Preface

This document provides reference information as well as some conceptual material for JSP tag libraries and utilities included with OC4J. These libraries are generally portable, not requiring the OC4J JSP container.

This preface contains these topics:

• Intended Audience

• Documentation Accessibility

• Organization

• Related Documentation

• Conventions

  Note: The Sample Applications chapter was removed for Oracle9iAS 9.0.2. Applications that were listed there are available in the OC4J demos, from either of the following locations: the OC4J demo instance, included with the Oracle9iAS product the JSP download page on the Oracle Technology Network (requiring an OTN membership, which is free): http://otn.oracle.com/tech/java/servlets/content.html

Intended Audience

This document is intended for Web application developers using servlet and JavaServer Pages technology. It assumes that working Web, servlet, and JSP environments already exist, and that readers are already familiar with the following:

• general Web technology

• Java

• HTML

• Java servlets

• JavaServer Pages

• how to configure their Web server and servlet environments

• Oracle JDBC (for JSP applications accessing an Oracle database)

• Oracle SQLJ (for JSP database applications using SQLJ)

You can refer to the Oracle9iAS Containers for J2EE Support for JavaServer Pages Reference for background information about standard JavaServer Pages technology and tag library support, and details of the Oracle JSP implementation.

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle Corporation is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For additional information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

JAWS, a Windows screen reader, may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, JAWS may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle Corporation does not own or control. Oracle Corporation neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

Organization

This document contains:

Chapter 1, "Overview of Tag Libraries and Utilities"

This chapter provides an overview of the tag libraries documented in the remainder of the manual, as well as overviews of tag libraries provided with other Oracle9iAS components (outside of OC4J).

Chapter 2, "JavaBeans for Extended Types"

This chapter discusses JavaBeans provided with the JSP Markup Language (JML) library that can be used as extended Java types.

Chapter 3, "JSP Markup Language Tags"

This provides JML syntax and tag descriptions, as well as an overview of the philosophy behind the JML tag library.

Chapter 4, "Data-Access JavaBeans and Tags"

This documents JavaBeans and tags for database access.

Chapter 5, "XML and XSL Tag Support"

This chapter describes tags to use in handling XML documents and outputting or transforming their data.

Chapter 6, "JESI Tags for Edge Side Includes"

This chapter describes the Oracle implementation of JESI tags to support Edge Side Includes technology for Web caching.

Chapter 7, "Web Object Cache Tags and API"

This describes concepts, custom tags, servlet APIs, and XML descriptor files for the Web Object Cache, an application-level Java caching interface provided with OC4J.

Chapter 8, "JSP Utilities and Utility Tags"

This chapter discusses miscellaneous utility features included with OC4J: JspScopeListener for event-handling; a tag and JavaBean for sending e-mail; tags and JavaBeans for uploading or downloading files; tags for using EJBs; and general utility tags.

Chapter 9, "Oracle9iAS Personalization Tags"

This chapter describes a set of tags to support use of Oracle9iAS Personalization. Personalization is a mechanism to tailor recommendations to application users, based on behavioral, purchasing, rating, and demographic data.

Appendix A, "JML Compile-Time Syntax and Tags"

This chapter provides an overview of the compile-time implementation of the Oracle JML sample tag library (the only way the library was supported in pre-JSP 1.1 releases), and documents tags not supported in the runtime implementation that is documented in Chapter 3.

Appendix B, "Third Party Licenses"

This appendix includes the Third Party License for third party products included with Oracle9i Application Server and discussed in this document.

Related Documentation

See the following additional OC4J documents available from the Oracle Java Platform group:

• Oracle9iAS Containers for J2EE User's Guide

  This book provides some overview and general information for OC4J; primer chapters for servlets, JSP pages, and EJBs; and general configuration and deployment instructions.

• Oracle9iAS Containers for J2EE Support for JavaServer Pages Reference

  This book provides information for JSP developers who want to run their pages in OC4J. It includes a general overview of JSP standards and programming considerations, as well as discussion of Oracle value-added features and steps for getting started in the OC4J environment.

• Oracle9iAS Containers for J2EE Servlet Developer's Guide

  This book provides information for servlet developers regarding use of servlets and the servlet container in OC4J. It also documents relevant OC4J configuration files.

• Oracle9iAS Containers for J2EE Services Guide

  This book describes basic Java services supplied with OC4J, such as JTA, JNDI, and the Oracle9i Application Server Java Object Cache.

• Oracle9iAS Containers for J2EE Enterprise JavaBeans Developer's Guide and Reference

  This book discusses the EJB implementation and EJB container in OC4J.

Also available from the Oracle Java Platform group:

• Oracle9i JDBC Developer's Guide and Reference

• Oracle9i SQLJ Developer's Guide and Reference

• Oracle9i JPublisher User's Guide

• Oracle9i Java Stored Procedures Developer's Guide

The following documents are available from the Oracle9i Application Server group:

• Oracle9i Application Server Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Administrator's Guide

• Oracle HTTP Server Administration Guide

• Oracle9i Application Server Performance Guide

• Oracle9i Application Server Globalization Support Guide

• Oracle9iAS Web Cache Administration and Deployment Guide

• Oracle9i Application Server: Migrating from Oracle9i Application Server 1.x

The following are available from the JDeveloper group:

• Oracle JDeveloper online help

• Oracle JDeveloper documentation on the Oracle Technology Network:

  http://otn.oracle.com/products/jdev/content.html
  
  

The following documents from the Oracle Server Technologies group may also contain information of interest:

• Oracle9i XML Developer's Kits Guide - XDK

• Oracle9i Application Developer's Guide - Fundamentals

• Oracle9i Supplied Java Packages Reference

• Oracle9i Supplied PL/SQL Packages and Types Reference

• PL/SQL User's Guide and Reference

• Oracle9i SQL Reference

• Oracle9i Net Services Administrator's Guide

• Oracle Advanced Security Administrator's Guide

• Oracle9i Database Reference

• Oracle9i Database Error Messages

For information about Oracle9iAS Personalization, which is the foundation of the Personalization tag library, you can refer to the following documents from the Oracle9iAS Personalization group:

• Oracle9iAS Personalization Administrator's Guide

• Oracle9iAS Personalization Recommendation Engine API Programmer's Guide

In North America, printed documentation is available for sale in the Oracle Store at

http://oraclestore.oracle.com/

Customers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) can purchase documentation from

http://www.oraclebookshop.com/

Other customers can contact their Oracle representative to purchase printed documentation.

To download free release notes, installation documentation, white papers, or other collateral, please visit the Oracle Technology Network (OTN). You must register online before using OTN; registration is free and can be done at

http://otn.oracle.com/admin/account/membership.html

If you already have a username and password for OTN, then you can go directly to the documentation section of the OTN Web site at

http://otn.oracle.com/docs/index.htm

The following Oracle Technology Network (OTN) resources are available for further information about JavaServer Pages:

• OTN Web site for Java servlets and JavaServer Pages:

  http://otn.oracle.com/tech/java/servlets/
  
  

• OTN JSP discussion forums, accessible through the following address:

  http://www.oracle.com/forums/forum.jsp?id=399160
  
  

The following resources are available from Sun Microsystems:

• Web site for JavaServer Pages, including the latest specifications:

  http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/index.html
  
  

• Web site for Java Servlet technology, including the latest specifications:

  http://java.sun.com/products/servlet/index.html
  
  

• jsp-interest discussion group for JavaServer Pages

  To subscribe, send an e-mail to listserv@java.sun.com with the following line in the body of the message:

  subscribe jsp-interest yourlastname yourfirstname
  
  

  It is recommended, however, that you request only the daily digest of the posted e-mails. To do this add the following line to the message body as well:

  set jsp-interest digest
  
  

Conventions

This section describes the conventions used in the text and code examples of this documentation set. It describes:

• Conventions in Text

• Conventions in Code Examples

Conventions in Text

We use various conventions in text to help you more quickly identify special terms. The following table describes those conventions and provides examples of their use.

Convention	Meaning	Example
Italics	Italic typeface indicates book titles or emphasis, or terms that are defined in the text.	Oracle9i Database Concepts Ensure that the recovery catalog and target database do not reside on the same disk.
UPPERCASE monospace (fixed-width) font	Uppercase monospace typeface indicates elements supplied by the system. Such elements include parameters, privileges, datatypes, RMAN keywords, SQL keywords, SQL*Plus or utility commands, packages and methods, as well as system-supplied column names, database objects and structures, usernames, and roles.	You can specify this clause only for a NUMBER column. You can back up the database by using the BACKUP command. Query the TABLE_NAME column in the USER_TABLES data dictionary view. Use the DBMS_STATS.GENERATE_STATS procedure.
lowercase monospace (fixed-width) font	Lowercase monospace typeface indicates executables, filenames, directory names, and sample user-supplied elements. Such elements include computer and database names, net service names, and connect identifiers, as well as user-supplied database objects and structures, column names, packages and classes, usernames and roles, program units, and parameter values. Note: Some programmatic elements use a mixture of UPPERCASE and lowercase. Enter these elements as shown.	Enter sqlplus to open SQL*Plus. The password is specified in the orapwd file. Back up the data files and control files in the /disk1/oracle/dbs directory. The department_id, department_name, and location_id columns are in the hr.departments table. Set the QUERY_REWRITE_ENABLED initialization parameter to true. Connect as oe user. The JRepUtil class implements these methods.
lowercase italic monospace (fixed-width) font	Lowercase italic monospace font represents place holders or variables.	You can specify the parallel_clause. Run Uold_release.SQL where old_release refers to the release you installed prior to upgrading.

Conventions in Code Examples

Code examples illustrate SQL, PL/SQL, SQL*Plus, or other command-line statements. They are displayed in a monospace (fixed-width) font and separated from normal text as shown in this example:

SELECT username FROM dba_users WHERE username = 'MIGRATE';

The following table describes typographic conventions used in code examples and provides examples of their use.

Convention	Meaning	Example
[ ]	Brackets enclose one or more optional items. Do not enter the brackets.	DECIMAL (digits [ , precision ])
|	A vertical bar represents a choice of two or more options within brackets or braces. Enter one of the options. Do not enter the vertical bar.	{ENABLE | DISABLE} [COMPRESS | NOCOMPRESS]
...	Horizontal ellipsis points indicate either: That we have omitted parts of the code that are not directly related to the example That you can repeat a portion of the code	CREATE TABLE ... AS subquery; SELECT col1, col2, ... , coln FROM employees;
Other notation	You must enter symbols other than brackets, braces, vertical bars, and ellipsis points as shown.	acctbal NUMBER(11,2); acct CONSTANT NUMBER(4) := 3;
Italics	Italicized text indicates place holders or variables for which you must supply particular values.	CONNECT SYSTEM/system_password DB_NAME = database_name
UPPERCASE	Uppercase typeface indicates elements supplied by the system. We show these terms in uppercase in order to distinguish them from terms you define. Unless terms appear in brackets, enter them in the order and with the spelling shown. However, because these terms are not case sensitive, you can enter them in lowercase.	SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM employees; SELECT * FROM USER_TABLES; DROP TABLE hr.employees;
lowercase	Lowercase typeface indicates programmatic elements that you supply. For example, lowercase indicates names of tables, columns, or files. Note: Some programmatic elements use a mixture of UPPERCASE and lowercase. Enter these elements as shown.	SELECT last_name, employee_id FROM employees; sqlplus hr/hr CREATE USER mjones IDENTIFIED BY ty3MU9;