Declaring global variables in JSP

[Krysty Sullivan]

I need to have a string var declared in default.jsp page and the string var has to be accessible in the other jsp pages. Using the "public" modifier doesn't seem to work.
//var declaration in default.jsp
<% public String X="";
X += "<begin>";
%>
//accessing in test1.jsp
<% X += "test"; %>
//accessing in test2.jsp
<% X += "<end>"; %>
Thanks.

[David O'Meara]

You need to use the "declarative tag"

<%!
public String myString = "Bob";
%>

Note the exclamation mark...
Dave

[David O'Meara]

where's my brain today?
I also meant to mention that globals are a really bad idea in JSPs and Servlets - they tend to break the thread safety of the classes...
Dave (again).

[Roy Ben Ami]

David, will the use of the declarative tag make the variable available to other JSP ???
i thought it just puts that variable outside the service method, thus making it an instance variable.....

[Bosun Bello]

Roy, you are corect. It doesnot make it available to other JSP pages. It has to be added as an attribute to the session and have the other pages access the variable from the session. it can also be added to the request object and then forward that to the other pages.

[Sean MacLean]

Don't forget that you can use application scope as well, for a truely global 'variable'.
Sean

[Shubhrajit Chatterjee]

And don't forget to make the setter methods of this object synchronized

Originally posted by Sean MacLean:
Don't forget that you can use application scope as well, for a truely global 'variable'.
Sean