JSP Interview Questions and Answers

What is a output comment?

A comment that is sent to the client in the viewable page source. The JSP engine handles an output comment as uninterrupted HTML text, returning the
comment in the HTML output sent to the client. You can see the comment by viewing the page source from your Web browser.

JSP Syntax
<!-- comment [ <%= expression %> ] -->
or
<!-- This is a comment sent to client on
<%= (new java.util.Date()).toLocaleString() %>   -->

What is a Hidden Comment?

A Comments that documents the JSP page but is not sent to the client. The JSP engine ignores a hidden comment, and does not process any code within hidden comment tags. A hidden comment is not sent to the client, either in the displayed JSP page or the HTML page source.

The hidden comment is useful when you want to hide or comment out part of your JSP page. You can use any characters in the body of the comment except the closing --%> combination. If you need to use --%> in your comment, you can escape it by typing --%>.

JSP Syntax :

<%-- comment --%> Examples <%@ page language="java" %>

A Hidden Comment

<%-- This comment will not be visible to the colent in the page source --%>

What is a Expression?

An expression tag 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 text in a JSP file. Like
<%= someexpression %> 
<%= (new java.util.Date()).toLocaleString() %>
You cannot use a semicolon to end an expression 

What is a Declaration?

A declaration declares one or more variables or methods for use later in the JSP source file. 
A declaration must contain at least one complete declarative statement. You can declare any number of variables or methods within one declaration tag, as long as they are separated by semicolons. The declaration must be valid in the scripting language used in the JSP file. 
<%! somedeclarations %>
<%! int i = 0; %>
<%! int a, b, c; %>

What is a Scriptlet?

A scriptlet can contain any number of language statements, variable or method declarations, or expressions that are valid in the page scripting language.Within scriptlet tags, you can 
1.Declare variables or methods to use later in the file (see also Declaration). 
2.Write expressions valid in the page scripting language (see also Expression). 
3.Use any of the JSP implicit objects or any object declared with a <jsp:useBean> tag. 
You must write plain text, HTML-encoded text, or other JSP tags outside the scriptlet. 
Scriptlets are executed at request time, when the JSP engine processes the client request. If the scriptlet produces output, the output is stored in the out object, from which you can display it 

What are implicit objects? List them?

Certain objects that are available for the use in JSP documents without being declared first. These objects are parsed by the JSP engine and inserted into the generated servlet. The implicit objects re listed below
request
response
pageContext
session
application
out
config
page
exception

Difference between forward and sendRedirect?

When you invoke a forward request, the request is sent to another resource on the server, without the client being informed that a different resource is going to process the request. This process occurs completly with in the web container.

When a sendRedirtect method is invoked, it causes the web container to return to the browser indicating that a new URL should be requested. Because the browser issues a completly new request any object that are stored as request attributes before the redirect occurs will be lost. This extra round trip a redirect is slower than forward.

What are the different scope valiues for the ?

The different scope values for <jsp:useBean> are 
1. page
2. request
3. session
4. application

Explain the life-cycle mehtods in JSP?

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

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

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

<% response.setHeader("Cache-Control","no-store"); //HTTP 1.1

response.setHeader("Pragma","no-cache"'); //HTTP 1.0

response.setDateHeader ("Expires", 0);  //prevents caching at the proxy server

%>

How does JSP handle run-time exceptions?

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

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

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

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

A jsp:useBean action may optionally have a body. If the body is specified, its contents will be automatically invoked when the specified bean is instantiated. Typically, the body will contain scriptlets or jsp:setProperty tags to initialize the newly instantiated bean, although you are not restricted to using those alone. 
The following example shows the "today" property of the Foo bean initialized to the current date when it is instantiated. Note that here, we make use of a JSP expression within the jsp:setProperty action. 
<jsp:useBean id="foo" class="com.Bar.Foo" > 
<jsp:setProperty name="foo" property="today" value="<%=java.text.DateFormat.getDateInstance().format(new java.util.Date()) %>" / >
<%-- scriptlets calling bean setter methods go here --%>
</jsp:useBean > 

What's a better approach for enabling thread-safe servlets and JSPs? SingleThreadModel Interface or Synchronization?
Although the SingleThreadModel technique is easy to use, and works well for low volume sites, it does not scale well. If you anticipate your users to increase in the future, you may be better off implementing explicit synchronization for your shared data. The key however, is to effectively minimize the amount of code that is synchronzied so that you take maximum advantage of multithreading. Also, note that SingleThreadModel is pretty resource intensive from the server's perspective. The most serious issue however is when the number of concurrent requests exhaust the servlet instance pool. In that case, all the unserviced requests are queued until something becomes free - which results in poor performance. Since the usage is non-deterministic, it may not help much even if you did add more memory and increased the size of the instance pool.
How can I enable session tracking for JSP pages if the browser has disabled cookies?

We know that session tracking uses cookies by default to associate a session identifier with a unique user. If the browser does not support cookies, or if cookies are disabled, you can still enable session tracking using URL rewriting. URL rewriting essentially includes the session ID within the link itself as a name/value pair. However, for this to be effective, you need to append the session ID for each and every link that is part of your servlet response. Adding the session ID to a link is greatly simplified by means of of a couple of methods: response.encodeURL() associates a session ID with a given URL, and if you are using redirection, response.encodeRedirectURL() can be used by giving the redirected URL as input. Both encodeURL() and encodeRedirectedURL() first determine whether cookies are supported by the browser; if so, the input URL is returned unchanged since the session ID will be persisted as a cookie. 
For example
hello1.jsp
<%@ page session="true" %>
<%
Integer num = new Integer(100); 
session.putValue("num",num); 
String url =response.encodeURL("hello2.jsp"); %>
<a href='<%=url%>'>hello2.jsp</a>
hello2.jsp
<%@ page session="true" %>
<%
Integer i= (Integer )session.getValue("num"); 
out.println("Num value in session is " + i.intValue()); %> 

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

Latest Updates

Indian Geography

What is the approximate distance between earth and the moon?

Indian History

In which year was the battle of ‘Koregaon Bhima’ fought?

The approach that is very useful in organizing the content in history is.

General Knowledge of India

NITI Aayog stands for _____.

General Knowledge of MP

India’s first Ramayan art museum was established at?

Errors Identification

Read the sentence carefully and choose the option that has an error in it:
The management’s trusted employee was suspected of stealing large sum of money.

Read the sentence carefully and choose the option that has an error in it:
The teacher asked the child to repeat again because he spoke feebly.

Fill in the blank

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate preposition in the given sentence.
Let’s sit _________ the shade of this beautiful tree.

Choose the most appropriate determiner for the given sentence.
________of what he said was very sensible.

Substitution

Choose the option that substitutes the given phrase appropriately.
A work of art made by carving

Correct sentence

Choose the option that best transforms the sentence into its Indirect form:
‘What country do you come from?’ said the police officer.

Alternative Phrase

Choose the option that best explains the highlighted expression:
All human beings have feet of clay.

Fill in the blank

Choose an appropriate modal for the given sentence:
My doctor said that I_____ stop smoking as one of my lungs got infected.

Choose the appropriate prepositions for the given sentence:
My parents have been married ________ forty-nine years, but you can still see the love ________ their eyes.

Choose the appropriate conjunction for the given sentence:
______ it rains, the college will declare the holiday.

Antonyms

Choose the appropriate antonym for the highlighted word in the given sentence.
The family protracted their visit by several days.

Tenses

Choose the appropriate tenses to fill in the blanks in the given sentence:
Please _________ a noise. Ritu __________ to sleep.

Synonyms

Choose the appropriate synonym for the highlighted word in the given sentence.
Does he really expect us to believe such a flimsy excuse?