How to output HTML code in methods without out.print

Question

Hi,
I am trying to create a larger web-site with jsp. At first I tried to structure the page using include files. Since there is a limit for the length of if/else blocks, I now switched to using methods instead.
The Problem I have is that there a larger HTML blocks I dont want to print with out.print because that would make the source unreadable.
Unfortunately the <%= tag doesnt work in methods.
Here a code sample:
<%!
public void processOrder()
for(int i=1; i<10; i++)
out.print("<table>");
out.print("<tr>");
out.print("<td>Your Order:<td>");
%>
Isnt there a way to use a tag like <%= ?
Or are there other constructs then methods which can handle <%= ?
With PHP it would be no problem. So I wonder why there should be no way to do it with jsp.

Answer 1

I generally put dynamic output in a separate class file; you can then either instantiate the class in a scriptlet and call the appropriate method (which can either return a string or do all of your out.prints) or use a jsp:useBean tag.
Given the following class:
public class myHTML {
   public myHTML(){}
   public String renderTable(){
      String s = "";
      s += "<TABLE>\n";
      s += "<TR><TD>some content</TD></TR>\n";
      s += "</TABLE>\n";
      return s;
}You can then do either of the following in your JSP page:
1.<%
   myHTML mh = new myHTML;
   out.print(mh.renderTable());
%>2.<jsp:useBean id="somename" class="somepkg.myHTML" scope="request">
<%=somename.renderTable()%>
</jsp:useBean>Either will work, and all of the redundant out.print or String concat lines are moved out of the JSP.