User Guide

Table Of Contents
Interoperating with JSP pages and servlets 923
For example, you might want to integrate an existing JSP customer response component into a
new ColdFusion order processing application. The order processing application provides the
order number, total cost, and expected shipping date, and the customer response component
sends the response to the e-mail address on file for the particular customer number. The
ColdFusion application might use the following CFScript code to call the response JSP page:
urlParams = "UID=#order.uid#&cost=#order.total#&orderNo=#order.orderNo#
&shipDate=#order.shipDateNo#"
getPageContext().forward(URLEncodedFormat("/responsegen/responsegen.jsp
?#urlParams#"));
To access a servlet that exposes the same functionality, you use the same code, although the URL
would change. For example, to run a servlet called HelloWorldServlet, you put the servlet .java or
.class file in the serverroot/WEB-INF/classes directory and refer to the servlet with the URL
/servlet/HelloWorldServlet.
Sharing data between ColdFusion pages and JSP pages or servlets
If an application includes ColdFusion pages and JSP pages or servlets, they can share data in the
Request, Session and Application scopes. The following table lists the ways that you can access
JSP pages with which you want to share the scope data:
Note: When you share data between ColdFusion pages and JSP pages, you must be careful about
data type conversion issues. For more information, see “Java and ColdFusion data type conversions”
on page 933.
To share session variables, you must specify J2EE session management in the ColdFusion MX
Administrator. For more information on configuring and using J2EE Session scope management,
see Chapter 15, “ColdFusion and J2EE session management,” on page 352.
For example, you could put the customer order structure used in the previous example in the
Session scope. Then, you would not have to pass the order values as a set of parameters. Instead,
the JSP pages could access the Session scope variables directly, and the ColdFusion page would
only require a line like the following to call the JSP page:
getPageContext().forward(URLEncodedFormat("/responsegen/responsegen.jsp"));
For examples of using the Request, Session, and Application scopes to share data between
ColdFusion pages and JSP pages, including samples of the appropriate JSP code, see the following
section, “Examples: using JSP with CFML”.
Note: When running in the server configuration, ColdFusion MX also shares the Form scope when
calling a JSP or servlet. In the J2EE configuration, however, sharing the Form scope is dependant on
the J2EE application server. For example, Macromedia JRun shares the Form scope, IBM
WebSphere does not. ColdFusion always shares the Request, Session, and Application scopes.
Scope Can share data using
Request forward, include
Note: Shared Request scope variable names in the JSP page or servlet must
be all-lowercase.
Session href, cfhttp, forward, include
Application href, cfhttp, forward, include