I had these two jsp interview questions

[majid nakit]

Hi,
I had an interview yesterday and they give me this question, I could not find a solution :

1)Question1:

The following code loops through a collection of HighlightEntities and writes out a list. If there are no highlights then it should write out “No highlights,” but it is possible for the page to display neither highlights nor the “No highlights” message, but not cause an error. Why?

<%
// Get the array list attached to the request by the HighlightFilter
ArrayList list = (ArrayList) request.getAttribute("highlights");
	
		
if (list==null){
	out.println("No highlights");
} else{
 for (int i=0; i<list.size(); i++) {
	HighlightEntity highlight = (HighlightEntity) list.get(i);
	out.println("<p>");
	if (highlight.getDetails().equals("")==false){
		out.println("<a href='/content/about-cjp/highlights-detail.jsp?id=" + highlight.getId() + "'>" + highlight.getTitle() + "</a><br>");
	}else{
		out.println(highlight.getTitle() + "<br>");
	}
	out.println(highlight.getSummary() + "</p>");
	
 } 
	
}
%>

2)Question2:

A filter sets an attribute, “newsList”, on the request before this file is served. “newsList” is an arrayList of NewsEntity objects. The result should be an XML listing of NewsEntities.

What is wrong with this JSTL code?

<% response.setContentType("text/xml"); %>
<c:set var="hostName" value="http://${request.serverName}" />
<c:set var="prefix" value="/content/test-catalog/find-test/service-detail/q/id/" />
<tests>
<c:forEach items="newsList" var="news">
	<test>
		<title><a >${news.title}</a></title>
		<subtitle>${news.subtitle}</subtitle>
		<text>${news.content}</text>
		<link><a >+ more</a></link>
	</test>
</c:forEach>
</tests>

thanks, your help is appreciated.

[Seetharaman Venkatasamy]

hint:you have done the null check(list==null). well, there is also one more check called *empty check* .

[Seetharaman Venkatasamy]

majid nakit wrote:
What is wrong with this JSTL code?

what is your opinion? and please start a new thread/topic for a new question.

[Hosea Kandie]

Look at this and try to use
https://coderanch.com/t/412438/java/java/if-isEmpty-or-null

The list is completely empty
The list does not exist.

Try checking if isEmpty instead of using null