Question

There is a properly formatted text in Html textarea which looks like :

As this song/poem is submitted a servlet handles it and and puts it all in the string and saves it in the servlet context.At one point I have to display the poem submitted but when I get that attribute from the servlet context it displays the text in one single line.

What should I do to save the text as String in the servlet context that is formatted in the same manner as has been formatted in the text area.

servlet snippet that handles the poem :

    String poetry = request.getParameter("poetry");
   String poet = request.getParameter("poet");

   ServletContext context = getServletContext();

   poetryMapsPoet = (HashMap<String,String>)context.getAttribute("Poetry");

   if(poetryMapsPoet == null) {
       poetryMapsPoet = new HashMap<String,String>();
       context.setAttribute("Poetry", poetryMapsPoet);
   }
   poetryMapsPoet.put(poetry, poet);
   // Poetry is the key and poet is the value

Answer 1

Wrap it in a pre block:

<pre><c:out value="${thePoem}"/></pre>

Or use a tag that will transform every end of line into a <br/>. I’ve always wondered why this wasn’t part of the JSTL. But it’s pretty easy to write yourself.