Friday, January 30, 2009

JSP Interview Questions

What are the advantages of JSP over Servlet?
JSP is a serverside technology to make content generation a simple appear.The advantage of JSP is that they are document-centric. Servlets, on the other hand, look and act like programs. A Java Server Page can contain Java program fragments that instantiate and execute Java classes, but these occur inside an HTML template file and are primarily used to generate dynamic content. Some of the JSP functionality can be achieved on the client, using JavaScript. The power of JSP is that it is server-based and provides a framework for Web application development
2.What is the life-cycle of JSP?
When a request is mapped to a JSP page for the first time, it translates the JSP page into a servlet class and compiles the class. It is this servlet that services the client requests.
A JSP page has seven phases in its lifecycle, as listed below in the sequence of occurrence:
Translation
Compilation
Loading the class
Instantiating the class
jspInit() invocation
_jspService() invocation
jspDestroy() invocation


3.What is the jspInit() method?

The jspInit() method of the javax.servlet.jsp.JspPage interface is similar to the init() method of servlets. This method is invoked by the container only once when a JSP page is initialized. It can be overridden by a page author to initialize resources such as database and network connections, and to allow a JSP page to read persistent configuration data
4.What is the _jspService() method?
SThe _jspService() method of the javax.servlet.jsp.HttpJspPage interface is invoked every time a new request comes to a JSP page. This method takes the HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse objects as its arguments. A page author cannot override this method, as its implementation is provided by the container.

5.What is the jspDestroy() method?
The jspDestroy() method of the javax.servlet.jsp.JspPage interface is invoked by the container when a JSP page is about to be destroyed. This method is similar to the destroy() method of servlets. It can be overridden by a page author to perform any cleanup operation such as closing a database connection.
6.What JSP lifecycle methods can I override?
You cannot override the _jspService() method within a JSP page. You can however, override the jspInit() and jspDestroy() methods within a JSP page. jspInit() can be useful for allocating resources like database connections, network connections, and so forth for the JSP page. It is good programming practice to free any allocated resources within jspDestroy().
7.How can I override the jspInit() and jspDestroy() methods within a JSP page?
The jspInit() and jspDestroy() methods are each executed just once during the lifecycle of a JSP page and are typically declared as JSP declarations:
<%! public void jspInit() { . . . } %>
<%! public void jspDestroy() { . . . } %>

8.What are implicit objects in JSP?
Implicit objects in JSP are the Java objects that the JSP Container makes available to developers in each page. These objects need not be declared or instantiated by the JSP author. They are automatically instantiated by the container and are accessed using standard variables; hence, they are called implicit objects.The implicit objects available in JSP are as follows:
request
response
pageContext
session
application
out
config
page
exception

The implicit objects are parsed by the container and inserted into the generated servlet code. They are available only within the jspService method and not in any declaration
9.What are the different types of JSP tags?


10.What are JSP directives?
JSP directives are messages for the JSP engine. i.e., JSP directives serve as a message from a JSP page to the JSP container and control the processing of the entire page
They are used to set global values such as a class declaration, method implementation, output content type, etc.
They do not produce any output to the client.
Directives are always enclosed within <%@ ….. %> tag.
Ex: page directive, include directive, etc.
11.What is page directive?
A page directive is to inform the JSP engine about the headers or facilities that page should get from the environment.
Typically, the page directive is found at the top of almost all of our JSP pages.
There can be any number of page directives within a JSP page (although the attribute – value pair must be unique).
The syntax of the include directive is: <%@ page attribute="value">
Example:<%@ include file="header.jsp" %>

12.What are the attributes of page directive?
There are thirteen attributes defined for a page directive of which the important attributes are as follows:
import: It specifies the packages that are to be imported.
session: It specifies whether a session data is available to the JSP page.
contentType: It allows a user to set the content-type for a page.
isELIgnored: It specifies whether the EL expressions are ignored when a JSP is translated to a servlet.

13.What is the include directive?
There are thirteen attributes defined for a page directive of which the important attributes are as follows:
The include directive is used to statically insert the contents of a resource into the current JSP.
This enables a user to reuse the code without duplicating it, and includes the contents of the specified file at the translation time.
The syntax of the include directive is as follows:
<%@ include file = "FileName" %>
This directive has only one attribute called file that specifies the name of the file to be included.

14.What are the JSP standard actions?
The JSP standard actions affect the overall runtime behavior of a JSP page and also the response sent back to the client.
They can be used to include a file at the request time, to find or instantiate a JavaBean, to forward a request to a new page, to generate a browser-specific code, etc.
Ex: include, forward, useBean,etc. object

15.What are the standard actions available in JSP?
The standard actions available in JSP are as follows:
jsp:include: It includes a response from a servlet or a JSP page into the current page. It differs from an include directive in that it includes a resource at request processing time, whereas the include directive includes a resource at translation time.
jsp:forward: It forwards a response from a servlet or a JSP page to another page.
jsp:useBean: It makes a JavaBean available to a page and instantiates the bean.
jsp:setProperty: It sets the properties for a JavaBean.
jsp:getProperty: It gets the value of a property from a JavaBean component and adds it to the response.
jsp:param: It is used in conjunction with jsp:forward;, jsp:, or plugin; to add a parameter to a request. These parameters are provided using the name-value pairs.
jsp:plugin: It is used to include a Java applet or a JavaBean in the current JSP page.

16.What is the jsp:useBean standard action?
The standard action is used to locate an existing JavaBean or to create a JavaBean if it does not exist. It has attributes to identify the object instance, to specify the lifetime of the bean, and to specify the fully qualified classpath and type.

17.What are the scopes available in ?
The scopes available in are as follows:

page scope:: It specifies that the object will be available for the entire JSP page but not outside the page.
request scope: It specifies that the object will be associated with a particular request and exist as long as the request exists.
application scope: It specifies that the object will be available throughout the entire Web application but not outside the application.
session scope: It specifies that the object will be available throughout the session with a particular client.
18.What is the standard action?
The standard action forwards a response from a servlet or a JSP page to another page.
The execution of the current page is stopped and control is transferred to the forwarded page.
The syntax of the standard action is :

Here, targetPage can be a JSP page, an HTML page, or a servlet within the same context.
If anything is written to the output stream that is not buffered before , an IllegalStateException will be thrown.
Note : Whenever we intend to use or in a page, buffering should be enabled. By default buffer is enabled.

19.What is the standard action?
The standard action enables the current JSP page to include a static or a dynamic resource at runtime. In contrast to the include directive, the include action is used for resources that change frequently. The resource to be included must be in the same context.The syntax of the standard action is as follows:

Here, targetPage is the page to be included in the current JSP.

20.What is the difference between include directive and include action?

Include directive Include action
The include directive, includes the content of the specified file during the translation phase–when the page is converted to a servlet. The include action, includes the response generated by executing the specified page (a JSP page or a servlet) during the request processing phase–when the page is requested by a user.
The include directive is used to statically insert the contents of a resource into the current JSP. The include standard action enables the current JSP page to include a static or a dynamic resource at runtime.
Use the include directive if the file changes rarely. It’s the fastest mechanism. Use the include action only for content that changes often, and if which page to include cannot be decided until the main page is requested.
Differentiate between pageContext.include and jsp:include?
The standard action and the pageContext.include() method are both used to include resources at runtime. However, the pageContext.include() method always flushes the output of the current page before including the other components, whereas flushes the output of the current page only if the value of flush is explicitly set to true as follows:


22.What is the jsp:setProperty action?

You use jsp:setProperty to give values to properties of beans that have been referenced earlier. You can do this in two contexts. First, you can use jsp:setProperty after, but outside of, a jsp:useBean element, as below:

...

Here, the jsp:setProperty is executed only if a new object was instantiated, not if an existing one was found.

23.What is the action?
The action is used to access the properties of a bean that was set using the action. The container converts the property to a String as follows:
If it is an object, it uses the toString() method to convert it to a String.
If it is a primitive, it converts it directly to a String using the valueOf() method of the corresponding Wrapper class.
The syntax of the method is:
Here, name is the id of the bean from which the property was set. The property attribute is the property to get. A user must create or locate a bean using the action before using the action.


24.What is the standard action?
The standard action is used with or to pass parameter names and values to the target resource. The syntax of the standard action is as follows:


25.What is the jsp:plugin action ?
This action lets you insert the browser-specific OBJECT or EMBED element needed to specify that the browser run an applet using the Java plugin.

26.What are scripting elements?
JSP scripting elements let you insert Java code into the servlet that will be generated from the current JSP page. There are three forms:
Expressions of the form <%= expression %> that are evaluated and inserted into the output,
Scriptlets of the form <% code %> that are inserted into the servlet's service method,
Declarations of the form <%! code %> that are inserted into the body of the servlet class, outside of any existing methods.

27.What is a scriptlet?

A scriptlet contains Java code that is executed every time a JSP is invoked. When a JSP is translated to a servlet, the scriptlet code goes into the service() method. Hence, methods and variables written in scriptlets are local to the service() method. A scriptlet is written between the <% and %> tags and is executed by the container at request processing time.

28.What are JSP declarations?


As the name implies, JSP declarations are used to declare class variables and methods in a JSP page. They are initialized when the class is initialized. Anything defined in a declaration is available for the whole JSP page. A declaration block is enclosed between the <%! and %> tags. A declaration is not included in the service() method when a JSP is translated to a servlet.

29.What is a JSP expression?

A JSP expression is used to write an output without using the out.print statement. It can be said as a shorthand representation for scriptlets. An expression is written between the <%= and %> tags. It is not required to end the expression with a semicolon, as it implicitly adds a semicolon to all the expressions within the expression tags.


30.How is scripting disabled?


Scripting is disabled by setting the scripting-invalid element of the deployment descriptor to true. It is a subelement of jsp-property-group. Its valid values are true and false. The syntax for disabling scripting is as follows:
jsp-property-group
url-pattern *.jsp url-pattern
scripting-invalid true scripting-invalid
jsp-property-group

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Struts Interview Questions

What is MVC?
Model-View-Controller (MVC) is a design pattern put together to help control change. MVC decouples interface from business logic and data.
Model : The model contains the core of the application's functionality. The model encapsulates the state of the application. Sometimes the only functionality it contains is state. It knows nothing about the view or controller.
View: The view provides the presentation of the model. It is the look of the application. The view can access the model getters, but it has no knowledge of the setters. In addition, it knows nothing about the controller. The view should be notified when changes to the model occur.
Controller:The controller reacts to the user input. It creates and sets the model.
2.What is a framework?
A framework is made up of the set of classes which allow us to use a library in a best possible way for a specific requirement.
3.What is Struts framework?
Struts framework is an open-source framework for developing the web applications in Java EE, based on MVC-2 architecture. It uses and extends the Java Servlet API. Struts is robust architecture and can be used for the development of application of any size. Struts framework makes it much easier to design scalable, reliable Web applications with Java.
4.What are the components of Struts?
Struts components can be categorize into Model, View and Controller:
Model: Components like business logic /business processes and data are the part of model.
View: HTML, JSP are the view components.
Controller: Action Servlet of Struts is part of Controller components which works as front controller to handle all the requests.
5.What are the core classes of the Struts Framework?
Struts is a set of cooperating classes, servlets, and JSP tags that make up a reusable MVC 2 design.
JavaBeans components for managing application state and behavior.
Event-driven development (via listeners as in traditional GUI development).
Pages that represent MVC-style views; pages reference view roots via the JSF component tree.
6.What is ActionServlet?
ActionServlet is a simple servlet which is the backbone of all Struts applications. It is the main Controller component that handles client requests and determines which Action will process each received request. It serves as an Action factory – creating specific Action classes based on user’s request.

7.What is role of ActionServlet?

ActionServlet performs the role of Controller:
Process user requests
Determine what the user is trying to achieve according to the request
Pull data from the model (if necessary) to be given to the appropriate view,
Select the proper view to respond to the user
Delegates most of this grunt work to Action classes
Is responsible for initialization and clean-up of resources

8.What is the ActionForm?
ActionForm is javabean which represents the form inputs containing the request parameters from the View referencing the Action bean.

9.What are the important methods of ActionForm?
The important methods of ActionForm are : validate() & reset().

10.Describe validate() and reset() methods ?
validate() : Used to validate properties after they have been populated; Called before FormBean is handed to Action. Returns a collection of ActionError as ActionErrors. Following is the method signature for the validate() method.

public ActionErrors validate(ActionMapping mapping,HttpServletRequest request)

reset(): reset() method is called by Struts Framework with each request that uses the defined ActionForm. The purpose of this method is to reset all of the ActionForm's data members prior to the new request values being set.
public void reset() {}




11.What is ActionMapping?
Action mapping contains all the deployment information for a particular Action bean. This class is to determine where the results of the Action will be sent once its processing is complete.

12.How is the Action Mapping specified ?

We can specify the action mapping in the configuration file called struts-config.xml. Struts framework creates ActionMapping object from configuration element of struts-config.xml file








13.What is role of Action Class?
An Action Class performs a role of an adapter between the contents of an incoming HTTP request and the corresponding business logic that should be executed to process this request.

14.In which method of Action class the business logic is executed ?

In the execute() method of Action class the business logic is executed.

public ActionForward execute(
ActionMapping mapping,
ActionForm form,
HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception ;


execute() method of Action class:
Perform the processing required to deal with this request
Update the server-side objects (Scope variables) that will be used to create the next page of the user interface
Return an appropriate ActionForward object

15.What design patterns are used in Struts?







Struts is based on model 2 MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture. Struts controller uses the command design pattern and the action classes use the adapter design pattern. The process() method of the RequestProcessor uses the template method design pattern. Struts also implement the following J2EE design patterns.
Service to Worker
Dispatcher View
Composite View (Struts Tiles)
Front Controller
View Helper
Synchronizer Token

16.Can we have more than one struts-config.xml file for a single Struts application?
Yes, we can have more than one struts-config.xml for a single Struts application. They can be configured as follows:



action
org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet

config/WEB-INF/struts-config.xml,
/WEB-INF/struts-admin.xml,
/WEB-INF/struts-config-forms.xml

.....

17.What is the directory structure of Struts application?
The directory structure of Struts application :



18.What is the difference between session scope and request scope when saving formbean ?
when the scope is request,the values of formbean would be available for the current request.
when the scope is session,the values of formbean would be available throughout the session.
19.What are the important tags of struts-config.xml ?
The five important sections are:

20.What are the different kinds of actions in Struts?
The different kinds of actions in Struts are:
ForwardAction
IncludeAction
DispatchAction
LookupDispatchAction
SwitchAction
21.What is DispatchAction?
The DispatchAction class is used to group related actions into one class. Using this class, you can have a method for each logical action compared than a single execute method. The DispatchAction dispatches to one of the logical actions represented by the methods. It picks a method to invoke based on an incoming request parameter. The value of the incoming parameter is the name of the method that the DispatchAction will invoke.
22.How to use DispatchAction?
To use the DispatchAction, follow these steps :
Create a class that extends DispatchAction (instead of Action)
In a new class, add a method for every function you need to perform on the service – The method has the same signature as the execute() method of an Action class.
Do not override execute() method – Because DispatchAction class itself provides execute() method.
Add an entry to struts-config.xml

DispatchAction Example »
23.What is the use of ForwardAction?
The ForwardAction class is useful when you’re trying to integrate Struts into an existing application that uses Servlets to perform business logic functions. You can use this class to take advantage of the Struts controller and its functionality, without having to rewrite the existing Servlets. Use ForwardAction to forward a request to another resource in your application, such as a Servlet that already does business logic processing or even another JSP page. By using this predefined action, you don’t have to write your own Action class. You just have to set up the struts-config file properly to use ForwardAction.

24.What is IncludeAction?
The IncludeAction class is useful when you want to integrate Struts into an application that uses Servlets. Use the IncludeAction class to include another resource in the response to the request being processed.

25.What is the difference between ForwardAction and IncludeAction?
The difference is that you need to use the IncludeAction only if the action is going to be included by another action or jsp. Use ForwardAction to forward a request to another resource in your application, such as a Servlet that already does business logic processing or even another JSP page.

26.What is LookupDispatchAction?
The LookupDispatchAction is a subclass of DispatchAction. It does a reverse lookup on the resource bundle to get the key and then gets the method whose name is associated with the key into the Resource Bundle.

27.What is the use of LookupDispatchAction?

LookupDispatchAction is useful if the method name in the Action is not driven by its name in the front end, but by the Locale independent key into the resource bundle. Since the key is always the same, the LookupDispatchAction shields your application from the side effects of I18N.

28.What is difference between LookupDispatchAction and DispatchAction?
The difference between LookupDispatchAction and DispatchAction is that the actual method that gets called in LookupDispatchAction is based on a lookup of a key value instead of specifying the method name directly.

29.What is SwitchAction?
The SwitchAction class provides a means to switch from a resource in one module to another resource in a different module. SwitchAction is useful only if you have multiple modules in your Struts application. The SwitchAction class can be used as is, without extending.

30.What if element has declaration with same name as global forward?
In this case the global forward is not used. Instead the element’s takes precendence
31.What is DynaActionForm?

A specialized subclass of ActionForm that allows the creation of form beans with dynamic sets of properties (configured in configuration file), without requiring the developer to create a Java class for each type of form bean.

32.What are the steps need to use DynaActionForm?
Using a DynaActionForm instead of a custom subclass of ActionForm is relatively straightforward. You need to make changes in two places:
In struts-config.xml: change your form-bean to be an

form-bean name="loginForm"type="org.apache.struts.action.DynaActionForm"
form-property name="userName" type="java.lang.String"
form-property name="password" type="java.lang.String"
form-bean

In your Action subclass that uses your form bean:
import org.apache.struts.action.DynaActionForm
downcast the ActionForm parameter in execute() to a DynaActionForm
access the form fields with get(field) rather than getField()


import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import org.apache.struts.action.Action;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForward;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMapping;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMessage;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMessages;


import org.apache.struts.action.DynaActionForm;

public class DynaActionFormExample extends Action {
public ActionForward execute(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,
HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
throws Exception {
DynaActionForm loginForm = (DynaActionForm) form;
ActionMessages errors = new ActionMessages();
if (((String) loginForm.get("userName")).equals("")) {
errors.add("userName", new ActionMessage(
"error.userName.required"));
}
if (((String) loginForm.get("password")).equals("")) {
errors.add("password", new ActionMessage(
"error.password.required"));
}
...........


33.How to display validation errors on jsp page?
tag displays all the errors. iterates over ActionErrors request attribute.

34.What are the various Struts tag libraries?
The various Struts tag libraries are:
HTML Tags
Bean Tags
Logic Tags
Template Tags
Nested Tags
Tiles Tags

35.What is the use of logic:iterate?
repeats the nested body content of this tag over a specified collection.


table border=1
logic:iterate id="customer" name="customers"

bean:write name="customer" property="firstName"
bean:write name="customer" property="lastName"
bean:write name="customer" property="address"


logic:iterate
table

36.What are differences between and
: is used to retrive keyed values from resource bundle. It also supports the ability to include parameters that can be substituted for defined placeholders in the retrieved string.

: is used to retrieve and print the value of the bean property. has no body.


37.How the exceptions are handled in struts?
Exceptions in Struts are handled in two ways:
Programmatic exception handling : Explicit try/catch blocks in any code that can throw exception. It works well when custom value (i.e., of variable) needed when error occurs.
Declarative exception handling :You can either define global-exceptions handling tags in your struts-config.xml or define the exception handling tags within tag. It works well when custom page needed when error occurs. This approach applies only to exceptions thrown by Actions.

global-exceptions
exception key="some.key"
type="java.lang.NullPointerException"
path="/WEB-INF/errors/null.jsp"/>

global-exceptions
or
exception key="some.key"
type="package.SomeException"
path="/WEB-INF/somepage.jsp"/>

38.What is difference between ActionForm and DynaActionForm?
An ActionForm represents an HTML form that the user interacts with over one or more pages. You will provide properties to hold the state of the form with getters and setters to access them. Whereas, using DynaActionForm there is no need of providing properties to hold the state. Instead these properties and their type are declared in the struts-config.xml
The DynaActionForm bloats up the Struts config file with the xml based definition. This gets annoying as the Struts Config file grow larger.
The DynaActionForm is not strongly typed as the ActionForm. This means there is no compile time checking for the form fields. Detecting them at runtime is painful and makes you go through redeployment.
ActionForm can be cleanly organized in packages as against the flat organization in the Struts Config file.
ActionForm were designed to act as a Firewall between HTTP and the Action classes, i.e. isolate and encapsulate the HTTP request parameters from direct use in Actions. With DynaActionForm, the property access is no different than using request.getParameter( .. ).
DynaActionForm construction at runtime requires a lot of Java Reflection (Introspection) machinery that can be avoided.

39.How can we make message resources definitions file available to the Struts framework environment?
We can make message resources definitions file (properties file) available to Struts framework environment by adding this file to struts-config.xml.


40.What is the life cycle of ActionForm?

The lifecycle of ActionForm invoked by the RequestProcessor is as follows:
Retrieve or Create Form Bean associated with Action
"Store" FormBean in appropriate scope (request or session)
Reset the properties of the FormBean
Populate the properties of the FormBean
Validate the properties of the FormBean
Pass FormBean to Action

AddToAny

Contact Form

Name

Email *

Message *