"Type mismatch: cannot convert from Cookie to String"

I've searched for several examples of how to use a cookie in a form to remember the username. All of them seem to use the exact same code example. I wrote my page based on that code and I still get the following error message, "Type mismatch: cannot convert from Cookie to String" on line 42.

Any suggestions on how I should proceed? Thanks everyone.

<%-- 
    Document   : index
    Created on : Mar 22, 2011, 2:26:00 PM
    Author     : jp
--%>

<%@page contentType="text/html" pageEncoding="UTF-8" language="java"%>
<%@page language="java"%>
<%@page import="java.util.*" %>

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

<html>
    <head>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=windows-1256">
        <title>Login Page</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        
        <%
        String username=request.getParameter("un");
        if(username==null) username="";
        
        Date now = new Date();
        String timestamp = now.toString();
        Cookie cookie = new Cookie ("un", username);
        cookie.setMaxAge(365 * 24 * 60 * 60);
        response.addCookie(cookie);
        %>
        
        <%
        String un = "";
        Cookie cookies [] = request.getCookies ();
        Cookie myCookie = null;
        if (cookies != null)
        {
        for (int i = 0; i <cookies.length; i++)
            {
            if (cookies [i].getName().equals("un"))
            {
                un = cookies[i];
                break;
            }
            }
         }
        %>

<form action="LoginServlet">
        <table border="5">
        <tr>
        <th colspan="2">Login</th>
        </tr>
        <tr>
        <td>Username:</td>
        <td><input type="text" name="un"/></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
        <td>Password:</td>
        <td><input type="password" name="pw"/></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
        <th colspan="2"><input type="submit" value="Submit" name="Submit"/><input type="Reset" value="Reset" /></th>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td colspan="2"><input type="checkbox" value="remeber" /> Remember Me on this Computer<br /></td>
        </tr>
        </table>
        <p><a href="register">New users click here to register</a></p>
        </form>
</body>
</html>

Well, you are trying to assign a Cookie instance to a String reference, so yes, you can't do that.

If you want the value of the cookie, check its javadoc to see how to get that.

And for the love of all that is good, update your JSP knowledge! Using Java code in a JSP is a bad bad practice that is almost a decade out of date!

It's no longer 2001 -- time to stop writing JSP as if it is.

Bear Bibeault wrote:Well, you are trying to assign a Cookie instance to a String reference, so yes, you can't do that.

Yea, unfortunately I'm realizing that now.

I've been trying to follow examples like these:

http://www.java-forums.org/java-tips/5425-jsp-cookies-example.html

http://www.roseindia.net/answers/viewqa/Java-Beginners/12141-Remember-me-on-this-computer-%28via-cookies%29-in-jsp-servlet.html

But apparently they are wrong.

Bear Bibeault wrote:And for the love of all that is good, update your JSP knowledge! Using Java code in a JSP is a bad bad practice that is almost a decade out of date!

It's no longer 2001 -- time to stop writing JSP as if it is.

I'm just now starting to learn, so there isn't really anything to update

What is considered the correct practice currently?

roseindia.com is generally considered a poor place to get examples from.

With regards to modern practices: no Java code in JSP. None Zero. Nada.

Rather, learn the JSTL and EL.

As a beginner, I recommend this article and this article to help get you started.