Problem with session handling using custom tags

[Dave Mulligan]

Hi all,
Thanks for bothering to read this. I'm trying to tidy up some JSPs which had scriptlets all over them, by building the functionality into custom tags. The problem I'm seeing is that calls to
request.getSession(false)
return different HTTPSession objects, even though the HTTPServletRequest object is the same one (at least according to the ID tag in my debugger).
Here's the relevant fragment of the JSP:

 
<shriek:connect />
<shriek:restaurantListByLocale>
...do something with the list of restaurants
</shriek:restaurantListByLocale>

Here's the code from the <shriek:connect /> tag. It is intended to get a database connection from the ConnectionFactory & store it in the session.

public int doStartTag() {

// get a Connection from the ConnectionFactory
Connection connect = ConnectionFactory.getConnection();

// store it in the session
HttpServletRequest request = (HttpServletRequest) pageContext.getRequest();
HttpSession session = request.getSession(false);

session.setAttribute("Connection", connect);

return EVAL_PAGE;

}

This seems to work fine.
The next tag, <shriek:restaurantListByLocale>, tries to use that Connection from the session. Here's the code from that tag handler:

public int doStartTag() throws JspException {
// debug only
HttpServletRequest request = (HttpServletRequest) pageContext.getRequest();
HttpSession session = request.getSession(false);
printSessionAttributes(session);
// end debug

return EVAL_BODY_TAG;
}
public void doInitBody() throws JspException {

HttpServletRequest request = (HttpServletRequest) pageContext.getRequest();
HttpSession session = request.getSession(false);
printSessionAttributes(session);
// get the connection out of the session
Connection conn = (Connection)session.getAttribute("Connection");

// throw an error if the connection is null
if (conn == null) {
throw new JspException("connection not found in session");
}

// get a getRestaurantsDBBean object
restaurantGetter = new getRestaurantsDBBean();

// execute the query on this bean
boolean OK = restaurantGetter.lookupRestaurants(conn, getLocale());

if (OK) {
// set the cursor in the first row
try {
restaurantGetter.first();
} catch (SQLException e) {
throw new JspException(e.getMessage());
}
} else {
throw new JspException("lookup of restaurants failed");
}
}

printSessionAttributes() just dumps all of the session's attributes onto the console.
What happens is that the HTTPSession object returned in the doStartTag() method is a different one to the one returned in the doInitBody() method, and so the JSPException with the message "Connection not found in session" is thrown.
Can anyone shed some light on this? And perhaps recommend a good book on custom tags - all my books are very light on details.
Many many thanks
Dave
[ April 15, 2003: Message edited by: Dave Mulligan ]

[Dave Mulligan]

I think I've figured it out.
I'd missed the <%@ page session="true" %> tag from the top of the page. Doh! :roll: