How do I add an included jsp to my project and not get a compile error?

Question

Hi,
I have a project with some included jsp's however if I add them to the project, when I build I get a compile error as the jsp uses variables from the calling jsp.
Any ideas on how to get round this.
Thanks
DM

Answer 1

There are two main ways that I deal with this problem (yeah, it sucks, but it sort of makes sense that it happens...) (I presume you're talking static include here...)
#1 - name the included file with an extension that JDev will not try to compile (.jspf - for JSP Fragment - is common) Then it will be compiled in with the including page, but won't gag the project compilation. Advantage - it works, and you find out at compile time if you hosed up the variable reference. Disadvantage: JDev tries really, really, really hard to keep you from naming a JSP file with an extension of .jspf I normally create the .jsp file in JDev, remove it from the project, rename the file outside of JDeveloper, then add it back to the project - pain in the butt, but it works (and you probably aren't building scads of these included files...)
#2 - add the variable to be referenced to the pageContext implicit object as an attribute in your including page (ex, <% pageContext.setAttribute("myVar", myVar); %>), then reference that attribute in your included JSP (ex, <%= pageContext.getAttribute("myVar") %>) . It will compile fine (as the compiler has no way of knowing if the pageContext attribute actually exists, it just sees that the syntax is good and motors along merrily. Advantage: don't have to have differently named JSP files (which isn't actually a big deal). Disadvantage: You hvae to add the variable to the pageContext (and you have to always add Object derivatives, as primitives won't go into a hash) and you don't find out if you screwed the variable up until runtime (when it tries the getAttribute, which could return null if you didn't properly set it to start with) vs at compile-time w/ the direct reference.
HTH!
Jim