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Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

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You can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

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Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

To learn more about Java features on Azure Container Apps, you can get started over on the documentation page.

And, you can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

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Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

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Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

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With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

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Since its introduction in Java 8, the Stream API has become a staple of Java development. The basic operations like iterating, filtering, mapping sequences of elements are deceptively simple to use.

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I built the security material as two full courses - Core and OAuth, to get practical with these more complex scenarios. We explore when and how to use each feature and code through it on the backing project.

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Playwright is an easy-to-use, but powerful tool that automates end-to-end testing, and supports all modern browsers and platforms.

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1. Overview

When working with JSP (JavaServer Pages), we often need to invoke backend logic directly from our JSP files. Whether we’re accessing business logic, performing calculations, or retrieving data from a service layer, knowing how to call a Java class in JSP is essential.

In this tutorial, we’ll explore two approaches to doing this cleanly and effectively.

2. Introduction to the Problem

Before we dive into the code, let’s understand the motivation.

As JSPs are meant to focus on presentation (View layer in MVC), sometimes calling a Java class is necessary, especially in small projects or legacy applications. For example, in a JSP file, we may want to:

  • Perform backend computations
  • Reuse some utility methods
  • Access beans or business logic
  • Avoid writing too much Java code directly inside JSP etc.

In this tutorial, we’ll learn two approaches to achieve the goal.

Next, let’s dive in.

3. Using JSP Scriptlets

First, let’s look at a simple Java class:

public class CourseWelcome {
    public String greeting(String username) {
        return String.format("Hi %s, how are you doing?", username);
    }

    public static String staticWelcome(String courseName) {
        return String.format("Welcome to Baeldung's %s course", courseName);
    }
}

In the CourseWelcome class, we have two methods:

  • greeting() – An instance method to return a greeting String message
  • staticWelcome() – A static method to return a welcome String message

Next, let’s see how to call these two methods from a JSP page.

In this tutorial, we’ll use Spring Boot to navigate our JSP pages. For example, we can create a controller and an HTTP mapping:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/course")
public class WelcomeController {
    @GetMapping("/welcome")
    public String greetingAndWelcome() {
        return "course/welcome";
    }
}

For simplicity, we’ll skip the Spring MVC configurations.

Next, let’s use JSP scriptlets in the course/welcome.jsp file to call the two methods defined in CourseWelcome:

<%@ page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8" language="java" %>
<%@ page import="com.baeldung.boot.jsp.coursewelcome.CourseWelcome" %>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Welcome to Course</title>
</head>
<body>
    <%
        CourseWelcome courseWelcomeObj = new CourseWelcome();
    %>
    <div><%= courseWelcomeObj.greeting("Kai")%></div>
    <div><%= CourseWelcome.staticWelcome("Spring Boot")%></div>
</body>
</html>

In the above JSP file, we first import the CourseWelcome class and then wrap the Java code to create a CourseWelcome object between JSP scriptlet tags ‘<%‘ and ‘%>‘.

We can invoke CourseWelcome‘s static and object methods and display the result using JSP expression tags (<%= … %>).

Now, let’s start the Spring Boot application and open the page in our browser:

using scriptlets

As we can see, we got the expected result on the page.

4. Using the <jsp:useBean> Action

Alternatively, we can call a Java class using the <jsp:useBean> action.

4.1. Calling the CourseWelcome Class

Let’s create a new JSP file course/welcome-usebean.jsp to call CourseWelcome‘s methods:

<html>
<head>
    <title>Welcome to Course</title>
</head>
<body>
    <p>Using jsp:useBean action</p>
    <jsp:useBean id="welcomeBean" class="com.baeldung.boot.jsp.coursewelcome.CourseWelcome"/>
    <div>
        <%= welcomeBean.greeting("Kevin")%>
    </div>
    <div>
        <%= com.baeldung.boot.jsp.coursewelcome.CourseWelcome.staticWelcome("Java Collections")%>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

As the JSP file shows, in the <jsp:useBean> tag, we defined an id, a reference to the JavaBean instance. In this example, it’s welcomeBean. Also, we need to specify the qualified class name of the bean class. Then, we can call CourseWelcome‘s object methods via the bean name defined as id, for example, welcomeBean.greeting().

However, we must note that we cannot invoke a class’s static methods using <jsp:useBean>. Therefore, we still need to access a class’s static resources between JSP scriptlets or JSP expression tags.

Next, let’s add a mapping method in WelcomeController to point to our newly created JSP file:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/course")
public class WelcomeController {
    // ... same code is omitted
    @GetMapping("/welcome-usebean")
    public String greetingAndWelcomeUseBean() {
        return "course/welcome-usebean";
    }
}

Now, let’s start the application and verify if the JSP file works:

using the jsp:usebean action

The screenshot shows that the JSP file’s <jsp:useBean> action works as expected.

4.2. Working With JavaBeans

As its name implies, typically we use <jsp:useBean> with JavaBeans. Usually, a JavaBean contains a set of properties, corresponding getters and setters, and a default constructor.

Next, let’s create a JavaBean class and look at how <jsp:useBean> works with it:

public class CourseWelcomeBean {
    private String username;
    private String courseName;

    //... getters and setters are omitted

    public String greetingUser() {
        return String.format("Hi %s, how do you do?", username);
    }

    public String welcomeMsg() {
        return String.format("Welcome to Baeldung's %s course!", courseName);
    }
}

The CourseWelcomeBean holds two properties and two instance methods.

Then, let’s create a new JSP file course/welcome-by-javabean.jsp:

<%@ page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8" language="java" %>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Welcome to Course</title>
</head>
<body>
    <p>Using jsp:useBean action with a JavaBean</p>
    <jsp:useBean id="courseWelcomeBean" class="com.baeldung.boot.jsp.coursewelcome.CourseWelcomeBean"/>
    <jsp:setProperty name="courseWelcomeBean" property="username" value="Eric"/>
    <jsp:setProperty name="courseWelcomeBean" property="courseName" value="Spring Security"/>
    <div><%= courseWelcomeBean.greetingUser()%></div>
    <div><%= courseWelcomeBean.welcomeMsg()%></div>
</body>
</html>

As the code shows, after we declared a JavaBean using <jsp:useBean>, we can set the bean’s properties by <jsp:setProperty>Also, we can call the bean’s instance methods as usual.

Finally, let’s create a mapping method in the controller and test the course/welcome-by-javabean.jsp file:

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/course")
public class WelcomeController {
    // ... same code is omitted
    @GetMapping("/welcome-by-javabean")
    public String greetingAndWelcomeByJavaBean() {
        return "course/welcome-by-javabean";
    }
}
jsp:usebean action with a JavaBean

The <jsp:useBean> action behaves as expected when used with a JavaBean.

5. Conclusion

In this article, we’ve seen two ways to call a Java class in JSP, from basic scriptlets to more structured approaches like <jsp:useBean>. As we develop more complex applications, it’s important to separate logic and view, but having this knowledge helps us when working with legacy systems or building quick prototypes.

As always, the complete source code for the examples is available over on GitHub.

Baeldung Pro – NPI EA (cat = Baeldung)
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Baeldung Pro comes with both absolutely No-Ads as well as finally with Dark Mode, for a clean learning experience:

>> Explore a clean Baeldung

Once the early-adopter seats are all used, the price will go up and stay at $33/year.

Partner – Microsoft – NPI EA (cat = Spring Boot)
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Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

To learn more about Java features on Azure Container Apps, visit the documentation page.

You can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

Partner – Orkes – NPI EA (cat = Spring)
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Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.

With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.

Partner – Orkes – NPI EA (tag = Microservices)
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Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.

With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.

eBook – HTTP Client – NPI EA (cat=HTTP Client-Side)
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The Apache HTTP Client is a very robust library, suitable for both simple and advanced use cases when testing HTTP endpoints. Check out our guide covering basic request and response handling, as well as security, cookies, timeouts, and more:

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eBook – Java Concurrency – NPI EA (cat=Java Concurrency)
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Handling concurrency in an application can be a tricky process with many potential pitfalls. A solid grasp of the fundamentals will go a long way to help minimize these issues.

Get started with understanding multi-threaded applications with our Java Concurrency guide:

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eBook – Java Streams – NPI EA (cat=Java Streams)
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Since its introduction in Java 8, the Stream API has become a staple of Java development. The basic operations like iterating, filtering, mapping sequences of elements are deceptively simple to use.

But these can also be overused and fall into some common pitfalls.

To get a better understanding on how Streams work and how to combine them with other language features, check out our guide to Java Streams:

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eBook – Persistence – NPI EA (cat=Persistence)
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