Automatically include a JSP in every JSP

Question

Hi all,

I would like to simplify my JSP's even further by transparently including them. For instance, this is the line I would like to remove:

<%@ include file="/jsp/common/include.jsp"%>

The include.jsp file basically declares all the tag libraries I am using. I am running this on WebSphere 6.0.2 I believe and have already tried this configuration:

<!--    Include this for every JSP page so we can strip an extra line from the JSP -->
    <jsp-config>
     <jsp-property-group>
      <url-pattern>*.htm</url-pattern>
      <!--<include-prelude>/jsp/common/include.jsp</include-prelude>-->
      <include-coda>/jsp/common/include.jsp</include-coda>
     </jsp-property-group>
    </jsp-config>

Both the include-prelude and include-coda did not work.

I was reading that other WebSphere users were not able to get this up and running; however, tomcat users were able to.

Please advise.

Thanks, Walter

Answer 1

I'm not sure which version of the Servlet spec this was introduced... is it possible that Websphere's servlet container doesn't support it?

Either way, for this sort of task there's a much nicer 3rd-party tool called SiteMesh. It allows you to compose pages in exactly the sort of way you describe, but in a very flexible way. Recommended.

Answer 2

You could try writing a Filter that calls

getRequestDispatch( "path-to-jsp-to-include" ).include( req, res )

Answer 3

The jsp-property-group was introduced in JSP 2.0 (i.o.w. Servlet 2.4). Websphere 6.0 is Servlet 2.3.

So you have 3 options:

1. Forget it.
2. Upgrade Websphere.
3. Replace Websphere.