JSP problem - please help

I have been pulling my hair out for way too long on this one - 4 hours for
something that's supposed to be "simple"
Here goes--
I've written a login JSP page. It's supposed to say "Hi,Foobar" whenever the
login name is _equal_ to the password but it only does this the first time I
enter the page, not subsequent times. And it's supposed to just print "Hi, "
below the form whenever they're not equal. It does this all the time though.
What could be the problem?
Here's the JSP with the form in it -- login.jsp --
<jsp:useBean id="abean" scope="session" class="LoginHandler" />
<jsp:setProperty name="abean" property="*" />
<html>
<head>
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<form name="logon" method="post">
<p>Login
<input type="text" name="login">
</p>
<p>Password
<input type="password" name="pass">
</p>
<p>
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit">
</p>
</form>
<h1>Hello, <% if (abean.getAuthenticate()) out.println("Foobar"); %>
</h1>
</body>
</html>
Now here's the class 'LoginHandler':
--LoginHandler.java--
public class LoginHandler {
String login;
String pass;
boolean authenticate;
public LoginHandler() {
login = null;
pass = null;
}
public void setLogin(String name ) {
login = name;
}
public String getLogin() {
return login;
}
public void setPassword(String password) {
pass = password;
}
public String getPass() {
return pass;
}
public boolean getAuthenticate() {
return (login==pass);
}
}

"a m",
The Java Ranch has thousands of visitors every week, many with surprisingly similar names. To avoid confusion we have a naming convention, described at http://www.javaranch.com/name.jsp . We require names to have at least two words, separated by a space, and strongly recommend that you use your full real name. Please choose a new name which meets the requirements.
Thanks.

Hello,
There are two bugs in ur program .
1) u have set the property of password as setPass() and not setPassword()
2)U have to make use of equals method and not == in the authenticate method which returns the boolean value.
Change these things i ur program and it will work fine.

------------------
Sandeep Jain

Originally posted by Sandeep Jain:
Hello,
There are two bugs in ur program .
1) u have set the property of password as setPass() and not setPassword()
2)U have to make use of equals method and not == in the authenticate method which returns the boolean value.
Change these things i ur program and it will work fine.

I changed these things but now at the line
return (login.equals(pass))
It gives me a nullpointerexception?? why?

Please go thru the code again and make the following changes..
change login==pass to login.equals(pass)
and initialise the login and pass strings at the time of declaration...
HTH
Sahil

OK, I've initialized login and pass to a non-null value and it seems to work but I'm working to get a working login screen.
I wanted to do it this way. Pls tell me if it's doable.
In the JSP, before the login form, I would have :
<% if (abean.getAuthenticate()) {
// it's valid so redirect to some other page
} else {
out.println("Error.. Please reenter form data");
}
%>
The problem is -- say I initialize login and password to "" in the LoginHandler constructor, then the first time the user enters the page it will automatically redirect to some page. So I don't want the code to execute the first time, but all subsequent times but I don't see how this can be done. I would like this functionality with the least number of JSPs possible.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Mohap.

OK, it works now that I've initialized the login/pass to "" in the construcotr. however I still haven't completed what I REALLY wanted to do
I wanted to do it this way. Pls tell me if it's doable.
In the JSP, before the login form, I would have :
<%
if (abean.getLogin()!="" && abean.getPass()!="") {
if (abean.getAuthenticate()) {
// it's valid so redirect to some page
} else {
out.println("Error.. Please reenter form data");
}
}
%>
Almost everything works this way. When it first comes to the page I get the login/password prompt. When the two fields are not equaal the error message is shown. When the two fields are equal I get forwarded to the other file.
The problem arises when the user clicks on submit with both fields empty, it still gets forwarded! why does this happen and how can i correct it? Thanks.
Or if u have a better idea of doing his with a small number of JSPs then please let me know.

This is a basic java "gotcha". To compare objects (such as Strings) you should always use the "equals" method rather than the "==" operator.