how to send object reference to applet?

[Neeraj Macker]

how can i send an object reference to an applet..?
the param values are string.

when i do this , it doesnt work.

var applet=document.applets["End Session Applet"];
applet.start();
applet.o="<%=sessionObj%>";
applet.endSession();

here "sessionObj" is the object reference i want to send to my applet.Also "o" is an instance variable of Object type in my applet class.


the abobe mentioned code gives NullPointerException for "o" object.that means it is not set.....please suggest a solution...

[Ulf Dittmer]

The code you mention can't throw NullPointerExceptions, because it is JavaScript, not Java. The Exception must be either from the server-side JSP code, or the client-side Applet code.

You can't mix server-side JSP code with client-side JavaScript code, and hope to transfer object references. The best you can do is insert the String value into HTML pages, which is what you are already doing. Then you should be able to transfer it to your applet.

But it's hard to know where things are going wrong without seeing the exception and its stacktrace in full, as well as the code that causes it.

[Neeraj Macker]

Originally posted by Ulf Dittmer:
The code you mention can't throw NullPointerExceptions, because it is JavaScript, not Java. The Exception must be either from the server-side JSP code, or the client-side Applet code.

You can't mix server-side JSP code with client-side JavaScript code, and hope to transfer object references. The best you can do is insert the String value into HTML pages, which is what you are already doing. Then you should be able to transfer it to your applet.

But it's hard to know where things are going wrong without seeing the exception and its stacktrace in full, as well as the code that causes it.

the error is obviously coming from the applet, when i use the object "o" for some operation.

my question is how can i send an object reference to an applet...string, int float can go in param tags....but i need to send an object reference....

[Ulf Dittmer]

You can't send an object reference, period. You can send the object value, which, for an immutable object like a string, amounts to just about the same thing.

If for some reason you absolutely, positively, have to transfer objects instead of their values, you'll need to use serialization between the applet and the servlet, at which point JavaScript can't help you.

If something does make it into your applet and gets assigned to "o", but causes a NullPointerException, the question is: Does the assignment work at all? What does the JavaScript code look like that gets generated?

Also, you should not call Applet.start directly. It gets called automatically by the browser/JVM.

[Neeraj Macker]

Originally posted by Ulf Dittmer:
You can't send an object reference, period. You can send the object value, which, for an immutable object like a string, amounts to just about the same thing.

If for some reason you absolutely, positively, have to transfer objects instead of their values, you'll need to use serialization between the applet and the servlet, at which point JavaScript can't help you.

If something does make it into your applet and gets assigned to "o", but causes a NullPointerException, the question is: Does the assignment work at all? What does the JavaScript code look like that gets generated?

Also, you should not call Applet.start directly. It gets called automatically by the browser/JVM.

thanks, i am lucky as i cud extract the key value from the object and send it as a String to the applet. it was because of this value that i needed the object reference.

yes i will not call applet start , that was just a test case.

the gist of the discussion is that from javascript an object reference cannot be send to the applet.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Originally posted by Neeraj Macker:

the gist of the discussion is that from javascript an object reference cannot be send to the applet.

No, the point is that you can't send an object reference from a JSP scriptlet (which runs on the server) to anything running in the browser (JavaScript or the Applet). Remember that all of the JSP scriptlets run first, and their output is used to make up the page, which is then sent to the browser, and then the page is displayed, whereupon the JavaScript and applets run.