How the Sun Java Forums Work (Briefly)

Question

I am wondering if anyone could give me a brief overview of how the Java sun forums work -- esp. when someone creates a new thread.
How exactly does the JSP know to link to that thread? Is it generating a unique ID from the database or using it's own custom code? How does it point to that thread? (I'm SO FRUSTRATED. I've tried to figure this one out for about a MONTH.)
I've started to create a help desk, where it takes form data and posts it to the database. (That issue solved.) The database assigns it a unique ID -- primary key. I'm having trouble displaying the problem record for that ticket ID. (I'm new to Java and really been pulling my hair over this one for about a month.)
Let me go into some more detail:
I have these form objects:
- Name
- Technical Summary
- Severity
- Problem
This is a standard html form page. The standard html page posts to a JSP page, where the JSP page uses a prepared statement to insert the form data into the database. The query page, (query.jsp) has a table, which only shows TicketID, Name, Technical Summary, and Severity. Obviously, the TicketID is an int and generated by the DB, as 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on...
So if someone created an issue it'd be assigned a unique ticket id. Note that from the query page, it DOES not show the problem. I WANT there to be a link to get the problem record in that row.
If anyone could help me out with this one, that would be great.

Answer 1

Below is the CORE JSP Query Code. Obviously, I did NOT post the HTML b/c that would look **REALLY** weird. Any help on resolving my problem, would relly be helpful! Please hep! :)
<%@ page import="java.sql.*"%>
<%
String first_name = user.getFirstName();
String last_name = user.getLastName();
%>
<%
String userid = user.getUserId();
%>
<%
Connection conn = null;
Statement stmt = null;
ResultSet rs = null;
try {
Class.forName ("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
conn = DriverManager.getConnection( "jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/helpdesk", "root", "password" );
stmt = conn.createStatement ();
rs = stmt.executeQuery ("SELECT * FROM history WHERE userid = '"+userid+"' ");
%>
<% while( rs.next() ){%>
<%
int ticketid = rs.getInt("ticketid");
String technical_subject = rs.getString("technical_subject");
session.setAttribute("technical_subject", technical_subject);
%>
<TR>
<TD width="76" align="center">
               <font face="Arial" style="font-size: 8pt"> <%out.println(ticketid);%> </font></TD>
               <TD align="center" width="131">
               <font face="Arial" style="font-size: 8pt"> <%=rs.getString("severity")%> </font></TD>
               <TD align="center">
               <font face="Arial" style="font-size: 8pt"> <%=rs.getString("issue_type")%> </font></TD>
               <TD align="center">
               <font face="Arial" style="font-size: 8pt"> <%out.println(technical_subject);%> </font></TD>
               <TD align="center">
               <font face="Arial" style="font-size: 8pt; font-weight: 700">View
               Complete Issue</font></TD>
</TR>
<%}%>
</TABLE>
</BODY>
</HTML>
<%
}catch
     (Exception e){
out.println("There was an exception. Stack trace will be printed to the error log.");
e.printStackTrace();
System.out.println ("A fatal exception occured when fetching the database results. See the stack trace error for more information. Verify you are requesteting the correct data type");
}finally{
//this is important. You should close all three to free up resources. Always. In a finally block.
rs.close();
stmt.close();
conn.close();
%>