Question

When I place the following jQuery code in JSP:

<script>
    $(document).bind("ready",function(){
        var recordPerPages=3;
        var currentPage=1;
        var trs=$("table tr");
        alert(trs);

        function create(pageNo){
            $("table").empty();
            var endRec=pageNo*recordPerPages;
            var stRec=endRec-recordPerPages;
            trs.each(function(indx){
                if((indx+1)>=stRec && indx<endRec){
                    $("table").append($(this))
                }
            })
        }
        create(currentPage)

        $("#prev").bind("click",function(){
            currentPage=currentPage-1
            create(currentPage)
        })

        $("#next").bind("click",function(){
            currentPage=currentPage+1
            create(currentPage)
        })
    })
</script>

Then I get the following error:

editListContributions.jsp:38:29: Illegal token.
       if((indx+1)>= stRec && indx <  endRec){

                        ^

How is this caused and how can I solve it?

Answer 1

That can happen if you’re actually using JSPX instead of JSP. JSPX is XML based. All special characters in XML such as <, & and > (which represent respectively the start of a XML element, the start of a XML entity and the end of a XML element) needs to be escaped as <, & and >.

if((indx+1)>= stRec && indx < endRec){

An alternative to this unreadable mess is to put the entire script in a CDATA block.

<script>
    <![CDATA[
        ...
    ]]>
</script>

Much better is however to put JS code in its own .js file which you include by <script src>.

<script src="onload.js"></script>

See also:

• Mozilla Developer Network – Writing JavaScript for XHTML