JSP Scripting Element

JSP Declarations

A JSP declaration lets us define methods or fields that get inserted into the main body of the servlet class (outside of the service method processing the request).

It has the following form:

<%! Java Code %>

Since declarations do not generate any output, they are normally used in conjunction with JSP expressions or scriptlets.

For example, here is a JSP fragment that prints out the number of times the current page has been requested since the server booted (or the servlet class was changed and reloaded):

<%! private int accessCount = 0; %> Accesses to page since server reboot: <%= ++accessCount %>

As with scriptlets, if we want to use the characters "%>", enter "%\>" instead.

Finally, note that the XML equivalent of <%! Code %> is :

<jsp:scriptlet> Code </jsp:scriptlet>