Sending info from servlet to JSP

[Jhon Salchichon]

What I want to do:

I have a form with a lot of fields(nick, email, name, surname, etc.) but the user has to fill Nick and Email first in order to be able to fill the other fields(this is because we want to check that the nick and mail aren't in use by another client before he can introduce the rest of his information(name, surname, etc.)).
So, the user introduces Nick and Email and then he must press a button named "Validate", if the values are available(successful validation) then the rest of the fields are enabled and the user can continue filling the form, otherwise the fields stay disabled and an error is showed to the user.


The form will be located in a JSP, it will be submitted to a Servlet, once in the servlet I must validate the information that is in the form(i have a .JAR file included in this servlet, the validation consists in calling a function from that library, the function returns a boolean) and then I must return back to the same JSP the boolean that will represent the result of the validate function.
Now in the JSP I must enable(or not, depending on the value of the boolean) the rest of the TextFields.

I'm not sure if this is right but i was trying to submit with the button and at the same time run a javascript(onclick) that will use this boolean value that the servlet sends back to the JSP after making the validation. The javascript consists on an IF sentence that evaluates the boolean and if it's true then it enables all the fields on the JSP.


Problems so far:

I was able to send the Nick and Email from the JSP to the Servlet and to make the validation of the values, now i have the boolean but i have no idea on how to send it from the Servlet to the same JSP and use it in the onclick event of the same button I used to submit the info. I don't even know if it's possible to do this...



I'd be grateful if someone could give me a hand with this, i'm newbie in Java programming so i would appreciate simple explanations if possible.
Also, if there is a better way of doing what i want please share it, and if there are any doubts ask and i will try to explain it better.

[Amit Ghorpade]

Welcome to Javaranch

From the problem statement you have given, you need to make a Ajax call in order to access the boolean variable through javascript and enable the fields.

[Anurag Verma]

Suggestion by Amit is a good one, but if you want an even simpler solution, you can have 2 pages, first one will display just the nick & email, once user fills it & submits the first page & nick & email are unique, then only display the second page.

[Jhon Salchichon]

Thanks everyone for the help!
I solved it using a scriplet on every textfield i wanted to hide.

[Bear Bibeault]

Jhon Salchichon wrote:Thanks everyone for the help!
I solved it using a scriplet on every textfield i wanted to hide.

Ugh! Scriptlets are obsolete and discredited. Read this JspFaq entry. You should be using the EL.