Converting a class for use in a jsp page.

Question

I was just wondering if it is possible/normal to convert complex(ish) classes to change the output from the system.out, to a return value from a method that is displayed via a jsp page. (I am just beginning, and trying to make the coversion from asp with COM to jsp with beans/servlets and I am not yet fully understanding the technologies, and how you import classes etc - please bear with me!)
first, I made a class that has a method that just returns a string. like:
     public String GetAValue()
          return "Hello there.";
     }and then I made a jsp page that imported the class (test) like:
<%@ page import="Test" %>
<jsp:useBean id="tst" scope="page" class="Test" />
st = tst.GetAValue();
out.println(st);
Which to my delight, worked fine! Then I made another class that retrieved a value from a web service. kind of like...
     public String GetAValueFromAWebService(){
          return theWebService.GetValueFromWebServiceMethod();
     }This class also works good when I just run via "java testit". But when I went to do the same as above ,ie, import the class, do a usebean then do st=tst2.GetValueFromWebServiceMethod(), I could not get it to work at all. This class does lots more tricky stuff then the first one though - it loads its properties from a .properties file via an instance of another class, and imports funky stuff like - import org.uddi4j.* and import java.util.Vector; and more.
Ok, now the question! Is what I am trying to do stupid? If so, how should I do it? If its not stupid, how do I include all the extra import statements on the jsp page (there are about 10)
Wow, sorry about the length of this post. I hope someone can understand my ramblings!
Thanks,
nmoog.

Answer 1

Sorry, yeah...
I am actually using the UDDI4J package, and it loads various settings with the
config = Configurator.load(); (a seperate class to load stuff in with)
The Configurator.Load method basically just does:
config.load(new java.io.FileInputStream("samples.prop"));
and then does System.setProperty() with the config.getProperty()
values.
I have a test class when I do "java Test" it runs and in the Main method just instantiates the MyWebService class and does the MyWebService.GetAWebServiceValue() which returns a string.
As I said, this runs fine. But from the JSP code if I do the same thing it gets a NullPointerException.
"java.lang.NullPointerException
at java.util.Hashtable.put(Hashtable.java:389)
at java.util.Properties.setProperty(Properties.java:102)
at java.lang.System.setProperty(System.java:654)
at Configurator.load(Configurator.java:43)"
Why can it load okie-dokey from the test class, but not the jsp page? Any ideas?