JSP Tags for SQL to connect to a database

By: Manoj Kumar in JSP Tutorials on 2022-10-06

In JavaServer Pages (JSP), database connectivity can be established using Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) API. There are several ways to use JDBC in JSP pages, including using scriptlets, custom tag libraries, or JSP Standard Tag Library (JSTL).

Here is an example of using JSTL SQL tags to connect to a database in JSP:

First, include the JSTL library in the JSP page:

<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="sql" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/sql"%>

Next, use the <sql:setDataSource> tag to configure the JDBC connection pool:

<sql:setDataSource
  var="myDataSource"
  driver="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
  url="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/mydatabase"
  user="myusername"
  password="mypassword"
/>

Then, use the <sql:query> tag to execute a SQL query and retrieve the results:

<sql:query dataSource="${myDataSource}" var="result">
  SELECT * FROM mytable
</sql:query>

Finally, iterate through the results using the <c:forEach> tag:

<c:forEach var="row" items="${result.rows}">
  ${row.column1} ${row.column2} ${row.column3}
</c:forEach>

This example assumes that the MySQL JDBC driver is included in the classpath of the web application. Additionally, it's important to note that using SQL tags in JSP is not recommended for production applications due to security and performance issues. It's better to use a separate data access layer, such as a servlet or a Spring framework's data access object (DAO), to handle database interactions.

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