Question

I am currently learning jsp/servlet, and trying to make an online bookstore. Using jquery, I was able to send the GET request to the servlet. Upon success, it will reload the browseBookArea div with browseBookArea.jsp. What I don’t understand is, this procedure causes infinite loop on my glashfish servet (it happens within the BrowseBookTag.java. I put a System.out.println there to check it).

Is there another way to get the data returned from servlet to Jquery, so I can do it properly? Setting variables in session is not a good way for this I think. I saw the example with jquery.get where we can get the response data.

  var currentCat = "all";
  $(document).ready(function(){
    $(".categoryItem").click(function(event){
         $("#browseBookArea").fadeToggle(100);
         currentCat = $(this).attr("id");
         $.get("GetBookFromCategoryServlet",{selectedCat:currentCat, currentPage:1});                               });    
   $("#browseBookArea").ajaxSuccess(function(){                               
         $(this).show(300);
         $(this).load("Components/browseBookArea.jsp");
    });

   $(".pagination").click(function(event){
         $("#browseBookArea").fadeToggle(100);
         var page = $(this).attr("id");
         alert(currentCat);
         $.get("GetBookFromCategoryServlet",{selectedCat:currentCat, currentPage:page});
      });
});

Here is my browseBookArea.jsp:

<div id="browseBookArea" class="span-15 last">
    <%System.out.println("Back from servlet");
      Collection c = (Collection) request.getAttribute("booksFromCat");
      if (c == null) {
          Collection c1 = (Collection) session.getAttribute("booksFromCat");
          if (c1 == null) System.out.println("Books are null");
      }
    %>
    <myJavaTags:BrowseBookTag books="${booksFromCat}" pageSize="${pageSize}" >
        <c:if test="${not empty book1 }">
            <div class="span-7">
                    <center>
                        <img width="115px" height="115px" src='${book1.photoPath}.jpg'/>
                        <p>${book1.price}<br/><a>${book1.title}</a> <br/>${book1.authorName}<p>
                    </center>
            </div>
        </c:if>
        <c:if test="${not empty book2 }">
            <div class="push-1 span-7 last">
                <center>
                        <img width="115px" height="115px" src='${book2.photoPath}.jpg'/>
                        <p>${book2.price}<br/><a>${book2.title}</a> <br/>${book2.authorName}<p>
                </center>
            </div>
        </c:if>
    <hr class="space">
    </myJavaTags:BrowseBookTag>
    <hr class="space"/>
</div>

My BrowseBookTag:

 public void doTag() throws JspException, IOException{
//        if (books ==null){
//            admin = AdminBeanFactory.getAdminInstance();
//            books = admin.browseBook(cat);
//        }
        Iterator bookIt = books.iterator();
        JspContext jsp = getJspContext();
        int i = 0, count = 0;
        System.out.println("Total book size in browse tag: "+books.size());
        while (bookIt.hasNext() && i < pageSize){
            BookDTO b = (BookDTO) bookIt.next();
            if (count == 0){
                jsp.setAttribute("book1", b);
                if ((i+1) == pageSize){
                    jsp.setAttribute("book2", null);
                    getJspBody().invoke(null);
                }
                count++;
            }else{
                jsp.setAttribute("book2", b);
                getJspBody().invoke(null);
                count = 0;
            }
            i++;
        }
    }

Answer 1

I found the culprit. It is:

$("#browseBookArea").ajaxSuccess(function(){                               
         $(this).show(300);
         $(this).load("Components/browseBookArea.jsp");
    });

Bad, bad, bad. This demonstrates that I didn’t know the meaning of success method call. I’ve just realized that if I let the #browseBookArea div to load every time, it causes a successful operation, and then it will perform again which ultimately leads to recursion. Finally I got out of this pitfall. The correct thing should be:

$(".categoryItem").click(function(event){
      $("#browseBookArea").fadeToggle(100);
      var currentId = $(this).attr("id");
      $.get("GetBookFromCategoryServlet",{selectedCat:currentId, currentPage:1}, function(data){
             $("#browseBookArea").fadeIn(300); 
             $("#browseBookArea").load("Components/browseBookArea.jsp");                                  
             });
      }); 

I just need to define a successful handler after the GET request, and the successful handler must not be the div which invokes the operation.