What is the pageContext implicit object?

A pageContext implicit object is used for storing and retrieving page-related information and sharing objects within the same translation unit and same request. Also used as a convenience class that maintains a table of all the other implicit objects.

• It stores referece to the implicit objects. The following example shows how PageContext is used to populate other implicit objects.

  public void _jspService (HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
      throws java.io.IOException, ServletException { 
  
       ... 
      try { 
  
           ... 
          application = pageContext.getServletContext ();
          config = pageContext.getServletConfig ();
          session = pageContext.getSession ();
          out = pageContext.getOut (); 
           ... 
  
      } catch (Throwable t) {
           ... 
      } finally {
           ... 
      }
  }
  
  

• Provides convenience methods to get and set attributes in different scopes. This example uses attributes to save and retrieve data in each of the four scopes:

  <%
    // Save data
    pageContext.setAttribute("attr1", "value0");  // PAGE_SCOPE is the default
    pageContext.setAttribute("attr2", "value1", PageContext.PAGE_SCOPE);
    pageContext.setAttribute("attr3", "value2", PageContext.REQUEST_SCOPE);
    pageContext.setAttribute("attr4", "value3", PageContext.SESSION_SCOPE);
    pageContext.setAttribute("attr5", "value4", PageContext.APPLICATION_SCOPE);
  %>
      
  <%-- Show the values --%>
  <%= pageContext.getAttribute("attr1") %>
  <%= pageContext.getAttribute("attr2", PageContext.PAGE_SCOPE) %>
  <%= pageContext.getAttribute("attr3", PageContext.REQUEST_SCOPE) %>
  <%= pageContext.getAttribute("attr4", PageContext.SESSION_SCOPE) %>
  <%= pageContext.getAttribute("attr5", PageContext.APPLICATION_SCOPE) %>
  

• Provides convenience methods for transferring requests to other resources in your application:

  PageContext
  	void include (String relativeURL)	Includes the output of another resource in the output of the current page. Same as ServletRequest.getRequestDispatcher ().include ();
  	void forward (String relativeURL)	Forwards the request to another resource. Same as ServletRequest.getRequestDispatcher ().forward ();

  For example, to forward a request to another resource from a servlet, we have to write the following to lines:

  RequestDispatcher rd = request.getRequestDispatcher ("other.jsp");
rd.forward (request, response);

  In a JSP page, we can do that in just one line by using the pageContext variable:

  pageContext.forward ("other.jsp");

The pageContext object has a type of javax.servlet.jsp.PageContext and according to the API documents:

"A PageContext instance provides access to all the namespaces associated with a JSP page, provides access to several page attributes, as well as a layer above the implementation details. Implicit objects are added to the pageContext automatically"

A PageContext instance is obtained by a JSP implementation class by calling the JspFactory.getPageContext() method, and is released by calling JspFactory.releasePageContext().

• a single API to manage the various scoped namespaces
• a number of convenience API?s to access various public objects
• a mechanism to obtain the JspWriter for output
• a mechanism to manage session usage by the page
• a mechanism to expose page directive attributes to the scripting environment
• mechanisms to forward or include the current request to other active components in the application
• a mechanism to handle errorpage exception processing

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