forward to jsp not working when trying to use HTML's *a name* link

[Stephen Huey]

I have some standard code for forwarding to a JSP from within a servlet:

  private void forward(String address, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
    RequestDispatcher rd = getServletContext().getRequestDispatcher(address);
    rd.forward(request, response);
  }

That method is called like this:

    forward("/MyPage.jsp#shortcut", request, response);

I have that #shortcut on the end of the path because in the HTML on that page I have an anchor like this:

<a name = "shortcut">

Nothing strange--I just want the browser the browser to scroll down the page to that point so the user doesn't have to keep on doing that. I can easily do this with a couple of barebones HTML pages, but I'm guessing the servlet or RequestDispatcher doesn't like that pound sign, because whenever it tries to forward there I just get an HTTP 404 error ("The page cannot be found");

Is there any way I can get around this, or is there a way to get the browser to jump to that spot based on something in the HTML (something I can dynamically stick into onLoad, perhaps?). Thanks...

[David O'Meara]

'forward' happens on the server and indicates that another resource will fill the request.

'#' happens in the client (in the browser) and jumps to a tag in the page.

The two aren't compatible. You may find that sendRedirect is what you are looking for. It sends a message to the client asking them to request the resource indicated, and should support the 'hash' too.

[Stephen Huey]

Yeah, sendRedirect works, but then I lose my original request parameters. That's why I wanted to use forward. No chance there's a way to make the Java code in the JSP spit out some HTML that will cause the browser to skip down to the name when the page is loaded...?

[Ben Souther]

Only if the anchor was in the request url that was last sent from the browser.

<form action="myURL#myAnchor">

With a server side forward the URL never gets re-written. There is only one request being made from the browser to the server.