JSP scriptlet extremely vague error

Question

I'll just put this here. I literally have no leads on this

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="//maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.2.0/css/bootstrap.min.css">
<title>Employee table</title>
</head>
<body>
<%! import net.multivision.employee.Employee; %>
<%! import java.util.List; %>
<% List<Employee> table = (List<Employee>)session.getAttribute("table"); %>
<table class="table table-striped">
<tr>
<th>id</th>
<th>Name</th>
<th>Age</th>
<th>Dept</th>
<th>Salary</th>
<th>Start Date</th>
<th>Type</th>
</tr>
<% for(Employee e : table){ %>
<tr>
<td><%= e.getId() %></td>
<td><%= e.getName() %></td>
<td><%= e.getAge() %></td>
<td><%= e.getDept() %></td>
<td><%= e.getSalary() %></td>
<td><%= e.getStartdate() %></td>
<td><%= e.getType() %></td>
</tr>
<% } %>
</table>
</body>
</html>

The error is on <% } %> and is preventing me from publishing/compiling. All the error says is http://puu.sh/auyYc/2b40efef1f.png

Even if the error was based on something outside the jsp I don't even know where to look based on this.

warcops warcops · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-28T14:47:02

The issue is because you are coding JSP as servlet. in JSP the scope of a <% %> ends within the %>, in your case you create a loop signature in a snippet and are trying to close it in another snippet, which by rule of thumb would not know about the loop at all.

Try using tag library instead

define the tag library as

<%@taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"%>

and then update the code for the loops as

<c:forEach items="${table}" var="e">
<tr>
<td><%= e.getId() %></td>
<td><%= e.getName() %></td>
<td><%= e.getAge() %></td>
<td><%= e.getDept() %></td>
<td><%= e.getSalary() %></td>
<td><%= e.getStartdate() %></td>
<td><%= e.getType() %></td>
</tr>
</c:forEach>

JSP scriptlet extremely vague error

2 Answers