Can't get RequestDispatcher forward() method or response.sendRedirect() to work

[Joe Lemmer]

Hi there,

I really can't understand why my servlet isn't working. It is compiling fine and I have used println to make sure that the program is running where it should, but no page is being sent to the client. I have tried to use response.sendRedirect("options.jsp") as well as the following:

if(pword.equals(actualPWord))  {
    System.out.println("In equals");
    RequestDispatcher view = request.getRequestDispatcher("options.jsp");
    view.forward(request, response);
    System.out.println("After RequestDispatcher");
} else {
    System.out.println("In else");
    RequestDispatcher view = request.getRequestDispatcher("index.html");
    view.forward(request, response);
}		    

So when I get the password right, then the system prints out "In equals" and "After RequestDispatcher", but no new is displayed by the browser.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance

Joe

[Bear Bibeault]

We need much more detail. Where are the JSP and HTML file located relative to the context root? What does View Source in the browser show? Any errors in the logs?

[Joe Lemmer]

Ok thanks Bear.

The JSP and HTML files are located in the base directory for the web app where I'd normally keep the web stuff and where you can see the actual folder icon for WEB-INF.

View Source in the browser just shows the HTML for the web-page that I started from.

There doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary in the logs that I can see.

Cheers

[Charles 'King]

Joe Lemmer wrote: where you can see the actual folder icon for WEB-INF.

???


As stated above more info would help. Consider the following: type the correct URL of one of your JSP's in the browser... Is the JSP at the root? If so, prefix your resource string with a "/" e.g. - getRequestDispatcher("/options.jsp");

If that solved your issue, its safe to conjecture your use of a relative path may have been the problem. If not, provide more info...

[Joe Lemmer]

Hi Charles,

Thanks for your reply. I have tried using "/options.jsp" and also using the full "http://localhost:8080/MiniProject/options.jsp", which takes me to the right page when I type it into a browser.

I don't know what other information I can provide really. All of my debugging statements are printing out fine, both before and after the RequestDispatcher code, as I said above the address is fine, there are no errors in the log, the html source code is completely unchanged from the start page, the web.xml is fine. Does anybody have any other ideas? This should be simple, I've done it a few times before and it's worked fine.

[Joe Lemmer]

I've gone through the MVC tutorial again in chapter 3 of HF Servlets & JSP and it worked fine. I also shortened the code so that all there was in the servlet was the RequestDispatcher code ie:

RequestDispatcher view = request.getRequestDispatcher("result.jsp");
view.forward(request, response);    

and this returned the result.jsp page fine.

I then commented out all the code in the doPost method of the servlet that won't return a page, except for:

RequestDispatcher view = request.getRequestDispatcher("options.jsp");
view.forward(request, response);
System.out.println("After RequestDispatcher");    

and it still does not return the options.jsp, but it does print the After RequestDispatcher message. I'm sure it's something very basic that I'm doing wrong, but with no actual error messages anywhere, I've no idea what.

[Charles 'King]

Post the code of the entire servlet and options.jsp - then post your DD...As an aside, are you deploying your app as a war file?

[Joe Lemmer]

Ok cheers, here's the whole code:

DD:

<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd"
	version="2.4">
	
	<servlet>
	    <servlet-name>SignupServlet</servlet-name>
		<servlet-class>com.options.web.SignupServlet</servlet-class>
	</servlet>
	
	<servlet>
	    <servlet-name>LoginServlet</servlet-name>
		<servlet-class>com.options.web.LoginServlet</servlet-class>
	</servlet>
	
	<servlet-mapping>
	    <servlet-name>SignupServlet</servlet-name>
		<url-pattern>/signup.go</url-pattern>
	</servlet-mapping>
	
	<servlet-mapping>
	    <servlet-name>LoginServlet</servlet-name>
		<url-pattern>/doLogin.go</url-pattern>
	</servlet-mapping>
	
</web-app>    

options.jsp:

<html>
<head>
    <title>Mini Project Options Page</title>
</head>

<body>
    <h1>Made it to the options page!</h1>
</body>
</html>    

LoginServlet.java:

package com.options.web;

import com.options.model.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;

public class LoginServlet extends HttpServlet  {

    public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws IOException, ServletException  {
	
	    
		response.setContentType("text/html");
		RequestDispatcher view = request.getRequestDispatcher("options.jsp");
                view.forward(request, response);
		System.out.println("After RQ");
	}
}

I've also tried:

package com.options.web;

import com.options.model.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;

public class LoginServlet extends HttpServlet  {

    public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws IOException, ServletException  {
	
	    
		response.setContentType("text/html");
		PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
		out.println("This is real");
		System.out.println("After RQ");
	}
}

I'm not getting any output to the client, although as stated I am getting the output to system.

In response to your question I am not deplying using a WAR file.

Thanks

[Charles 'King]

Are you using tomcat? If so, go to the webapps directory and zip up your folder {MiniProject} and attach it. That would probably be easier than the back and forth

If you don't want to attach the folder, list your directory structure...

[Charles 'King]

Joe, try this:

Put your jsp in the WEB-INF directory. Then, modify this line:

    RequestDispatcher view = request.getRequestDispatcher("options.jsp");  

->TO<-

    RequestDispatcher view = request.getRequestDispatcher("/WEB-INF/options.jsp"); 

What happens when you access the servlet now? By the way, unless you're posting data from a form (e.g. method="POST"), you'll need a doGet service method...

[Johan Van Roste]

Hey Joe,

maybe you could try to use the NamedRequestDispatcher, which provides you with some more "flexibility" & not having to deal with contextnames & stuff.

First you need to declare your JSP's in your deployment descriptor.

  
<servlet>
		<servlet-name>Options_JSP</servlet-name>
		<jsp-file>/resources/jsp/options.jsp</jsp-file>
	</servlet>
	<servlet>
		<servlet-name>Index_JSP</servlet-name>
		<jsp-file>index.jsp</jsp-file>
	</servlet>
  

And then use the following syntax in your LoginServlet

if(pword.equals(actualPWord)){
			getServletContext().getNamedDispatcher("Options_JSP").forward(request, response);
		} else {
			getServletContext().getNamedDispatcher("Index_JSP").forward(request, response);
		}
    

[Joe Lemmer]

Hi,

Thanks to everyone for their responses so far.

I have made the request.getRequestDispatcher() method work by calling the servlet direct from the following code:

<html>
<body>
<form method="POST" action="doLogin.go">
    Test
	
	<center>
	    <input type="submit">
	</center>
</form>
</body>
</html>    

So the problem must be the way I am calling the servlet, or something from the client side. What I originally had for my client side code was:

HTML:

<html>
<head>
    <title>Option Mini Project - Home Page</title>
	<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="options_css.css" />
	<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.js"></script>
	<script type="text/javascript" src="options_javascript.js"></script>
	<script type="text/javascript" src="livequery.js"></script>
</head>

<body>
    <div id="all_content">
	    <div id="header">
		    <h1>Options Mini Project</h1>
		</div>
		<hr class="thick_hr" />
		<div id="center_box">
			<input type="button" id="signup_button" value="Sign Up" />
			<input type="button" id="login_button" value="Log In" />
		</div> <!-- end of center_box div -->
	</div> <!-- end of all_content div -->
</body>
</html>    

and for the javascript:

$(document).ready(function()  {
    $('#signup_button').bind('click', function(event) { insertSignupDiv("first"); });
	$('#login_button').bind('click', function(event) { insertLoginDiv(); });
	$('#center_box label').livequery(
	    function() { $(this).css('display', 'block').css('float', 'left').css('width', '170px').css('text-align', 'right').css('padding', '5px 5px 0px 0px'); });
	$('#center_box input.cust').livequery(
	    function()  { $(this).css('margin', '5px 0px'); });
	$('#go_signup').livequery(
	    function()  { $(this).bind('click', function(event) { sendSignup();	}).css('position', 'absolute').css('margin-top', '5px').css('left', '184px'); });
	$('#go_login').livequery(
	    function()  { $(this).bind('click', function(event)  { sendLogin(); }).css('position', 'absolute').css('margin-top', '5px').css('left', '184px'); });
});

function insertSignupDiv(options, username)  {
    $('#center_box').empty();
	var signupHtml = "<label>Enter Username</label><input type='text' id='username' class='cust' />" +
	                 "<label>Enter Password</label><input type='password' id='user_password' class='cust'/>" +
					 "<label>Confirm Password</label><input type='password' id='conf_password' class='cust' /><br />" +
					 "<input type='button' id='go_signup' value='Sign Up' />"
	if(options == "mismatch")  {
	    signupHtml += "<br /><div id='mismatch_div'><p class='red'>The passwords must match. Please re-enter the passwords.</p></div>";
	}
	$('#center_box').css('text-align', 'left').html(signupHtml);
	if(username != null && username != "")  {
	    $('#username').val(username);
	}

}

function sendSignup()  {
    var username = $('#username').val();
	var user_password = $('#user_password').val();
	var conf_password = $('#conf_password').val();
	if(user_password != conf_password)  {
	    insertSignupDiv("mismatch", username);
	}
	else  {
	    var param = "username=" + username + "&pword=" + user_password;
	    $.post("signup.go", param);
	}
}

function insertLoginDiv()  {
    $('#center_box').empty();
	var loginHtml = "<h3 class='box_text'>Please enter your login details:</h3>" +
	                "<form method='POST' action='doLogin.go'>" +
	                "<label>Enter Username</label><input type='text' name='username' id='username' class='cust' />" +
	                "<label>Enter Password</label><input type='password' name='user_password' id='user_password' class='cust'/><br />" +
					"<input type='button' id='go_login' value='Log In' /></form>";
	$('#center_box').css('text-align', 'left').html(loginHtml);
}

function sendLogin()  {
    var username = $('#username').val();
	var pword = $('#user_password').val();
	var param = "username=" + username + "&pword=" + pword;
	$.post("doLogin.go", param);
}    

I think that the sendLogin() function is the critical thing, but I can't see any reason as to why there would be any difference to this than the simpler html that I mentioned in this post. Is it something to do with the jQuery '$.post()' method? It works fine in the sendSignup() method and as I've written before, all the params etc are getting through and the servlet is running right through to the end, so I don't see why it would make any difference how the doPost() method of my Servlet (which has the request.getDispatcher() code in) was called. It should result in the same result...except it doesn't.

Can anyone help please?

Joe

[Joseph Morgan]

Joe,

Did you ever solve this problem? I am having the exact same problem.

I've traced my code with output statements in both my servlet and my jsp, and my forward is actually hitting and processing my entire JSP page, but then goes off to somwhere else and the end result is a valid, but empty, html page.

Joe

[Bear Bibeault]

"Java Joe", please check your private messages for an important administrative matter.