In a JSP having a problem using out.println in method

Question

I am trying to update a field on a form using JAVASCRIPT generated by JSP. The following code works fine when in the main body of the code.
The field tota on form mainform is updated based on the contents of strTest.
out.println("<SCRIPT LANGUAGE='JavaScript'>")
out.println("document.mainform.tota.value = " + strTest);
out.println("document.mainform.tota.focus()");
out.println("</SCRIPT>");
But if you have 10 flds that you want updated, it would be nice NOT to have to use 40 lines of code to do it. I am trying to build a method that will accept a field name and some data to put in a form field. I started small and just wanted to update 1 fld using the method below:
<%!
//Declare method to update form fields
void Update_Frm_Fld()
out.println("<SCRIPT LANGUAGE='JavaScript'>")
out.println("document.mainform.tota.value = " + strTest);
out.println("document.mainform.tota.focus()");
out.println("</SCRIPT>");
%>
I keep getting the error:
Time_Entry_jsp.java:21: cannot resolve symbol
symbol : variable out
location: class org.apache.jsp.Time_Entry_jsp
out.println("");
^
Help.....

Answer 1

try this:
<%@ page import="java.io.*" %>
<%!
//Declare method to update form fields
public void Update_Frm_Fld(HttpServletResponse response)
     throws ServletException, IOException{
          PrintWriter out=response.getWriter();
          out.println("<SCRIPT LANGUAGE='JavaScript'>");
          out.println("document.mainform.tota.value = "+1);
          out.println("document.mainform.tota.focus()");
          out.println("</SCRIPT>");
%>and when you call the function use this:
<%Update(response);%>