JavaServer Pages, 3rd Edition

Using the <jsp:getProperty> Action

Once you have created a bean and given it a name using the <jsp:useBean> action, you can get the bean’s property values with another JSP standard action, named <jsp:getProperty> . This action obtains the current value of a bean property and inserts it directly into the response body.

To include the current fileName property value in the page, simply use this tag:

<jsp:getProperty name="cartoon" property="fileName" />

The name attribute, set to cartoon, refers to the specific bean instance declared by the <jsp:useBean> action. The <jsp:getProperty> action locates this bean and asks it for the value of the property specified by the property attribute. In Example 6-1, the property value is used as the src attribute value for an HTML <img> element. The result is the page shown in Figure 6-1. The way this bean is implemented, the fileName property value changes every time you access the property; when you reload the page, a different cartoon strip is shown.

Figure 6-1. A JSP page with a dynamically inserted image file (Dilbert © UFS. Reprinted by Permission)

One thing in Example 6-1 may look a bit strange: an element (<jsp:getProperty>) is used as the value of another element’s attribute (the <img> tag’s src attribute). While this isn’t valid HTML syntax, it is valid JSP syntax. Remember that everything that’s not recognized as a JSP element is treated as ...