Developing Java applications with GlassFish and JavaServer Pages (JSP)

17 Sep 2023

GlassFish

GlassFish is a popular, open-source application server that provides a robust platform for developing and deploying Java applications. It is a reference implementation of the Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) specification and is known for its performance, scalability, and reliability.

JavaServer Pages (JSP) is a technology that allows developers to create dynamic web pages using Java. It is based on the Java servlets technology and provides an easy way to separate the presentation logic from the business logic in web applications.

In this blog post, we will explore how to develop Java applications using GlassFish and JSP. We will cover the setup and installation process, creating a basic JSP page, and deploying the application to the GlassFish server.

Setting up GlassFish Server

To get started, you need to download and install GlassFish on your machine. You can download the latest version from the official website or use a package manager if available.

Once installation is complete, start the GlassFish server by running the asadmin start-domain command from the terminal or command prompt. This will start the default domain and you will see the server logs on the console.

Creating a Java Web Application

To create a basic Java web application, follow these steps:

Open your favorite integrated development environment (IDE) and create a new Java web application project.
Provide a name for the project and choose a location to save it.
Select the GlassFish server as the target runtime for the project.
Click on Next and choose the JavaServer Faces (JSF) framework, which is built on top of JSP.
Click on Finish to create the project.

Creating a JSP Page

In the project structure, locate the WebContent directory and create a new JSP file. Give it a meaningful name like index.jsp.

In the index.jsp file, you can write HTML and embed Java code within JSP tags. Here’s an example of a basic JSP page:

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>My First JSP Page</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Hello, <%= "World!" %></h1>
    <p>Today is <%= new java.util.Date() %></p>
</body>
</html>

In the above code snippet, we have used JSP scriptlet tags (<%= %>) to embed Java code that gets executed on the server-side. The output of the Java code is then rendered in the HTML response returned to the client.

Deploying the Application

To deploy the Java web application to GlassFish, follow these steps:

Right-click on your project in the IDE and select Run or Debug.
Choose the GlassFish server as the deployment target.
Click on Finish to start the deployment process.

Once the deployment is successful, you can access the application at the specified URL. In this case, it would be http://localhost:8080/your-application-name/index.jsp.

Conclusion

GlassFish and JavaServer Pages (JSP) provide a powerful combination for developing dynamic web applications in Java. By leveraging the capabilities of GlassFish as an application server and the flexibility of JSP for creating dynamic web pages, developers can build scalable and robust Java applications.

With the steps outlined in this blog post, you should be able to set up GlassFish, create a Java web application, write JSP pages, and deploy the application to the server. Happy coding!

#Java #GlassFish #JSP