Question

I come from PHP world, where declaring a function in the middle of a php page is pretty simple.
I tried to do the same in JSP:

public String getQuarter(int i){
String quarter;
switch(i){
    case 1: quarter = "Winter";
    break;

    case 2: quarter = "Spring";
    break;

    case 3: quarter = "Summer I";
    break;

    case 4: quarter = "Summer II";
    break;

    case 5: quarter = "Fall";
    break;

    default: quarter = "ERROR";
}

return quarter;
}

I get the following error:

An error occurred at line: 20 in the jsp file: /headers.jsp
Illegal modifier for the variable getQuarter; only final is permitted return;

Answer 1

You need to enclose that in <%! %> as follows:

<%!

public String getQuarter(int i){
String quarter;
switch(i){
        case 1: quarter = "Winter";
        break;

        case 2: quarter = "Spring";
        break;

        case 3: quarter = "Summer I";
        break;

        case 4: quarter = "Summer II";
        break;

        case 5: quarter = "Fall";
        break;

        default: quarter = "ERROR";
}

return quarter;
}

%>

You can then invoke the function within scriptlets or expressions:

<%
     out.print(getQuarter(4));
%>

or

<%= getQuarter(17) %>