean. The Bean must have been previously defined before this
action. There are two basic ways to use the setProperty action:
You can use jsp:setProperty after, but outside of, a jsp:useBean element, as below:
<jsp:useBean id="myName" ... />
...
<jsp:setProperty name="myName" property="someProperty" .../>
In this case, the jsp:setProperty is executed regardless of whether a new bean was instantiated or an existing
bean was found.
A second context in which jsp:setProperty can appear is inside the body of a jsp:useBean element, as below:
<jsp:useBean id="myName" ... >
...
<jsp:setProperty name="myName" property="someProperty"
.../> </jsp:useBean>
Here, the jsp:setProperty is executed only if a new object was instantiated, not if an existing one was found.

Following is the list of attributes associated with setProperty action:

Attribute

Description

name

Designates the bean whose property will be set. The Bean must have been
previously defined.

property

Indicates the property you want to set. A value of "*" means that all request
parameters whose names match bean property names will be passed to the
appropriate setter methods.

value

The value that is to be assigned to the given property. The the parameter's value is
null, or the parameter does not exist, the setProperty action is ignored.

param

The param attribute is the name of the request parameter whose value the property
is to receive. You can't use both value and param, but it is permissible to use
neither.

The <jsp:getProperty> Action

The getProperty action is used to retrieve the value of a given property and converts it to a string, and finally
inserts it into the output.
The getProperty action has only two attributes, both of which are required ans simple syntax is as follows:
<jsp:useBean id="myName" ... />
...
<jsp:getProperty name="myName" property="someProperty" .../>
Following is the list of required attributes associated with setProperty action:
Attribute

Description

name

The name of the Bean that has a property to be retrieved. The Bean must have been
previously defined.

property

The property attribute is the name of the Bean property to be retrieved.

Example:
Let us define a test bean which we will use in our example:
/* File: TestBean.java */
package action;
public class TestBean {
private String message = "No message specified";
public String getMessage()
{ return(message);
}
public void setMessage(String message) {
this.message = message;
}
}

Compile above code to generated TestBean.class file and make sure that you copied TestBean.class in
C:\apache-tomcat-7.0.2\webapps\WEB-INF\classes\action folder and CLASSPATH variable should also be set to
this folder:
Now use the following code in main.jsp file which loads the bean and sets/gets a simple String parameter:
<html>
<head>
<title>Using JavaBeans in JSP</title>
</head>
<body>
<center>
<h2>Using JavaBeans in JSP</h2>
<jsp:useBean id="test" class="action.TestBean" />
<jsp:setProperty name="test"
property="message"
value="Hello JSP..." />

<p>Got message....</p>
<jsp:getProperty name="test" property="message" />
</center>
</body>
</html>
Now try to access main.jsp, it would display following result:

Using JavaBeans in JSP

Got message....
Hello JSP...

The <jsp:forward> Action

The forward action terminates the action of the current page and forwards the request to another resource such
as a static page, another JSP page, or a Java Servlet.
The simple syntax of this action is as follows:
<jsp:forward page="Relative URL" />
Following is the list of required attributes associated with forward action:
Attribute

Description

page

Should consist of a relative URL of another resource such as a static page, another
JSP page, or a Java Servlet.

Example:
Let us reuse following two files (a) date.jps and (b) main.jsp as follows:
Following is the content of date.jsp file:

<p>
Today's date: <%= (new java.util.Date()).toLocaleString()%>
</p>
Here is the content of main.jsp file:
<html>
<head>
<title>The include Action
Example</title> </head>
<body>
<center>
<h2>The include action Example</h2>
<jsp:forward page="date.jsp" />
</center>
</body>
</html>
Now let us keep all these files in root directory and try to access main.jsp. This would display result something like
as below. Here it discarded content from main page and displayed content from forwarded page only.
Today's date: 12-Sep-2010 14:54:22

The <jsp:plugin> Action

The plugin action is used to insert Java components into a JSP page. It determines the type of browser and
inserts the <object> or <embed> tags as needed.
If the needed plugin is not present, it downloads the plugin and then executes the Java component. The Java
component can be either an Applet or a JavaBean.
The plugin action has several attributes that correspond to common HTML tags used to format Java components.
The <param> element can also be used to send parameters to the Applet or Bean.
Following is the typical syntax of using plugin action:
<jsp:plugin type="applet" codebase="dirname" code="MyApplet.class"
width="60" height="80">
<jsp:param name="fontcolor" value="red" />
<jsp:param name="background" value="black" />

<jsp:fallback>
Unable to initialize Java Plugin
</jsp:fallback>
</jsp:plugin>
You can try this action using some applet if you are interested. A new element, the <fallback> element, can be
used to specify an error string to be sent to the user in case the component fails.

The <jsp:element> Action

The <jsp:attribute> Action
The <jsp:body> Action
The <jsp:element>, lt;jsp:attribute> and <jsp:body> actions are used to define XML elements dynamically. The
word dynamically is important, because it means that the XML elements can be generated at request time rather
than statically at compile time.
Following is a simple example to define XML elements dynamically:
<%@page language="java" contentType="text/html"%>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3c.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:jsp="http://java.sun.com/JSP/Page">
<head><title>Generate XML
Element</title></head> <body>
<jsp:element name="xmlElement">
<jsp:attribute name="xmlElementAttr">
Value for the attribute
</jsp:attribute> <jsp:body>

Body for XML

element </jsp:body>
</jsp:element>
</body>
</html>
This would produce following HTML code at run time:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3c.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:jsp="http://java.sun.com/JSP/Page">
<head><title>Generate XML
Element</title></head> <body>
<xmlElement xmlElementAttr="Value for the
attribute"> Body for XML element
</xmlElement>
</body>
</html>

The <jsp:text> Action

The <jsp:text> action can be used to write template text in JSP pages and documents. Following is the simple
syntax for this action:
<jsp:text>Template data</jsp:text>
The body fo the template cannot contain other elements; it can only contain text and EL expressions ( Note: EL
expressions are explained in subsequent chapter). Note that in XML files, you cannot use expressions such as $
{whatever > 0}, because the greater than signs are illegal. Instead, use the gt form, such as ${whatever gt 0} or an
alternative is to embed the value in a CDATA section.

<jsp:text><![CDATA[<br>]]></jsp:text>
If you need to include a DOCTYPE declaration, for instance for XHTML, you must also use the <jsp:text> element
as follows:
<jsp:text><![CDATA[<!DOCTYPE html
PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0
Strict//EN" "DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">]]>
</jsp:text>
<head><title>jsp:text
action</title></head> <body>
<books><book><jsp:text> Welcome
to JSP Programming

</jsp:text></book></books>
</body>
</html>

JSP Implicit Objects

SP Implicit Objects are the Java objects that the JSP Container makes available to developers in each page

and developer can call them directly without being explicitly declared. JSP Implicit Objects are also called predefined variables.
JSP supports nine Implicit Objects which are listed below:
Object

Description

request

This is the HttpServletRequest object associated with the request.

response

This is the HttpServletResponse object associated with the response to the client.

out

This is the PrintWriter object used to send output to the client.

session

This is the HttpSession object associated with the request.

application

This is the ServletContext object associated with application context.

config

This is the ServletConfig object associated with the page.

pageContext

This encapsulates use of server-specific features like higher

performance JspWriters.

page

This is simply a synonym for this, and is used to call the methods defined by the
translated servlet class.

Exception

The Exception object allows the exception data to be accessed by designated

JSP.

The request Object:

The request object is an instance of a javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest object. Each time a client requests a
page the JSP engine creates a new object to represent that request.
The request object provides methods to get HTTP header information including form data, cookies, HTTP
methods etc.
We would see complete set of methods associated with request object in coming chapter: JSP - Client Request.

The response Object:

The response object is an instance of a javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse object. Just as the server creates
the request object, it also creates an object to represent the response to the client.
The response object also defines the interfaces that deal with creating new HTTP headers. Through this object
the JSP programmer can add new cookies or date stamps, HTTP status codes etc. We would see complete set of
methods associated with response object in coming chapter: JSP - Server Response.

The out Object:

The out implicit object is an instance of a javax.servlet.jsp.JspWriter object and is used to send content in a
response.
The initial JspWriter object is instantiated differently depending on whether the page is buffered or not. Buffering
can be easily turned off by using the buffered='false' attribute of the page directive.
The JspWriter object contains most of the same methods as the java.io.PrintWriter class. However, JspWriter has
some additional methods designed to deal with buffering. Unlike the PrintWriter object, JspWriter throws
IOExceptions.
Following are the important methods which we would use to write boolean char, int, double, object, String etc.
Method

Description

out.print(dataType dt)

Print a data type value

out.println(dataType dt)

Print a data type value then terminate the line with new line character.

out.flush()

Flush the stream.

The session Object:

The session object is an instance of javax.servlet.http.HttpSession and behaves exactly the same way that
session objects behave under Java Servlets.
The session object is used to track client session between client requests. We would see complete usage of
session object in coming chapter: JSP - Session Tracking.

The application Object:

The application object is direct wrapper around the ServletContext object for the generated Servlet and in reality
an instance of a javax.servlet.ServletContext object.
This object is a representation of the JSP page through its entire lifecycle. This object is created when the JSP
page is initialized and will be removed when the JSP page is removed by the jspDestroy() method.
By adding an attribute to application, you can ensure that all JSP files that make up your web application have
access to it. You can check a simple use of Application Object in chapter: JSP - Hits Counter

The config Object:

The config object is an instantiation of javax.servlet.ServletConfig and is a direct wrapper around the
ServletConfig object for the generated servlet.

This object allows the JSP programmer access to the Servlet or JSP engine initialization parameters such as the
paths or file locations etc.
The following config method is the only one you might ever use, and its usage is trivial:

config.getServletName();
This returns the servlet name, which is the string contained in the <servlet-name> element defined in the WEBINF\web.xml file

The pageContext Object:

The pageContext object is an instance of a javax.servlet.jsp.PageContext object. The pageContext object is used
to represent the entire JSP page.
This object is intended as a means to access information about the page while avoiding most of the
implementation details.
This object stores references to the request and response objects for each request. The application, config,
session, and out objects are derived by accessing attributes of this object.
The pageContext object also contains information about the directives issued to the JSP page, including the
buffering information, the errorPageURL, and page scope.
The PageContext class defines several fields, including PAGE_SCOPE, REQUEST_SCOPE, SESSION_SCOPE,
and APPLICATION_SCOPE, which identify the four scopes. It also supports more than 40 methods, about half of
which are inherited from the javax.servlet.jsp. JspContext class.
One of the important methods is removeAttribute, which accepts either one or two arguments. For example,
pageContext.removeAttribute ("attrName") removes the attribute from all scopes, while the following code only
removes it from the page scope:

pageContext.removeAttribute("attrName", PAGE_SCOPE);
You can check a very good usage of pageContext in coming chapter: JSP - File Uploading.

The page Object:

This object is an actual reference to the instance of the page. It can be thought of as an object that represents the
entire JSP page. The page object is really a direct synonym for the this object.

The exception Object:

The exception object is a wrapper containing the exception thrown from the previous page. It is typically used to
generate an appropriate response to the error condition.
We would see complete usage of this object in coming chapter: JSP - Exception Handling.

9
JSP Client Request

hen a browser requests for a web page, it sends lot of information to the web server which can not

be read directly because this information travel as a part of header of HTTP request. You can check HTTP
Protocol for more information on this.
Following is the important header information which comes from browser side and you would use very frequently
in web programming:
Header

Description

Accept

This header specifies the MIME types that the browser or other clients can handle.
Values of image/png or image/jpeg are the two most common possibilities.

Accept-Charset

This header specifies the character sets the browser can use to display the
information. For example ISO-8859-1.

Accept-Encoding

This header specifies the types of encodings that the browser knows how to
handle. Values of gzip or compress are the two most common possibilities.

Accept-Language

This header specifies the client's preferred languages in case the servlet can
produce results in more than one language. For example en, en-us, ru, etc.

Authorization

This header is used by clients to identify themselves when accessing passwordprotected Web pages.

Connection

This header indicates whether the client can handle persistent HTTP connections.
Persistent connections permit the client or other browser to retrieve multiple files
with a single request. A value ofKeep-Alive means that persistent connections
should be used

Content-Length

This header is applicable only to POST requests and gives the size of the POST
data in bytes.

Cookie

This header returns cookies to servers that previously sent them to the browser.

Host

This header specifies the host and port as given in the original URL.

If-Modified-Since

This header indicates that the client wants the page only if it has been changed
after the specified date. The server sends a code, 304 which means Not
Modified header if no newer result is available.

If-Unmodified-Since

This header is the reverse of If-Modified-Since; it specifies that the operation should

succeed only if the document is older than the specified date.

This header indicates the URL of the referring Web page. For example, if you are at
Referer Web page 1 and click on a link to Web page 2, the URL of Web page 1 is included
in the Referer header when the browser requests Web page 2.
User-Agent

This header identifies the browser or other client making the request and can be
used to return different content to different types of browsers.

The HttpServletRequest Object:

The request object is an instance of a javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest object. Each time a client requests a
page the JSP engine creates a new object to represent that request.
The request object provides methods to get HTTP header information including form data, cookies, HTTP
methods etc.
There are following important methods which can be used to read HTTP header in your JSP program. These
method are available with HttpServletRequest object which represents client request to webserver.
S.N. Method & Description
Cookie[] getCookies()
Returns an array containing all of the Cookie objects the client sent with this request.
Enumeration getAttributeNames()
2
Returns an Enumeration containing the names of the attributes available to this request.
Enumeration getHeaderNames()
3
Returns an enumeration of all the header names this request contains.
1

Enumeration getParameterNames()
Returns an Enumeration of String objects containing the names of the parameters contained in this
request.

HttpSession getSession()
Returns the current session associated with this request, or if the request does not have a session, creates
one.

10
1

HttpSession getSession(boolean create)

Returns the current HttpSession associated with this request or, if if there is no current session and create
is true, returns a new session.
Locale getLocale()
Returns the preferred Locale that the client will accept content in, based on the Accept-Language header
Object getAttribute(String name)
Returns the value of the named attribute as an Object, or null if no attribute of the given name exists.
ServletInputStream getInputStream()
Retrieves the body of the request as binary data using a ServletInputStream.
String getAuthType()
Returns the name of the authentication scheme used to protect the servlet, for example, "BASIC" or "SSL,"
or null if the JSP was not protected
String getCharacterEncoding()
Returns the name of the character encoding used in the body of this request.
String getContentType()
Returns the MIME type of the body of the request, or null if the type is not known.

13

String getContextPath()
Returns the portion of the request URI that indicates the context of the request.

14

String getHeader(String name)

Returns the value of the specified request header as a String.

15
14

15

16

17

18

19

String getMethod()
Returns the name of the HTTP method with which this request was made, for example, GET, POST, or
PUT.
String getParameter(String name)
Returns the value of a request parameter as a String, or null if the parameter does not exist.
String getPathInfo()
Returns any extra path information associated with the URL the client sent when it made this request.
String getProtocol()
Returns the name and version of the protocol the request.
String getQueryString()
Returns the query string that is contained in the request URL after the path.
String getRemoteAddr()
Returns the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the client that sent the request.
String getRemoteHost()
Returns the fully qualified name of the client that sent the request.

22

String getRemoteUser()
Returns the login of the user making this request, if the user has been authenticated, or null if the user has
not been authenticated.

23

String getRequestURI()
Returns the part of this request's URL from the protocol name up to the query string in the first line of the
HTTP request.

24

String getRequestedSessionId()
Returns the session ID specified by the client.

25

String getServletPath()
Returns the part of this request's URL that calls the JSP.

26
19

String[] getParameterValues(String name)

Returns an array of String objects containing all of the values the given request parameter has, or null if
the parameter does not exist.
boolean isSecure()
Returns a boolean indicating whether this request was made using a secure channel, such as HTTPS.

28

int getContentLength()
Returns the length, in bytes, of the request body and made available by the input stream, or -1 if the length
is not known.

29

int getIntHeader(String name)

Returns the value of the specified request header as an int.

30

int getServerPort()
Returns the port number on which this request was received.

HTTP Header Request Example:

Following is the example which uses getHeaderNames() method of HttpServletRequest to read the HTTP header
infromation. This method returns an Enumeration that contains the header information associated with the current
HTTP request.
Once we have an Enumeration, we can loop down the Enumeration in the standard manner,
usinghasMoreElements() method to determine when to stop and using nextElement() method to get each
parameter name.
<%@ page import="java.io.*,java.util.*" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTTP Header Request Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<center>
<h2>HTTP Header Request Example</h2>
<table width="100%" border="1" align="center">
<tr bgcolor="#949494">
<th>Header Name</th><th>Header Value(s)</th>
</tr>
<%

Enumeration headerNames = request.getHeaderNames();

while(headerNames.hasMoreElements()) {
String paramName = (String)headerNames.nextElement();
out.print("<tr><td>" + paramName + "</td>\n");

String paramValue = request.getHeader(paramName);

}

out.println("<td> " + paramValue + "</td></tr>\n");

%>
</table>
</center>
</body>
</html>
Now put the above code in main.jsp and try to access it. This would produce result something as follows:

HTTP Header Request Example

Header Name

Header Value(s)

accept

*/*

accept-language

en-us

user-agent

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; InfoPath.2;

MS-RTC LM 8)

accept-encoding

gzip, deflate

host

localhost:8080

connection

Keep-Alive

cache-control

no-cache

To become more comfortable with other methods you can try few more above listed methods in the same fashion.

10
JSP Server Response

hen a Web server responds to a HTTP request to the browser, the response typically consists of a

status line, some response headers, a blank line, and the document. A typical response looks like this:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html
Header2: ...
...
HeaderN: ...
(Blank Line)
<!doctype ...>
<html>
<head>...</head>
<body>

...
</body>
</html>
The status line consists of the HTTP version (HTTP/1.1 in the example), a status code (200 in the example), and
a very short message corresponding to the status code (OK in the example).
Following is a summary of the most useful HTTP 1.1 response headers which go back to the browser from web
server side and you would use them very frequently in web programming:
Header

Description

Allow

This header specifies the request methods (GET, POST, etc.) that the server
supports.

Cache-Control

This header specifies the circumstances in which the response document can safely
be cached. It can have values public, private orno-cache etc. Public means
document is cacheable, Private means document is for a single user and can only
be stored in private (nonshared) caches and no-cache means document should
never be cached.

Connection

This header instructs the browser whether to use persistent in HTTP connections or
not. A value of close instructs the browser not to use persistent HTTP connections
and keep-alive means using persistent connections.

Content-Disposition

This header lets you request that the browser ask the user to save the response to

disk in a file of the given name.

Content-Encoding

This header specifies the way in which the page was encoded during transmission.

Content-Language

This header signifies the language in which the document is written. For example en,
en-us, ru, etc.

Content-Length

This header indicates the number of bytes in the response. This information is
needed only if the browser is using a persistent (keep-alive) HTTP connection.

Content-Type

This header gives the MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension) type of the
response document.

Expires

This header specifies the time at which the content should be considered out-of-date
and thus no longer be cached.

Last-Modified

This header indicates when the document was last changed. The client can then
cache the document and supply a date by an If-Modified-Since request header in
later requests.

Location

This header should be included with all responses that have a status code in the
300s. This notifies the browser of the document address. The browser automatically
reconnects to this location and retrieves the new document.

Refresh

This header specifies how soon the browser should ask for an updated page. You
can specify time in number of seconds after which a page would be refreshed.

Retry-After

This header can be used in conjunction with a 503 (Service Unavailable) response
to tell the client how soon it can repeat its request.

Set-Cookie

This header specifies a cookie associated with the page.

The HttpServletResponse Object:

The response object is an instance of a javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest object. Just as the server creates
the request object, it also creates an object to represent the response to the client.
The response object also defines the interfaces that deal with creating new HTTP headers. Through this object
the JSP programmer can add new cookies or date stamps, HTTP status codes etc.
There are following methods which can be used to set HTTP response header in your servlet program. These
method are available with HttpServletResponse object which represents server response.
S.N. Method & Description
1

String encodeRedirectURL(String url)

Encodes the specified URL for use in the sendRedirect method or, if encoding is not needed, returns the
URL unchanged.
String encodeURL(String url)
Encodes the specified URL by including the session ID in it, or, if encoding is not needed, returns the URL
unchanged.
boolean containsHeader(String name)
Returns a boolean indicating whether the named response header has already been set.
boolean isCommitted()
Returns a boolean indicating if the response has been committed.
void addCookie(Cookie cookie)
Adds the specified cookie to the response.

void addDateHeader(String name, long date)

Adds a response header with the given name and date-value.
void addHeader(String name, String value)
Adds a response header with the given name and value.
void addIntHeader(String name, int value)
Adds a response header with the given name and integer value.
void flushBuffer()
Forces any content in the buffer to be written to the client.
void reset()
Clears any data that exists in the buffer as well as the status code and headers.
void resetBuffer()
Clears the content of the underlying buffer in the response without clearing headers or status code.
void sendError(int sc)
Sends an error response to the client using the specified status code and clearing the buffer.
void sendError(int sc, String msg)
Sends an error response to the client using the specified status.
void sendRedirect(String location)
Sends a temporary redirect response to the client using the specified redirect location URL.
void setBufferSize(int size)
Sets the preferred buffer size for the body of the response.
void setCharacterEncoding(String charset)
Sets the character encoding (MIME charset) of the response being sent to the client, for example, to UTF-8.
17

void setContentLength(int len)

Sets the length of the content body in the response In HTTP servlets, this method sets the HTTP ContentLength header.
void setContentType(String type)

Sets the content type of the response being sent to the client, if the response has not been committed yet.
void setDateHeader(String name, long date)
Sets a response header with the given name and date-value.
void setHeader(String name, String value)
Sets a response header with the given name and value.
void setIntHeader(String name, int value)
Sets a response header with the given name and integer value.
void setLocale(Locale loc)
Sets the locale of the response, if the response has not been committed yet.
void setStatus(int sc)
Sets the status code for this response.

HTTP Header Response Example:

Following example would use setIntHeader() method to set Refresh header to simulate a digital clock:
<%@ page import="java.io.*,java.util.*" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Auto Refresh Header Example</title>

</head>
<body>
<center>
<h2>Auto Refresh Header
Example</h2> <%
Set refresh, autoload time as 5 seconds
response.setIntHeader("Refresh", 5);
Get current time
Calendar calendar = new GregorianCalendar();
String am_pm;
int hour = calendar.get(Calendar.HOUR);
int minute = calendar.get(Calendar.MINUTE);
int second = calendar.get(Calendar.SECOND);
if(calendar.get(Calendar.AM_PM) == 0)

am_pm = "AM";
else
am_pm = "PM";
String CT = hour+":"+ minute +":"+ second +" "+ am_pm;
out.println("Current Time is: " + CT + "\n");

%>
</center>
</body>
</html>

Now put the above code in main.jsp and try to access it. This would display current system time after every 5
seconds as follows. Just run the JSP and wait to see the result:

Auto Refresh Header Example

Current Time is: 9:44:50 PM
To become more comfortable with other methods you can try few more above listed methods in the same fashion.

11
HTTP Status Codes

he format of the HTTP request and HTTP response messages are similar and will have following

structure:
An initial status line + CRLF ( Carriage Return + Line Feed ie. New Line )
Zero or more header lines + CRLF
A blank line ie. a CRLF
An optional message body like file, query data or query output.
For example, a server response header looks as follows:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/html
Header2: ...
...
HeaderN: ...
(Blank Line)
<!doctype ...>
<html>
<head>...</head>
<body>

...
</body>
</html>
The status line consists of the HTTP version (HTTP/1.1 in the example), a status code (200 in the example), and
a very short message corresponding to the status code (OK in the example).
Following is a list of HTTP status codes and associated messages that might be returned from the Web Server:
Code: Message:

Description:

100

Continue

Only a part of the request has been received by the server, but as long as
it has not been rejected, the client should continue with the request

Switching Protocols

The server switches protocol.

101

200

OK

The request is OK

201

Created

The request is complete, and a new resource is created

202

Accepted

The request is accepted for processing, but the processing is not complete.

203

Non-authoritative
Information

204

No Content

205

Reset Content

206

Partial Content

300

Multiple Choices

A link list. The user can select a link and go to that location. Maximum five
addresses

301

Moved Permanently

The requested page has moved to a new url

302

Found

The requested page has moved temporarily to a new url

303

See Other

The requested page can be found under a different url

304

Not Modified

305

Use Proxy

306

Unused

This code was used in a previous version. It is no longer used, but the
code is reserved.

307

Temporary Redirect

The requested page has moved temporarily to a new url.

400

Bad Request

The server did not understand the request

401

Unauthorized

The requested page needs a username and a password

402

Payment Required

You can not use this code yet

403

Forbidden

Access is forbidden to the requested page

404

Not Found

The server can not find the requested page.

405

Method Not Allowed

The method specified in the request is not allowed.

406

Not Acceptable

The server can only generate a response that is not accepted by the client.

407

Proxy Authentication
Required

You must authenticate with a proxy server before this request can be
served.

408

Request Timeout

The request took longer than the server was prepared to wait.

409

Conflict

The request could not be completed because of a conflict.

410

Gone

The requested page is no longer available.

Length Required

The "Content-Length" is not defined. The server will not accept the request
without it.

Precondition Failed

The precondition given in the request evaluated to false by the server.

Request Entity Too Large

The server will not accept the request, because the request entity is too
large.

Request-url Too Long

The server will not accept the request, because the url is too long. Occurs

411
412
413
414

when you convert a "post" request to a "get" request with a long query
information.
415

Unsupported Media Type

The server will not accept the request, because the media type is not
supported.

417

Expectation Failed

500

Internal Server Error

The request was not completed. The server met an unexpected condition

Not Implemented

The request was not completed. The server did not support the
functionality required.

Bad Gateway

The request was not completed. The server received an invalid response
from the upstream server

Service Unavailable

The request was not completed. The server is temporarily overloading or

down.

504

Gateway Timeout

The gateway has timed out.

505

HTTP Version Not

Supported

The server does not support the "http protocol" version.

501
502
503

Methods to Set HTTP Status Code:

There are following methods which can be used to set HTTP Status Code in your servlet program. These method
are available with HttpServletResponse object.
S.N. Method & Description
public void setStatus ( int statusCode )
This method sets an arbitrary status code. The setStatus method takes an int (the status code) as an argument. If your
response includes a special status code and a document, be sure to call setStatus before actually returning any of the
content with the PrintWriter.

public void sendRedirect(String url)

This method generates a 302 response along with a Location header giving the URL of the new document.

public void sendError(int code, String message)

This method sends a status code (usually 404) along with a short message that is automatically formatted
inside an HTML document and sent to the client.

HTTP Status Code Example:

Following is the example which would send 407 error code to the client browser and browser would show you
"Need authentication!!!" message.
<html>
<head>
<title>Setting HTTP Status Code</title>
</head>
<body>
<%
// Set error code and reason.
response.sendError(407, "Need authentication!!!" );
%>
</body>
</html>

Now calling the above JSP would display following result:

HTTP Status 407 - Need

authentication!!!
type Status report
message Need authentication!!!
description The client must first authenticate itself with the proxy (Need authentication!!!).

APACHE TOMCAT/5.5.29
To become more comfortable with HTTP status codes, try to set different status codes and their description.

CHAPTER

12
JSP Form Processing

ou must have come across many situations when you need to pass some information from your browser

to web server and ultimately to your backend program. The browser uses two methods to pass this information to
web server. These methods are GET Method and POST Method.

GET method:
The GET method sends the encoded user information appended to the page request. The page and the encoded
information are separated by the ? character as follows:
http://www.test.com/hello?key1=value1&key2=value2
The GET method is the default method to pass information from browser to web server and it produces a long
string that appears in your browser's Location:box. Never use the GET method if you have password or other
sensitive information to pass to the server.
The GET method has size limitation: only 1024 characters can be in a request string.
This information is passed using QUERY_STRING header and will be accessible through QUERY_STRING
environment variable which can be handled using getQueryString() and getParameter() methods of request
object.

POST method:
A generally more reliable method of passing information to a backend program is the POST method.
This method packages the information in exactly the same way as GET methods, but instead of sending it as a
text string after a ? in the URL it sends it as a separate message. This message comes to the backend program in
the form of the standard input which you can parse and use for your processing.
JSP handles this type of requests using getParameter() method to read simple parameters and getInputStream()
method to read binary data stream coming from the client.

Reading Form Data using JSP

JSP handles form data parsing automatically using the following methods depending on the situation:

getParameter(): You call request.getParameter() method to get the value of a form parameter.
getParameterValues(): Call this method if the parameter appears more than once and returns multiple
values, for example checkbox.
getParameterNames(): Call this method if you want a complete list of all parameters in the current request.
getInputStream(): Call this method to read binary data stream coming from the client.

GET Method Example Using URL:

Here is a simple URL which will pass two values to HelloForm program using GET method.
http://localhost:8080/main.jsp?first_name=ZARA&last_name=ALI
Below is main.jsp JSP program to handle input given by web browser. We are going to usegetParameter()
method which makes it very easy to access passed information:
<html>
<head>
<title>Using GET Method to Read Form Data</title>
</head>
<body>
<center>
<h1>Using GET Method to Read Form
Data</h1> <ul>
<li><p><b>First Name:</b>
<%= request.getParameter("first_name")%>
</p></li>

<li><p><b>Last Name:</b>
<%= request.getParameter("last_name")%>
</p></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
Now type http://localhost:8080/main.jsp?first_name=ZARA&last_name=ALI in your browser's Location:box. This
would generate following result:

Using GET Method to Read Form Data

First Name: ZARA
Last Name: ALI

GET Method Example Using Form:

Here is a simple example which passes two values using HTML FORM and submit button. We are going to use
same JSP main.jsp to handle this input.
<html>
<body>
<form action="main.jsp" method="GET">
First Name: <input type="text" name="first_name">
<br />
Last Name: <input type="text" name="last_name" />
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>

Keep this HTML in a file Hello.htm and put it in <Tomcat-installation-directory>/webapps/ROOT directory. When
you would access http://localhost:8080/Hello.htm, here is the actual output of the above form.
First Name:
Last Name:
Try to enter First Name and Last Name and then click submit button to see the result on your local machine where
tomcat is running. Based on the input provided, it will generate similar result as mentioned in the above example.

POST Method Example Using Form:

Let us do little modification in the above JSP to handle GET as well as POST methods. Below ismain.jsp JSP
program to handle input given by web browser using GET or POST methods.
Infact there is no change in above JSP because only way of passing parameters is changed and no binary data is
being passed to the JSP program. File handling related concepts would be explained in separate chapter where
we need to read binary data stream.
<html>
<head>
<title>Using GET and POST Method to Read Form
Data</title> </head>
<body>
<center>
<h1>Using GET Method to Read Form
Data</h1> <ul>
<li><p><b>First Name:</b>
<%= request.getParameter("first_name")%>
</p></li>

<li><p><b>Last Name:</b>
<%= request.getParameter("last_name")%>
</p></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
Following is the content of Hello.htm file:
<html>
<body>
<form action="main.jsp" method="POST">
First Name: <input type="text" name="first_name">
<br />
Last Name: <input type="text" name="last_name" />
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>
Now let us keep main.jsp and hello.htm in <Tomcat-installation-directory>/webapps/ROOT directory. When you
would access http://localhost:8080/Hello.htm, below is the actual output of the above form.

First Name:
Last Name:
Try to enter First and Last Name and then click submit button to see the result on your local machine where
tomcat is running.
Based on the input provided, it would generate similar result as mentioned in the above examples.

Passing Checkbox Data to JSP Program

Checkboxes are used when more than one option is required to be selected.
Here is example HTML code, CheckBox.htm, for a form with two checkboxes
<html>
<body>
<form action="main.jsp" method="POST" target="_blank">
<input type="checkbox" name="maths" checked="checked" /> Maths
<input type="checkbox" name="physics" /> Physics
<input type="checkbox" name="chemistry" checked="checked" />
Chemistry
<input type="submit" value="Select
Subject" /> </form>
</body>
</html>
The result of this code is the following form
Maths

Physics

Chemistry

Below is main.jsp JSP program to handle input given by web browser for checkbox button.
<html>
<head>
<title>Reading Checkbox
Data</title> </head>
<body>
<center>
<h1>Reading Checkbox Data</h1>
<ul>
<li><p><b>Maths Flag:</b>
<%= request.getParameter("maths")%>
</p></li>

<li><p><b>Physics Flag:</b>

<%= request.getParameter("physics")%>
</p></li>

<li><p><b>Chemistry Flag:</b>
<%= request.getParameter("chemistry")%>
</p></li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

For the above example, it would display following result:

Reading Checkbox Data

Maths Flag : : on
Physics Flag: : null
Chemistry Flag: : on

Reading All Form Parameters:

Following is the generic example which uses getParameterNames() method of HttpServletRequest to read all the
available form parameters. This method returns an Enumeration that contains the parameter names in an
unspecified order.
Once we have an Enumeration, we can loop down the Enumeration in the standard manner,
usinghasMoreElements() method to determine when to stop and using nextElement() method to get each
parameter name.
<%@ page import="java.io.*,java.util.*" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTTP Header Request Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<center>
<h2>HTTP Header Request Example</h2>
<table width="100%" border="1"
align="center"> <tr bgcolor="#949494">
<th>Param Name</th><th>Param Value(s)</th>
</tr>
<%
Enumeration paramNames = request.getParameterNames();
while(paramNames.hasMoreElements()) {

String paramName = (String)paramNames.nextElement();

out.print("<tr><td>" + paramName + "</td>\n");

String paramValue = request.getHeader(paramName);

}

out.println("<td> " + paramValue + "</td></tr>\n");

%>
</table>
</center>
</body>
</html>
Following is the content of Hello.htm:
<html>
<body>
<form action="main.jsp" method="POST" target="_blank">
<input type="checkbox" name="maths" checked="checked" /> Maths
<input type="checkbox" name="physics" /> Physics
<input type="checkbox" name="chemistry" checked="checked" /> Chem
<input type="submit" value="Select Subject" />
</form>
</body>
</html>

Now try calling JSP using above Hello.htm, this would generate a result something like as below based on the
provided input:

Reading All Form Parameters

Param Name

Param Value(s)

maths

on

chemistry

on

You can try above JSP to read any other form's data which is having other objects like text box, radio button or
drop down box etc.

JSP Filters

ervlet and JSP Filters are Java classes that can be used in Servlet and JSP Programming for the

following purposes:
To intercept requests from a client before they access a resource at back end.
To manipulate responses from server before they are sent back to the client.
There are various types of filters suggested by the specifications:
Authentication Filters.
Data compression Filters
Encryption Filters .
Filters that trigger resource access events.
Image Conversion Filters .
Logging and Auditing Filters.
MIME-TYPE Chain Filters.
Tokenizing Filters .
XSL/T Filters That Transform XML Content.
Filters are deployed in the deployment descriptor file web.xml and then map to either servlet or JSP names or
URL patterns in your application's deployment descriptor. The deployment descriptor file web.xml can be found in
<Tomcat-installation-directory>\conf directory.
When the JSP container starts up your web application, it creates an instance of each filter that you have declared
in the deployment descriptor. The filters execute in the order that they are declared in the deployment descriptor.

Servlet Filter Methods:

A filter is simply a Java class that implements the javax.servlet.Filter interface. The javax.servlet.Filter interface
defines three methods:
S.N. Method & Description
1

public void doFilter (ServletRequest, ServletResponse, FilterChain)

This method is called by the container each time a request/response pair is passed through the chain due to
a client request for a resource at the end of the chain.
public void init(FilterConfig filterConfig)

This method is called by the web container to indicate to a filter that it is being placed into service.
public void destroy()
This method is called by the web container to indicate to a filter that it is being taken out of service.

JSP Filter Example:

Following is the JSP Filter Example that would print the clients IP address and current date time each time it
would access any JSP file. This example would give you basic understanding of JSP Filter, but you can write more
sophisticated filter applications using the same concept:
Import
required
libraries import java.io.*;

java

import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import java.util.*;

Implements Filter class

public class LogFilter implements Filter {
public void init(FilterConfig config)
throws ServletException{
// Get init parameter
String testParam = config.getInitParameter("test-param");
//Print the init parameter
System.out.println("Test Param: " + testParam);

}
public void doFilter(ServletRequest request,
ServletResponse response,
FilterChain chain)
throws java.io.IOException, ServletException {
\ Get the IP address of client machine.
String ipAddress = request.getRemoteAddr();
\ Log the IP address and current timestamp.
System.out.println("IP "+ ipAddress + ", Time "
new Date().toString());
\
Pass request back down the filter chain
chain.doFilter(request,response);

}
public void destroy( ){
/* Called before the Filter instance is removed
from service by the web container*/
}

}
Compile LogFilter.java in usual way and put your LogFilter.class class file in <Tomcat-installationdirectory>/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes.

JSP Filter Mapping in Web.xml:

Filters are defined and then mapped to a URL or JSP file name, in much the same way as Servlet is defined and
then mapped to a URL pattern in web.xml file. Create the following entry for filter tag in the deployment descriptor
file web.xml
<filter> <filter-name>LogFilter</filtername> <filterclass>LogFilter</filter-class> <initparam>
<param-name>test-param</param-name> <paramvalue>Initialization Paramter</param-value>
</init-param>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>

<filter-name>LogFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
The above filter would apply to all the servlets and JSP because we specified /* in our configuration. You can
specify a particular servlet or JSP path if you want to apply filter on few servlets or JSP only.
Now try to call any servlet or JSP in usual way and you would see generated log in you web server log. You can
use Log4J logger to log above log in a separate file.

Using Multiple Filters:

Your web application may define several different filters with a specific purpose. Consider, you define two filters
AuthenFilter and LogFilter. Rest of the process would remain as explained above except you need to create a
different mapping as mentioned below:
<filter> <filter-name>LogFilter</filtername> <filterclass>LogFilter</filter-class> <initparam>
<param-name>test-param</param-name> <paramvalue>Initialization Paramter</param-value>
</init-param>
</filter>

<filter> <filter-name>AuthenFilter</filtername> <filter-class>AuthenFilter</filterclass> <init-param>

<param-name>test-param</param-name> <paramvalue>Initialization Paramter</param-value>
</init-param>
</filter>

<filter-mapping> <filtername>LogFilter</filter-name> <urlpattern>/*</url-pattern>

</filter-mapping>

<filter-mapping> <filtername>AuthenFilter</filter-name> <urlpattern>/*</url-pattern>

</filter-mapping>

Filters Application Order:

The order of filter-mapping elements in web.xml determines the order in which the web container applies the filter
to the servlet or JSP. To reverse the order of the filter, you just need to reverse the filter-mapping elements in the
web.xml file.
For example, above example would apply LogFilter first and then it would apply AuthenFilter to any servlet or JSP
but the following example would reverse the order:
<filter-mapping> <filtername>AuthenFilter</filter-name> <urlpattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
<filter-mapping> <filtername>LogFilter</filter-name> <urlpattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>

JSP Auto Refresh

onsider a webpage which is displaying live game score or stock market status or currency exchange

ration. For all such type of pages, you would need to refresh your web page regularly using refresh or reload
button with your browser.
JSP makes this job easy by providing you a mechanism where you can make a webpage in such a way that it
would refresh automatically after a given interval.
The simplest way of refreshing a web page is using method setIntHeader() of response object. Following is the
signature of this method:
public void setIntHeader(String header, int headerValue)
This method sends back header "Refresh" to the browser along with an integer value which indicates time interval
in seconds.

Auto Page Refresh Example:

Following example would use setIntHeader() method to set Refresh header to simulate a digital clock:
<%@ page import="java.io.*,java.util.*" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Auto Refresh Header Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<center>
<h2>Auto Refresh Header
Example</h2> <%
Set refresh, autoload time as 5 seconds
response.setIntHeader("Refresh", 5);
Get current time
Calendar calendar = new GregorianCalendar();
String am_pm;
int hour = calendar.get(Calendar.HOUR);
int minute = calendar.get(Calendar.MINUTE);
int second = calendar.get(Calendar.SECOND);
if(calendar.get(Calendar.AM_PM) == 0)

am_pm = "AM";
else
am_pm = "PM";

String CT = hour+":"+ minute +":"+ second +" "+ am_pm;

out.println("Crrent Time: " + CT + "\n");

%>
</center>
</body>
</html>

Now put the above code in main.jsp and try to access it. This would display current system time after every 5
seconds as follows. Just run the JSP and wait to see the result:

Auto Refresh Header Example

Current Time is: 9:44:50 PM
To become more comfortable with other methods you can try few more above listed methods in the same fashion.

JSP Database Access

his chapter assumes you have good understanding on how JDBC application works. Before starting with

database access through a JSP, make sure you have proper JDBC environment setup along with a database.
For more detail on how to access database using JDBC and its environment setup you can go through our JDBC
Tutorial.
To start with basic concept, let us create a simple table and create few records in that table as follows:

Create Table
To create the Employees table in EMP database, use the following steps:
Step 1:

Open a Command Prompt and change to the installation directory as follows:

C:\>
C:\>cd Program Files\MySQL\bin
C:\Program Files\MySQL\bin>
Step 2:

Login to database as follows

C:\Program Files\MySQL\bin>mysql -u root -p
Enter password: ********
mysql>
Step 3:

Create the table Employee in TEST database as follows:

mysql> use TEST;
mysql> create table Employees(
id int not null,
age int not null,
first varchar (255),
last varchar (255)
);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.08
sec) mysql>

Create Data Records

Finally you create few records in Employee table as follows:
mysql> INSERT INTO Employees VALUES (100, 18, 'Zara',
'Ali'); Query OK, 1 row affected (0.05 sec)
mysql> INSERT INTO Employees VALUES (101, 25, 'Mahnaz', 'Fatma');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> INSERT INTO Employees VALUES (102, 30, 'Zaid', 'Khan');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> INSERT INTO Employees VALUES (103, 28, 'Sumit', 'Mittal');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
mysql>

SELECT Operation:
Following example shows how we can execute SQL SELECT statement using JTSL in JSP programming:
<%@
<%@
<%@
<%@

page import="java.io.*,java.util.*,java.sql.*"%>
page import="javax.servlet.http.*,javax.servlet.*" %>
taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c"%>
taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/sql" prefix="sql"%>

<html>
<head>
<title>SELECT Operation</title>
</head>
<body>
<sql:setDataSource var="snapshot" driver="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/TEST"
user="root" password="pass123"/>

<sql:query dataSource="${snapshot}" var="result">

SELECT * from Employees;

</sql:query>

<table border="1"
width="100%"> <tr>
<th>Emp ID</th>
<th>First Name</th>
<th>Last Name</th>
<th>Age</th>

</tr>
<c:forEach var="row" items="$
{result.rows}"> <tr>
<td><c:out
<td><c:out
<td><c:out
<td><c:out

</tr>

value="${row.id}"/></td>
value="${row.first}"/></td>
value="${row.last}"/></td>
value="${row.age}"/></td>

</c:forEach>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Now try to access above JSP, which should display the following result:
Emp ID

First Name

Last Name

Age

100

Zara

Ali

18

101

Mahnaz

Fatma

25

102

Zaid

Khan

30

103

Sumit

Mittal

28

INSERT Operation:
Following example shows how we can execute SQL INSERT statement using JTSL in JSP programming:
<%@
<%@
<%@
<%@

page import="java.io.*,java.util.*,java.sql.*"%>
page import="javax.servlet.http.*,javax.servlet.*" %>
taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c"%>
taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/sql" prefix="sql"%>

<html>
<head>
<title>JINSERT Operation</title>
</head>
<body>
<sql:setDataSource var="snapshot" driver="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/TEST"
user="root" password="pass123"/>

<sql:update dataSource="${snapshot}" var="result">

INSERT INTO Employees VALUES (104, 2, 'Nuha', 'Ali');

</sql:update>
<sql:query dataSource="${snapshot}" var="result">
SELECT * from Employees;

</sql:query>

<table border="1"
width="100%"> <tr>
<th>Emp ID</th>
<th>First Name</th>
<th>Last Name</th>
<th>Age</th>

</tr>
<c:forEach var="row" items="$
{result.rows}"> <tr>
<td><c:out value="${row.id}"/></td>

<td><c:out
value="${row.first}"/></td>
<td><c:out
value="${row.last}"/></td>
<td><c:out value="${row.age}"/></td>

</tr>
</c:forEach>
</table>
</body>
</html>

Now try to access above JSP, which should display the following result:
Emp ID

First Name

Last Name

Age

100

Zara

Ali

18

101

Mahnaz

Fatma

25

102

Zaid

Khan

30

103

Sumit

Mittal

28

104

Nuha

Ali

DELETE Operation:
Following example shows how we can execute SQL DELETE statement using JTSL in JSP programming:
<%@
<%@
<%@
<%@

page import="java.io.*,java.util.*,java.sql.*"%>
page import="javax.servlet.http.*,javax.servlet.*" %>
taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c"%>
taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/sql" prefix="sql"%>

<html>
<head>
<title>DELETE Operation</title>
</head>
<body>
<sql:setDataSource var="snapshot" driver="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/TEST"
user="root" password="pass123"/>

<c:set var="empId" value="103"/>

<sql:update dataSource="${snapshot}" var="count">
DELETE FROM Employees WHERE Id = ?
<sql:param value="${empId}" />

</sql:update>
<sql:query dataSource="${snapshot}" var="result">
SELECT * from Employees;

</sql:query>

<table border="1"
width="100%"> <tr>

<th>Emp ID</th>
<th>First Name</th>
<th>Last Name</th>
<th>Age</th>

</tr>
<c:forEach var="row" items="$
{result.rows}"> <tr>
<td><c:out
<td><c:out
<td><c:out
<td><c:out

</tr>
</c:forEach>
</table>

value="${row.id}"/></td>
value="${row.first}"/></td>
value="${row.last}"/></td>
value="${row.age}"/></td>

</body>
</html>
Now try to access above JSP, which should display the following result:
Emp ID

First Name

Last Name

Age

100

Zara

Ali

18

101

Mahnaz

Fatma

25

102

Zaid

Khan

30

UPDATE Operation:
Following example shows how we can execute SQL UPDATE statement using JTSL in JSP programming:
<%@
<%@
<%@
<%@

page import="java.io.*,java.util.*,java.sql.*"%>
page import="javax.servlet.http.*,javax.servlet.*" %>
taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c"%>
taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/sql" prefix="sql"%>

<html>
<head>
<title>DELETE Operation</title>
</head>
<body>
<sql:setDataSource var="snapshot" driver="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/TEST"
user="root" password="pass123"/>

<c:set var="empId" value="102"/>

<sql:update dataSource="${snapshot}" var="count">
UPDATE Employees SET last = 'Ali'
<sql:param value="${empId}" />

</sql:update>
<sql:query dataSource="${snapshot}" var="result">

SELECT * from Employees;

</sql:query>

<table border="1"
width="100%"> <tr>
<th>Emp ID</th>
<th>First Name</th>
<th>Last Name</th>
<th>Age</th>

</tr>
<c:forEach var="row" items="$
{result.rows}"> <tr>
<td><c:out
<td><c:out
<td><c:out
<td><c:out

</tr>
</c:forEach>
</table>

value="${row.id}"/></td>
value="${row.first}"/></td>
value="${row.last}"/></td>
value="${row.age}"/></td>

</body>
</html>
Now try to access above JSP, which should display the following result:
Emp ID

First Name

Last Name

Age

100

Zara

Ali

18

101

Mahnaz

Fatma

25

102

Zaid

Ali

30

Hibernate
Tutorial

ORM Overview

DBC stands for

Java Database Connectivity

and provides a set of Java API for accessing the relational

databases from Java program. These Java APIs enables Java programs to execute SQL statements and interact
with any SQL compliant database.
JDBC provides a flexible architecture to write a database independent application that can run on different
platforms and interact with different DBMS without any modification.

Pros and Cons of JDBC

Pros of JDBC
Clean and simple SQL processing

Cons of JDBC
Complex if it is used in large projects

Good performance with large data

Large programming overhead

Very good for small applications

No encapsulation

Simple syntax so easy to learn

Hard to implement MVC concept

Query is DBMS specific

Why Object Relational Mapping (ORM)?

When we work with an object-oriented systems, there's a mismatch between the object model and the relational
database. RDBMSs represent data in a tabular format whereas object-oriented languages, such as Java or C#
represent it as an interconnected graph of objects. Consider the following Java Class with proper constructors and
associated public function:
public class Employee
{ private int id;
private String first_name;
private String last_name;
private int salary;

public Employee() {}
public Employee(String fname, String lname, int salary) {
this.first_name = fname;
this.last_name = lname;
this.salary = salary;
}
public int getId() {
return id;
}
public String getFirstName() {
return first_name;
}
public String getLastName() {
return last_name;
}
public int getSalary() {
return salary;
}
}

Mismatch

Description

Granularity

Sometimes you will have an object model which has more classes than the
number of corresponding tables in the database.

Inheritance

RDBMSs do not define anything similar to Inheritance which is a natural paradigm

in object-oriented programming languages.

Identity

A RDBMS defines exactly one notion of 'sameness': the primary key. Java,
however, defines both object identity (a==b) and object equality (a.equals(b)).

Associations

Object-oriented languages represent associations using object references where

as am RDBMS represents an association as a foreign key column.

Navigation

The ways you access objects in Java and in a RDBMS are fundamentally different.

The Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) is the solution to handle all the above impedance mismatches.

What is ORM?
ORM stands for Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) is a programming technique for converting data between
relational databases and object oriented programming languages such as Java, C# etc. An ORM system has
following advantages over plain JDBC

S.N. Advantages
1

Lets business code access objects rather than DB tables.

Hides details of SQL queries from OO logic.

Based on JDBC 'under the hood'

No need to deal with the database implementation.

Entities based on business concepts rather than database structure.

Transaction management and automatic key generation.

Fast development of application.

An ORM solution consists of the following four entities:

S.N. Solutions

An API to perform basic CRUD operations on objects of persistent classes.

A language or API to specify queries that refer to classes and properties of classes.

A configurable facility for specifying mapping metadata.

A technique to interact with transactional objects to perform dirty checking, lazy association fetching, and
other optimization functions.

Java ORM Frameworks

There are several persistent frameworks and ORM options in Java. A persistent framework is an ORM service that
stores and retrieves objects into a relational database.
Enterprise JavaBeans Entity Beans
Java Data Objects
Castor
TopLink
Spring DAO
Hibernate
And many more

Hibernate Overview

ibernate is an Object-Relational Mapping(ORM) solution for JAVA and it raised as an open source

persistent framework created by Gavin King in 2001. It is a powerful, high performance Object-Relational
Persistence and Query service for any Java Application.
Hibernate maps Java classes to database tables and from Java data types to SQL data types and relieve the
developer from 95% of common data persistence related programming tasks.
Hibernate sits between traditional Java objects and database server to handle all the work in persisting those
objects based on the appropriate O/R mechanisms and patterns.

Hibernate Advantages
Hibernate takes care of mapping Java classes to database tables using XML files and without writing any
line of code.
Provides simple APIs for storing and retrieving Java objects directly to and from the database.
If there is change in Database or in any table then the only need to change XML file properties.
Abstract away the unfamiliar SQL types and provide us to work around familiar Java Objects.
Hibernate does not require an application server to operate.
Manipulates Complex associations of objects of your database.

Minimize database access with smart fetching strategies.

Provides Simple querying of data.

Supported Databases
Hibernate supports almost all the major RDBMS. Following is list of few of the database engines supported by
Hibernate.
HSQL Database Engine
DB2/NT
MySQL
PostgreSQL
FrontBase
Oracle
Microsoft SQL Server Database
Sybase SQL Server
Informix Dynamic Server

Supported Technologies
Hibernate supports a variety of other technologies, including the following:
XDoclet Spring
J2EE
Eclipse plug-ins
Maven

Hibernate Architecture

he Hibernate architecture is layered to keep you isolated from having to know the underlying APIs.

Hibernate makes use of the database and configuration data to provide persistence services (and persistent
objects) to the application.
Following is a very high level view of the Hibernate Application Architecture.

Following is a detailed view of the Hibernate Application Architecture with few important core classes.

Hibernate uses various existing Java APIs, like JDBC, Java Transaction API(JTA), and Java Naming and Directory
Interface (JNDI). JDBC provides a rudimentary level of abstraction of functionality common to relational
databases, allowing almost any database with a JDBC driver to be supported by Hibernate. JNDI and JTA allow
Hibernate to be integrated with J2EE application servers.
Following section gives brief description of each of the class objects involved in Hibernate Application
Architecture.

Configuration Object
The Configuration object is the first Hibernate object you create in any Hibernate application and usually created
only once during application initialization. It represents a configuration or properties file required by the Hibernate.
The Configuration object provides two keys components:
Database Connection: This is handled through one or more configuration files supported by Hibernate.
These files are hibernate.properties and hibernate.cfg.xml.
Class Mapping Setup: This component creates the connection between the Java classes and database
tables.

SessionFactory Object
Configuration object is used to create a SessionFactory object which inturn configures Hibernate for the
application using the supplied configuration file and allows for a Session object to be instantiated. The
SessionFactory is a thread safe object and used by all the threads of an application.

The SessionFactory is heavyweight object so usually it is created during application start up and kept for later
use. You would need one SessionFactory object per database using a separate configuration file. So if you are
using multiple databases then you would have to create multiple SessionFactory objects.

Session Object
A Session is used to get a physical connection with a database. The Session object is lightweight and designed to
be instantiated each time an interaction is needed with the database. Persistent objects are saved and retrieved
through a Session object.
The session objects should not be kept open for a long time because they are not usually thread safe and they
should be created and destroyed them as needed.

Transaction Object
A Transaction represents a unit of work with the database and most of the RDBMS supports transaction
functionality. Transactions in Hibernate are handled by an underlying transaction manager and transaction (from
JDBC or JTA).
This is an optional object and Hibernate applications may choose not to use this interface, instead managing
transactions in their own application code.

Query Object
Query objects use SQL or Hibernate Query Language (HQL) string to retrieve data from the database and create
objects. A Query instance is used to bind query parameters, limit the number of results returned by the query, and
finally to execute the query.

Criteria Object
Criteria object are used to create and execute object oriented criteria queries to retrieve objects.

Hibernate Environment

his chapter will explain how to install Hibernate and other associated packages to prepare a develop

environment for the Hibernate applications. We will work with MySQL database to experiment with Hibernate
examples, so make sure you already have setup for MySQL database. For a more detail on MySQL you can
check our MySQL Tutorial.

Downloading Hibernate:
It is assumed that you already have latest version of Java is installed on your machine. Following are the simple
steps to download and install Hibernate on your machine.
Make a choice whether you want to install Hibernate on Windows, or Unix and then proceed to the next
step to download .zip file for windows and .tz file for Unix.
Download the latest version of Hibernate from http://www.hibernate.org/downloads.
At the time of writing this tutorial I downloaded hibernate-distribution-3.6.4.Final and when you unzip
the downloaded file it will give you directory structure as follows.

Installing Hibernate
Once you downloaded and unzipped the latest version of the Hibernate Installation file, you need to perform
following two simple steps. Make sure you are setting your CLASSPATH variable properly otherwise you will face
problem while compiling your application.
Now copy all the library files from /lib into your CLASSPATH, and change your classpath variable to
include all the JARs:
Finally copy hibernate3.jar file into your CLASSPATH. This file lies in the root directory of the installation
and is the primary JAR that Hibernate needs to do its work.

Hibernate Prerequisites
Following is the list of the packages/libraries required by Hibernate and you should install them before starting
with Hibernate. To install these packages you would have to copy library files from /lib into your CLASSPATH, and
change your CLASSPATH variable accordingly.
S.N.

Packages/Libraries

dom4j - XML parsing www.dom4j.org/

Xalan - XSLT Processor http://xml.apache.org/xalan-j/

Xerces - The Xerces Java Parser http://xml.apache.org/xerces-j/

cglib - Appropriate changes to Java classes at runtime http://cglib.sourceforge.net/

log4j - Logging Faremwork http://logging.apache.org/log4j

Commons - Logging, Email etc. http://jakarta.apache.org/commons

SLF4J - Logging Facade for Java http://www.slf4j.org

Hibernate Configuration

ibernate requires to know in advance where to find the mapping information that defines how your Java

classes relate to the database tables. Hibernate also requires a set of configuration settings related to database
and other related parameters. All such information is usually supplied as a standard Java properties file called
hibernate.properties, or as an XML file named hibernate.cfg.xml.
I will consider XML formatted file hibernate.cfg.xml to specify required Hibernate properties in my examples.
Most of the properties take their default values and it is not required to specify them in the property file unless it is
really required. This file is kept in the root directory of your application's classpath.

Hibernate Properties
Following is the list of important properties you would require to configure for a databases in a standalone
situation:
S.N. Properties and Description
1
hibernate.dialect
This property makes Hibernate generate the appropriate SQL for the chosen database.
2
hibernate.connection.driver_class
The JDBC driver class.
3
hibernate.connection.url
The JDBC URL to the database instance.
4
hibernate.connection.username
The database username.
5
hibernate.connection.password
The database password.
6
hibernate.connection.pool_size
Limits the number of connections waiting in the Hibernate database connection pool.
7
hibernate.connection.autocommit
Allows autocommit mode to be used for the JDBC connection.
If you are using a database along with an application server and JNDI then you would have to configure the
following properties:

S.N. Properties and Description

hibernate.connection.datasource
4
The JNDI name defined in the application server context you are using for the application.
hibernate.jndi.class
5
The InitialContext class for JNDI.
3

hibernate.jndi.<JNDIpropertyname>
Passes any JNDI property you like to the JNDI InitialContext.

hibernate.jndi.url
Provides the URL for JNDI.

hibernate.connection.username
The database username.

hibernate.connection.password
The database password.

Hibernate with MySQL Database

MySQL is one of the most popular open-source database systems available today. Let us
createhibernate.cfg.xml configuration file and place it in the root of your application's classpath. You would have
to make sure that you have testdb database available in your MySQL database and you have a user test
available to access the database.

The above configuration file includes <mapping> tags which are related to hibernate-mapping file and we will see
in next chapter what exactly is a hibernate mapping file and how and why do we use it. Following is the list of
various important databases dialect property type:
Database

Dialect Property

DB2

org.hibernate.dialect.DB2Dialect

HSQLDB

org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect

HypersonicSQL

org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect

Informix

org.hibernate.dialect.InformixDialect

Ingres

org.hibernate.dialect.IngresDialect

Interbase

org.hibernate.dialect.InterbaseDialect

Microsoft SQL Server 2000

org.hibernate.dialect.SQLServerDialect

Microsoft SQL Server 2005

org.hibernate.dialect.SQLServer2005Dialect

Microsoft SQL Server 2008

org.hibernate.dialect.SQLServer2008Dialect

MySQL

org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect

Oracle (any version)

org.hibernate.dialect.OracleDialect

Oracle 11g

org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle10gDialect

Oracle 10g

org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle10gDialect

Oracle 9i

org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle9iDialect

PostgreSQL

org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect

Progress

org.hibernate.dialect.ProgressDialect

SAP DB

org.hibernate.dialect.SAPDBDialect

Sybase

org.hibernate.dialect.SybaseDialect

Sybase Anywhere

org.hibernate.dialect.SybaseAnywhereDialect

Serial No

Class Name

Functionality

Assert

A set of assert methods.

TestCase

A test case defines the fixture to run multiple tests.

TestResult

A TestResult collects the results of executing a

test case.

TestSuite

A TestSuite is a Composite of Tests.

Hibernate Sessions

Session is used to get a physical connection with a database. The Session object is lightweight and

designed to be instantiated each time an interaction is needed with the database. Persistent objects are saved
and retrieved through a Session object.
The session objects should not be kept open for a long time because they are not usually thread safe and they
should be created and destroyed them as needed. The main function of the Session is to offer create, read and
delete operations for instances of mapped entity classes. Instances may exist in one of the following three states
at a given point in time:
transient: A new instance of a a persistent class which is not associated with a Session and has no
representation in the database and no identifier value is considered transient by Hibernate.
persistent: You can make a transient instance persistent by associating it with a Session. A persistent
instance has a representation in the database, an identifier value and is associated with a Session.
detached: Once we close the Hibernate Session, the persistent instance will become a detached
instance.
A Session instance is serializable if its persistent classes are serializable. A typical transaction should use the
following idiom:
Session session = factory.openSession();
Transaction tx = null;
try {
tx = session.beginTransaction();
// do some work
...
tx.commit();
}
catch (Exception e) {
if (tx!=null) tx.rollback();
e.printStackTrace();

}finally {
session.close();
}
If the Session throws an exception, the transaction must be rolled back and the session must be discarded.

Session Interface Methods

There are number of methods provided by the Session interface but I'm going to list down few important methods
only, which we will use in this tutorial. You can check Hibernate documentation for a complete list of methods
associated with Session and SessionFactory.
S.N. Session Methods and Description
Transaction beginTransaction()
3
Begin a unit of work and return the associated Transaction object.
void cancelQuery()
4
Cancel the execution of the current query.
void clear()
5
Completely clear the session.
Connection close()
6
End the session by releasing the JDBC connection and cleaning up.
Criteria createCriteria(Class persistentClass)
7
Create a new Criteria instance, for the given entity class, or a superclass of an entity class.
Criteria createCriteria(String entityName)
8
Create a new Criteria instance, for the given entity name.
Serializable getIdentifier(Object object)
9
Return the identifier value of the given entity as associated with this session.
Query createFilter(Object collection, String queryString)
10
Create a new instance of Query for the given collection and filter string.
Query createQuery(String queryString)
11
Create a new instance of Query for the given HQL query string.
SQLQuery createSQLQuery(String queryString)
12
Create a new instance of SQLQuery for the given SQL query string.
void delete(Object object)
13
Remove a persistent instance from the datastore.
void delete(String entityName, Object object)
14
Remove a persistent instance from the datastore.
Session get(String entityName, Serializable id)
13 Return the persistent instance of the given named entity with the given identifier, or null if
there is no such persistent instance.
SessionFactory getSessionFactory()
20
Get the session factory which created this session.
void refresh(Object object)
21
Re-read the state of the given instance from the underlying database.
Transaction getTransaction()
22
Get the Transaction instance associated with this session.
boolean isConnected()
23
Check if the session is currently connected.
boolean isDirty()
24
Does this session contain any changes which must be synchronized with the database?

20

boolean isOpen()

23

Check if the session is still open.

Serializable save(Object object)
Persist the given transient instance, first assigning a generated identifier.
void saveOrUpdate(Object object)
Either save(Object) or update(Object) the given instance.
void update(Object object)

24

void update(String entityName, Object object)

21

22

Update the persistent instance with the identifier of the given detached instance.
Update the persistent instance with the identifier of the given detached instance.

Hibernate Persistent
Class

he entire concept of Hibernate is to take the values from Java class attributes and persist

them to a
database table. A mapping document helps Hibernate in determining how to pull the values from
the classes and map them with table and associated fields.
Java classes whose objects or instances will be stored in database tables are called persistent
classes in Hibernate. Hibernate works best if these classes follow some simple rules, also known
as the Plain Old Java Object (POJO) programming model. There are following main rules of
persistent classes, however, none of these rules are hard requirements.
All Java classes that will be persisted need a default constructor.
All classes should contain an ID in order to allow easy identification of your objects within
Hibernate and the database. This property maps to the primary key column of a database
table.
All attributes that will be persisted should be declared private and have getXXX and
setXXXmethods defined in the JavaBean style.
A central feature of Hibernate, proxies, depends upon the persistent class being either
non-final, or the implementation of an interface that declares all public methods.
All classes that do not extend or implement some specialized classes and interfaces
required by the EJB framework.
The POJO name is used to emphasize that a given object is an ordinary Java Object, not a special
object, and in particular not an Enterprise JavaBean.

Hibernate Mapping Files

n Object/relational mappings are usually defined in an XML document. This mapping file

instructs
Hibernate how to map the defined class or classes to the database tables.
Though many Hibernate users choose to write the XML by hand, a number of tools exist to
generate the mapping document. These include XDoclet, Middlegen and AndroMDA for
advanced Hibernate users.

You should save the mapping document in a file with the format <classname>.hbm.xml. We saved
our mapping document in the file Employee.hbm.xml. Let us see little detail about the mapping
elements used in the mapping file:
The mapping document is an XML document having <hibernate-mapping> as the root
element which contains all the <class> elements.
The <class> elements are used to define specific mappings from a Java classes to the
database tables. The Java class name is specified using the name attribute of the class
element and the database table name is specified using the table attribute.
The <meta> element is optional element and can be used to create the class description.

The <id> element maps the unique ID attribute in class to the primary key of the database

table.
The name attribute of the id element refers to the property in the class and the column
attribute refers to
the column in the database table. The type attribute holds the hibernate mapping type,
this mapping
types will convert from Java to SQL data type.
The <generator> element within the id element is used to automatically generate the
primary key values. Set the class attribute of the generator element is set to native to let
hibernate pick up
either identity, sequence or hilo algorithm to create primary key depending upon the
capabilities of the
underlying database.

The <property> element is used to map a Java class property to a column in the database

table.

The name attribute of the element refers to the property in the class and the column
attribute refers to
the column in the database table. The type attribute holds the hibernate mapping type, this
mapping
types will convert from Java to SQL data type.

There are other attributes and elements available which will be used in a mapping document and I
would try to cover as many as possible while discussing other Hibernate related topics.

9
Hibernate Mapping
Types

hen you prepare a Hibernate mapping document, we have seen that you map Java

data types into

RDBMS data types. The types declared and used in the mapping files are not Java data types;
they are not SQL database types either. These types are called Hibernate mapping types, which
can translate from Java to SQL data types and vice versa.
This chapter lists down all the basic, date and time, large object, and various other built-in
mapping types.

Primitive types
Mapping type

Java type

ANSI SQL Type

integer

int or java.lang.Integer

INTEGER

long

long or java.lang.Long

BIGINT

short

short or java.lang.Short

SMALLINT

float

float or java.lang.Float

FLOAT

double

double or java.lang.Double

DOUBLE

big_decimal

java.math.BigDecimal

NUMERIC

character

java.lang.String

CHAR(1)

string

java.lang.String

VARCHAR

byte

byte or java.lang.Byte

TINYINT

boolean

boolean or java.lang.Boolean

BIT

yes/no

boolean or java.lang.Boolean

CHAR(1) ('Y' or
'N')

true/false

boolean or java.lang.Boolean

CHAR(1) ('T' or
'F')

Date and time types

Mapping type

Java type

ANSI SQL Type

date

java.util.Date or java.sql.Date

DATE

time

java.util.Date or java.sql.Time

TIME

timestamp

java.util.Date or java.sql.Timestamp

TIMESTAMP

calendar

java.util.Calendar

TIMESTAMP

calendar_date

java.util.Calendar

DATE

Binary and large object types

Mapping type

Java type

ANSI SQL Type

binary

byte[]

VARBINARY (or
BLOB)

text

java.lang.String

CLOB

serializable

any Java class that implements java.io.Serializable

VARBINARY (or
BLOB)

clob

java.sql.Clob

CLOB

blob

java.sql.Blob

BLOB

JDK-related types
Mapping type

Java type

ANSI SQL Type

class

java.lang.Class

VARCHAR

locale

java.util.Locale

VARCHAR

timezone

java.util.TimeZone

VARCHAR

currency

java.util.Currency

VARCHAR

Hibernate O/R Mapping

o far we have seen very basic O/R mapping using hibernate but there are three most important mapping

topics which we have to learn in detail. These are the mapping of collections, the mapping of associations
between entity classes and Component Mappings.

Collections Mappings
If an entity or class has collection of values for a particular variable, then we can map those values using any one
of the collection interfaces available in java. Hibernate can persist instances ofjava.util.Map, java.util.Set,
java.util.SortedMap, java.util.SortedSet, java.util.List, and any array of persistent entities or values.
Collection type

Mapping and Description

java.util.Set

This is mapped with a <set> element and initialized with java.util.HashSet

java.util.SortedSet

This is mapped with a <set> element and initialized with java.util.TreeSet.

The sort attribute can be set to either a comparator or natural ordering.

java.util.List

This is mapped with a <list> element and initialized with java.util.ArrayList

java.util.Collection

This is mapped with a <bag> or <ibag> element and initialized with

java.util.ArrayList

java.util.Map

This is mapped with a <map> element and initialized with

java.util.HashMap

java.util.SortedMap

This is mapped with a <map> element and initialized with

java.util.TreeMap. The sort attribute can be set to either a comparator or
natural ordering.

Arrays are supported by Hibernate with <primitive-array> for Java primitive value types and <array> for everything
else. However, they are rarely used so I'm not going to discuss them in this tutorial.
If you want to map a user defined collection interfaces which is not directly supported by Hibernate, you need to
tell Hibernate about the semantics of your custom collections which is not very easy and not recommend to be
used.

Hibernate Set Mappings

A Set is a java collection that does not contain any duplicate element. More formally, sets contain no pair of
elements e1 and e2 such that e1.equals(e2), and at most one null element. So objects to be added to a set must

implement both the equals() and hashCode() methods so that Java can determine whether any two
elements/objects are identical.
A Set is mapped with a <set> element in the mapping table and initialized with java.util.HashSet. You can use
Set collection in your class when there is no duplicate element required in the collection.

Define RDBMS Tables

Consider a situation where we need to store our employee records in EMPLOYEE table which will have
following structure:
create table EMPLOYEE (
id INT NOT NULL auto_increment,
first_name VARCHAR(20) default NULL,
last_name VARCHAR(20) default NULL,
salary
INT default NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (id)
);
Further, assume each employee can have one or more certificate associated with him/her. So we will store
certificate related information in a separate table which has following structure:
create table CERTIFICATE (
id INT NOT NULL auto_increment,
certificate_name VARCHAR(30) default
NULL, employee_id INT default NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (id)
);

Define Hibernate Mapping File

Let us develop our mapping file which instructs Hibernate how to map the defined classes to the database tables.
The <set> element will be used to define the rule for Set collection used.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!
DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD//EN"
"http://www.hibernate.org/dtd/hibernate-mapping-3.0.dtd">
<hibernate-mapping>
<class name="Employee" table="EMPLOYEE">
<meta attribute="class-description">

This class contains the employee

detail. </meta>
<id name="id" type="int" column="id">
<generator class="native"/>

</id>
<set name="certificates" cascade="all">
<key column="employee_id"/> <one-tomany class="Certificate"/>
</set>
<property name="firstName" column="first_name" type="string"/>
<property name="lastName" column="last_name" type="string"/>
<property name="salary" column="salary" type="int"/>

</class>

<class name="Certificate" table="CERTIFICATE">

<meta attribute="class-description">

This class contains the certificate

records. </meta>

<id name="id" type="int" column="id">

<generator class="native"/>

</id>
<property name="name" column="certificate_name" type="string"/>
</class>
</hibernate-mapping>

You should save the mapping document in a file with the format <classname>.hbm.xml. We saved our mapping
document in the file Employee.hbm.xml. You are already familiar with most of the mapping detail but let us see all
the elements of mapping file once again:
The mapping document is an XML document having <hibernate-mapping> as the root element which
contains two <class> elements corresponding to each class.
The <class> elements are used to define specific mappings from a Java classes to the database tables. The
Java class name is specified using the name attribute of the class element and the database table name is
specified using the table attribute.
The <meta> element is optional element and can be used to create the class description.

The <id> element maps the unique ID attribute in class to the primary key of the database table. The name
attribute of the id element refers to the property in the class and the column attribute refers to the column in
the database table. The type attribute holds the hibernate mapping type, this mapping types will convert from
Java to SQL data type.

The <generator> element within the id element is used to automatically generate the primary key values. Set

the class attribute of the generator element is set to native to let hibernate pick up either identity, sequence
or hilo algorithm to create primary key depending upon the capabilities of the underlying database.

The <property> element is used to map a Java class property to a column in the database table. The name
attribute of the element refers to the property in the class and the column attribute refers to the column in the
database table. The type attribute holds the hibernate mapping type, this mapping types will convert from
Java to SQL data type.

The <set> element is new here and has been introduced to set the relationship between Certificate and

Employee classes. We used the cascade attribute in the <set> element to tell Hibernate to persist the
Certificate objects at the same time as the Employee objects. The nameattribute is set to the defined Set
variable in the parent class, in our case it is certificates. For each set variable, we need to define a separate
set element in the mapping file.
The <key> element is the column in the CERTIFICATE table that holds the foreign key to the parent object ie.
table EMPLOYEE.
The <one-to-many> element indicates that one Employee object relates to many Certificate objects and, as
such, the Certificate object must have a Employee parent associated with it. You can use either <one-toone>, <many-to-one> or <many-to-many> elements based on your requirement.

Hibernate SortedSet Mappings

A SortedSet is a java collection that does not contain any duplicate element and elements are ordered using
their natural ordering or by a comparator provided.
A SortedSet is mapped with a <set> element in the mapping table and initialized with java.util.TreeSet. The
sort attribute can be set to either a comparator or natural ordering. If we use natural ordering then its iterator
will traverse the set in ascending element order.

Define RDBMS Tables

Consider a situation where we need to store our employee records in EMPLOYEE table which will have
following structure:
create table EMPLOYEE (
id INT NOT NULL auto_increment,
first_name VARCHAR(20) default NULL,
last_name VARCHAR(20) default NULL,
salary
INT default NULL,

);

PRIMARY KEY (id)

Further, assume each employee can have one or more certificate associated with him/her. So we will store
certificate related information in a separate table which has following structure:
create table CERTIFICATE (
id INT NOT NULL auto_increment,
certificate_name VARCHAR(30) default
NULL, employee_id INT default NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (id)
);

Hibernate List Mappings

A List is a java collection that stores elements in sequence and allow duplicate elements. The user of this
interface has precise control over where in the list each element is inserted. The user can access elements by
their integer index, and search for elements in the list. More formally, lists typically allow pairs of elements e1
and e2 such that e1.equals(e2), and they typically allow multiple null elements if they allow null elements at all.
A List is mapped with a <list> element in the mapping table and initialized with java.util.ArrayList.

Define RDBMS Tables

Consider a situation where we need to store our employee records in EMPLOYEE table which will have
following structure:
create table EMPLOYEE (
id INT NOT NULL auto_increment,
first_name VARCHAR(20) default NULL,
last_name VARCHAR(20) default NULL,
salary
INT default NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (id)
);
Further, assume each employee can have one or more certificate associated with him/her. A List collection
mapping needs an index column in the collection table. The index column defines the position of the element in
the collection. So we will store certificate related information in a separate table which has following structure:
create table CERTIFICATE (
id INT NOT NULL auto_increment,
certificate_name VARCHAR(30) default NULL,
idx INT default NULL,
employee_id INT default NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (id)
);
There will be one-to-many relationship between EMPLOYEE and CERTIFICATE objects.

Define POJO Classes

Let us implement a POJO class Employee which will be used to persist the objects related to EMPLOYEE table
and having a collection of certificates in List variable.
import java.util.*;
public class Employee
{ private int id;
private String firstName;
private String lastName;
private int salary;
private List certificates;

public Employee() {}
public Employee(String fname, String lname, int salary) {
this.firstName = fname;
this.lastName = lname;
this.salary = salary;
}
public int getId() {
return id;
}
public void setId( int id ) {
this.id = id;
}
public String getFirstName() {
return firstName;
}
public void setFirstName( String first_name ) {
this.firstName = first_name;
}
public String getLastName() {
return lastName;
}
public void setLastName( String last_name ) {
this.lastName = last_name;
}
public int getSalary() {
return salary;
}
public void setSalary( int salary ) {
this.salary = salary;
}
public List getCertificates() {
return certificates;
}
public void setCertificates( List certificates ) {
this.certificates = certificates;
}
}
We need to define another POJO class corresponding to CERTIFICATE table so that certificate objects can be
stored and retrieved into the CERTIFICATE table.
public class Certificate{
private int id;
private String name;
public Certificate() {}
public Certificate(String name)
{ this.name = name;
}
public int getId() {
return id;
}
public void setId( int id ) {
this.id = id;
}
public String getName() {
return name;
}
public void setName( String name ) {
this.name = name;
}
}

Define Hibernate Mapping File

Let us develop our mapping file which instructs Hibernate how to map the defined classes to the database tables.
The <list> element will be used to define the rule for List collection used. The index of list is always of type integer
and is mapped using the <list-index> element.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!
DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD//EN"
"http://www.hibernate.org/dtd/hibernate-mapping-3.0.dtd">
<hibernate-mapping>
<class name="Employee" table="EMPLOYEE">
<meta attribute="class-description">

This class contains the employee

detail. </meta>
<id name="id" type="int" column="id">
<generator class="native"/>

</id>
<list name="certificates" cascade="all">
<key column="employee_id"/> <listindex column="idx"/> <one-to-many
class="Certificate"/>
</list>
<property name="firstName" column="first_name" type="string"/>
<property name="lastName" column="last_name" type="string"/>
<property name="salary" column="salary" type="int"/>

</class>

<class name="Certificate" table="CERTIFICATE">

<meta attribute="class-description">

This class contains the certificate

records. </meta>
<id name="id" type="int" column="id">
<generator class="native"/>

</id>
<property name="name" column="certificate_name" type="string"/>
</class>
</hibernate-mapping>

You should save the mapping document in a file with the format <classname>.hbm.xml. We saved our mapping
document in the file Employee.hbm.xml. You are already familiar with most of the mapping detail but let us see all
the elements of mapping file once again:
The mapping document is an XML document having <hibernate-mapping> as the root element which
contains two <class> elements corresponding to each class.
The <class> elements are used to define specific mappings from a Java classes to the database tables. The
Java class name is specified using the name attribute of the class element and the database table name is
specified using the table attribute.
The <meta> element is optional element and can be used to create the class description.

The <id> element maps the unique ID attribute in class to the primary key of the database table. The name
attribute of the id element refers to the property in the class and the column attribute refers to the column in
the database table. The type attribute holds the hibernate mapping type, this mapping types will convert from
Java to SQL data type.

The <generator> element within the id element is used to automatically generate the primary key values. Set
the class attribute of the generator element is set to native to let hibernate pick up either identity,

sequence or hilo algorithm to create primary key depending upon the capabilities of the underlying database.

The <property> element

is used to map a Java class property to a column in the database table.
The name attribute of the element refers to the property in the class and the column attribute refers to the
column in the database table. The type attribute holds the hibernate mapping type, this mapping types will
convert from Java to SQL data type.
The <list> element is used to set the relationship between Certificate and Employee classes. We used
the cascade attribute in the <list> element to tell Hibernate to persist the Certificate objects at the same time
as the Employee objects. The name attribute is set to the defined Listvariable in the parent class, in our case
it is certificates.
The <key> element is the column in the CERTIFICATE table that holds the foreign key to the parent object ie.
table EMPLOYEE.
The <list-index> element is used to keep the position of the element and map with the index column in the
collection table. The index of the persistent list starts at zero. You could change this, for example, with <listindex base="1".../> in your mapping.
The <one-to-many> element indicates that one Employee object relates to many Certificate objects and, as
such, the Certificate object must have a Employee parent associated with it. You can use either <one-to-one>,
<many-to-one> or <many-to-many> elements based on your requirement. If we changed this example to use
a many-to-many relationship, we would need an association table to map between the parent and the child
objects.

Create Application Class

Finally, we will create our application class with the main() method to run the application. We will use this
application to save few Employee's records alongwith their certificates and then we will apply CRUD operations on
those records.
import java.util.*;
import org.hibernate.HibernateException;
import org.hibernate.Session;

import org.hibernate.Transaction;
import org.hibernate.SessionFactory;

import org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration;
public class ManageEmployee {
private static SessionFactory factory;
public static void main(String[] args) {

try{

factory = new Configuration().configure().buildSessionFactory(); }

catch (Throwable ex) {

System.err.println("Failed to create sessionFactory object." + ex);

throw new ExceptionInInitializerError(ex);

}
ManageEmployee ME = new ManageEmployee();
/* Let us have a set of certificates for the first employee */
ArrayList set1 = new ArrayList();
set1.add(new
Certificate("MCA"));
set1.add(new
Certificate("MBA"));
set1.add(new Certificate("PMP"));

/* Add employee records in the database */

Integer empID1 = ME.addEmployee("Manoj", "Kumar", 4000, set1);
/* Another set of certificates for the second employee */
ArrayList set2 = new ArrayList();
set2.add(new Certificate("BCA"));
set2.add(new Certificate("BA"));

/* Add another employee record in the database */

Integer empID2 = ME.addEmployee("Dilip", "Kumar", 3000, set2);
/* List down all the employees
*/ ME.listEmployees();
/* Update employee's salary records
*/ ME.updateEmployee(empID1, 5000);
/* Delete an employee from the database
*/ ME.deleteEmployee(empID2);
/* List down all the employees
*/ ME.listEmployees();
}
/* Method to add an employee record in the database */
public Integer addEmployee(String fname, String lname,
int salary, ArrayList cert)
{ Session session = factory.openSession();
Transaction tx = null;
Integer employeeID = null;
try{
tx = session.beginTransaction();
Employee employee = new Employee(fname, lname, salary);
employee.setCertificates(cert);
employeeID = (Integer) session.save(employee);
tx.commit();
}catch (HibernateException e) {
if (tx!=null) tx.rollback();
e.printStackTrace();
}finally {
session.close();
}
return employeeID;
}
/* Method to list all the employees detail */
public void listEmployees( ){
Session session = factory.openSession();
Transaction tx = null;

try{
tx = session.beginTransaction();
List employees = session.createQuery("FROM Employee").list();
for (Iterator iterator1 =
employees.iterator(); iterator1.hasNext();){
Employee employee = (Employee) iterator1.next();
System.out.print("First Name: " + employee.getFirstName());
System.out.print(" Last Name: " + employee.getLastName());
System.out.println(" Salary: " + employee.getSalary()); List
certificates = employee.getCertificates();

for (Iterator iterator2 =

certificates.iterator(); iterator2.hasNext();){
Certificate certName = (Certificate) iterator2.next();
System.out.println("Certificate: " + certName.getName());
}
}
tx.commit();
}catch (HibernateException e) {
if (tx!=null) tx.rollback();
e.printStackTrace();
}finally {
session.close();
}
}
/* Method to update salary for an employee */
public void updateEmployee(Integer EmployeeID, int salary )
{ Session session = factory.openSession();
Transaction tx =
null; try{
tx = session.beginTransaction();
Employee employee =
(Employee)session.get(Employee.class, EmployeeID);
employee.setSalary( salary );
session.update(employee);
tx.commit();

}catch (HibernateException e) {
if (tx!=null) tx.rollback();
e.printStackTrace();
}finally {
session.close();
}
}
/* Method to delete an employee from the records */
public void deleteEmployee(Integer EmployeeID){
Session session = factory.openSession();
Transaction tx = null;
try{
tx = session.beginTransaction();
Employee employee =
(Employee)session.get(Employee.class, EmployeeID);
session.delete(employee);
tx.commit();
}catch (HibernateException e) {
if (tx!=null) tx.rollback();
e.printStackTrace();
}finally {
session.close();
}
}
}

Compilation and Execution

Here are the steps to compile and run the above mentioned application. Make sure you have set PATH and
CLASSPATH appropriately before proceeding for the compilation and execution.
Create hibernate.cfg.xml configuration file as explained in configuration chapter.

Create Employee.hbm.xml mapping file as shown above.

Create Employee.java source file as shown above and compile it.
Create Certificate.java source file as shown above and compile it.
Create ManageEmployee.java source file as shown above and compile it.
Execute ManageEmployee binary to run the program.
You would get following result on the screen, and same time records would be created in EMPLOYEE and
CERTIFICATE tables. You can see certificates has been sorted in reverse order. You can try by changing your
mapping file, simply set sort="natural" and execute your program and compare the results.
$java ManageEmployee
.......VARIOUS LOG MESSAGES WILL DISPLAY HERE........
First Name: Manoj
Certificate: MCA
Certificate: MBA
Certificate: PMP
First Name: Dilip
Certificate: BCA
Certificate: BA
First Name: Manoj
Certificate: MCA
Certificate: MBA
Certificate: PMP

Last Name: Kumar

Salary: 4000

Last Name: Kumar

Salary: 3000

Last Name: Kumar

Salary: 5000

If you check your EMPLOYEE and CERTIFICATE tables, they should have following records:
select*
mysql>

from

EMPLOYEE;

-------

---+
----+
+
first_
| id |
----+ ------------+ -----------+
K
u
m
a
| 51 |
|
r
----+ ------------+ -----------+
1
row in set (0.00 sec)
name |

mysql>
select* from CERTIFICATE;
----------------+
-----+
-----+
| id |
certificate_name | idx
----------------+
-----+
-----+
|
|
|
|
|
|
+---- +----------------------+
inset
3
sec
6 |
7 |
8 |

rows

+
--------+
last_name | salary |
+
--------+

|
--------+

5000 |
+

+
| employee_id |

-------------+

-------------+

0 |
1 |
2 |
+-------------

+
51 |
51 |
51 |
+

0.00

mysql>
Alternatively, you could map a Java array instead of a list. A array mapping is virtually identical to the previous
example, except with different element and attribute names (<array> and <array-index>). However, for reasons
explained earlier, Hibernate applications rarely use arrays.

Hibernate Interceptors

s you have learnt that in Hibernate, an object will be created and persisted. Once the object has been

changed, it must be saved back to the database. This process continues until the next time the object is needed,
and it will be loaded from the persistent store.
Thus an object passes through different stages in its life cycle and Interceptor Interface provides methods which
can be called at different stages to perform some required tasks. These methods are callbacks from the session
to the application, allowing the application to inspect and/or manipulate properties of a persistent object before it is
saved, updated, deleted or loaded. Following is the list of all the methods available within the Interceptor interface:
S.N. Method and Description
1

findDirty()
This method is be called when the flush() method is called on a Session object.

instantiate()
This method is called when a persisted class is instantiated.

isUnsaved()
This method is called when an object is passed to the saveOrUpdate() method/

onDelete()
This method is called before an object is deleted.

onFlushDirty()
5 This method is called when Hibernate detects that an object is dirty (ie. have been
changed) during a flush i.e. update operation.
6

onLoad()
This method is called before an object is initialized.

onSave()
This method is called before an object is saved.

postFlush()
8 This method is called after a flush has occurred and an object has been updated in
memory.
9

preFlush()
This method is called before a flush.

Hibernate Interceptor gives us total control over how an object will look to both the application and the database.

How to use Interceptors?

To build an interceptor you can either implement Interceptor class directly or extend EmptyInterceptorclass.
Following will be the simple steps to use Hibernate Interceptor functionality.

Create Interceptors
We will extend EmptyInterceptor in our example where Interceptor's method will be called automatically when
Employee object is created and updated. You can implement more methods as per your requirements.
import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.Date; import
java.util.Iterator;
import org.hibernate.EmptyInterceptor;
import org.hibernate.Transaction; import
org.hibernate.type.Type;

public class MyInterceptor extends EmptyInterceptor

{ private int updates;
private int creates;
private int loads;
public void onDelete(Object entity,
Serializable id,
Object[] state, String[]
propertyNames, Type[]
types) {

// do nothing

}
// This method is called when Employee object gets updated.
public boolean onFlushDirty(Object entity,
Serializable id,
Object[] currentState,
Object[] previousState,
String[] propertyNames,
Type[] types) {
if ( entity instanceof Employee ) {
System.out.println("Update
Operation"); return true;
}
return false;
}
public boolean onLoad(Object entity,
Serializable id,
Object[] state, String[]
propertyNames, Type[]
types) {
// do nothing
return true;

}
// This method is called when Employee object gets created.
public boolean onSave(Object entity,
Serializable id,
Object[] state,
String[] propertyNames,
Type[] types) {
if ( entity instanceof Employee ) {
System.out.println("Create
Operation"); return true;
}
return false;
}
//called before commit into database
public void preFlush(Iterator iterator) {
System.out.println("preFlush");

}
//called after committed into database
public void postFlush(Iterator iterator) {
System.out.println("postFlush");
}
}

Create POJO Classes

Now let us modify a little bit our first example where we used EMPLOYEE table and Employee class to play with:
public class Employee
{ private int id;
private String firstName;
private String lastName;
private int salary;

public Employee() {}
public Employee(String fname, String lname, int salary) {
this.firstName = fname;
this.lastName = lname;
this.salary = salary;
}
public int getId() {
return id;
}
public void setId( int id ) {
this.id = id;
}
public String getFirstName() {
return firstName;
}
public void setFirstName( String first_name ) {
this.firstName = first_name;
}
public String getLastName() {
return lastName;
}
public void setLastName( String last_name ) {
this.lastName = last_name;
}
public int getSalary() {
return salary;
}
public void setSalary( int salary ) {
this.salary = salary;
}
}

Create Database Tables

Second step would be creating tables in your database. There would be one table corresponding to each object
you are willing to provide persistence. Consider above objects need to be stored and retrieved into the following
RDBMS table:
create table EMPLOYEE (
id INT NOT NULL auto_increment,
first_name VARCHAR(20) default NULL,

);

last_name VARCHAR(20) default NULL,

salary INT default NULL, PRIMARY KEY
(id)

Create Mapping Configuration File

This step is to create a mapping file that instructs Hibernate how to map the defined class or classes to the
database tables.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC

"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD//EN"

"http://www.hibernate.org/dtd/hibernate-mapping-3.0.dtd">

<hibernate-mapping>
<class name="Employee" table="EMPLOYEE">
<meta attribute="class-description">
This class contains the employee detail.

</meta>

<id name="id" type="int" column="id">

<generator class="native"/>

</id>

<property name="firstName" column="first_name" type="string"/>

<property name="lastName" column="last_name" type="string"/>
<property name="salary" column="salary" type="int"/>
</class>
</hibernate-mapping>

Create Application Class

Finally, we will create our application class with the main() method to run the application. Here it should be noted
that while creating session object we used our Interceptor class as an argument.
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Iterator;
import org.hibernate.HibernateException;
import org.hibernate.Session;
import org.hibernate.Transaction; import
org.hibernate.SessionFactory; import
org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration;

public class ManageEmployee {

private static SessionFactory factory;
public static void main(String[] args) {

try{

factory = new Configuration().configure().buildSessionFactory(); }

catch (Throwable ex) {

System.err.println("Failed to create sessionFactory object." + ex);

throw new ExceptionInInitializerError(ex);

ManageEmployee ME = new ManageEmployee();

/* Add few employee records in database */
Integer empID1 = ME.addEmployee("Zara", "Ali", 1000);
Integer empID2 = ME.addEmployee("Daisy", "Das", 5000);
Integer empID3 = ME.addEmployee("John", "Paul", 10000);

/* List down all the employees

*/ ME.listEmployees();
/* Update employee's records */
ME.updateEmployee(empID1, 5000);

/* Delete an employee from the database

*/ ME.deleteEmployee(empID2);
/* List down new list of the employees */
ME.listEmployees();
}
/* Method to CREATE an employee in the database */
public Integer addEmployee(String fname, String lname, int salary)
{ Session session = factory.openSession( new MyInterceptor() );
Transaction tx = null;
Integer employeeID = null;
try{
tx = session.beginTransaction();
Employee employee = new Employee(fname, lname, salary);
employeeID = (Integer) session.save(employee);
tx.commit();
}catch (HibernateException e) {
if (tx!=null) tx.rollback();
e.printStackTrace();
}finally {
session.close();
}
return employeeID;
}
/* Method to READ all the employees */
public void listEmployees( ){
Session session = factory.openSession( new MyInterceptor() );
Transaction tx = null;
try{
tx = session.beginTransaction();
List employees = session.createQuery("FROM Employee").list();
for (Iterator iterator =
employees.iterator(); iterator.hasNext();){
Employee employee = (Employee) iterator.next();
System.out.print("First Name: " + employee.getFirstName());
System.out.print(" Last Name: " + employee.getLastName());
System.out.println(" Salary: " + employee.getSalary());

}
tx.commit();
}catch (HibernateException e) {
if (tx!=null) tx.rollback();
e.printStackTrace();
}finally {
session.close();
}
}
/* Method to UPDATE salary for an employee */
public void updateEmployee(Integer EmployeeID, int salary ){
Session session = factory.openSession( new MyInterceptor() );
Transaction tx = null;
try{
tx = session.beginTransaction();
Employee employee =
(Employee)session.get(Employee.class, EmployeeID);
employee.setSalary( salary );

session.update(employee);
tx.commit();

}catch (HibernateException e) {
if (tx!=null) tx.rollback();
e.printStackTrace();
}finally {
session.close();
}
}
/* Method to DELETE an employee from the records */
public void deleteEmployee(Integer EmployeeID){
Session session = factory.openSession( new MyInterceptor() );
Transaction tx = null;
try{
tx = session.beginTransaction();
Employee employee =
(Employee)session.get(Employee.class, EmployeeID);
session.delete(employee);
tx.commit();
}catch (HibernateException e) {
if (tx!=null) tx.rollback();
e.printStackTrace();
}finally {
session.close();
}
}
}

Compilation and Execution

Here are the steps to compile and run the above mentioned application. Make sure you have set PATH and
CLASSPATH appropriately before proceeding for the compilation and execution.
Create hibernate.cfg.xml configuration file as explained in configuration chapter.
Create Employee.hbm.xml mapping file as shown above.
Create Employee.java source file as shown above and compile it.
Create MyInterceptor.java source file as shown above and compile it.
Create ManageEmployee.java source file as shown above and compile it.
Execute ManageEmployee binary to run the program.
You would get following result, and records would be created in EMPLOYEE table.
$java ManageEmployee
.......VARIOUS LOG MESSAGES WILL DISPLAY HERE........
Create Operation
preFlush
postFlush Create
Operation
preFlush
postFlush Create
Operation
preFlush
postFlush
First Name: Zara Last Name: Ali Salary: 1000
First Name: Daisy Last Name: Das Salary: 5000

First Name: John

preFlush
postFlush
preFlush
Update Operation
postFlush
preFlush
postFlush
First Name: Zara
First Name: John
preFlush
postFlush

Last Name: Paul

Salary: 10000

Last Name: Ali Salary: 5000

Last Name: Paul Salary: 10000

If you check your EMPLOYEE table, it should have following records:

mysql> select * from EMPLOYEE;
+----

+------------

+-----------

| id | first_name | last_name
-----------------+
+
-+
| 29 | Zara
| Ali
| 31 | John
| Paul
-----------------+
+
-+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec
mysql>

+
| salary |
+--------

------+
+
|
5000 |
|
10000 |

------+