Recipe 5.2 Precompiling a JSP in WebLogic

Problem

You want to precompile a JSP in WebLogic.

Solution

Use the weblogic.jspc Java utility that installs with WebLogic Server 7.0.

Discussion

WebLogic Server 7.0 installs with its own Java utility for precompiling JSPs: weblogic.jspc. This utility is part of the JAR file that can be found at this location: <WebLogic-install-directory>/weblogic700/server/lib/weblogic.jar. When you precompile JSPs using weblogic.jspc, it places the class files in the specified destination directory. Example 5-4 shows a simple batch file on Windows NT that precompiles an example.jsp JSP page into its servlet implementation class.

Example 5-4. Precompiling a JSP with weblogic.jspc

@echo off
set WLCLASSPATH=k:\bea\weblogic700\server\lib\weblogic.jar;%CLASSPATH% 
java -cp %WLCLASSPATH% weblogic.jspc -d .\classes example.jsp

The second line of Example 5-4 sets an environment variable, WLCLASSPATH. This variable prepends a reference to weblogic.jar to the existing CLASSPATH variable. The next line of the example uses this combined classpath to run weblogic.jspc. The -d switch tells the program where to store the resulting class files, in this case, in the classes directory beneath the directory containing the batch file and example.jsp. This program generates a Java class file named jsp_servlet._ _example.class (including the package name). If you do not specify a package for the compiled servlet, jsp_servlet is used as the default package name (see Example 5-6). Example 5-5 shows a shell script that is written on Mac OS X for precompiling a JSP with WebLogic.

Example 5-5. Precompiling JSPs with weblogic.jspc and a shell script

#!/bin/sh
WLCLASSPATH=/Users/bruceper/java/weblogic_jar/weblogic.jar:$CLASSPATH;
export WLCLASSPATH;
java -cp $WLCLASSPATH weblogic.jspc
  -d /Users/bruceper/books/cookbook/code/chap5/classes  newfile.jsp

weblogic.jspc is different from Tomcat's JspC utility in that it compiles a file in JSP page syntax into the servlet class file in a single operation. Using Tomcat's JspC from the command line requires the use of a compiler, such as javac, to compile the .java files generated by JspC into class files. This second compilation step when using JspC is handled automatically when using weblogic.jspc.

The Windows batch file in Example 5-6 specifies a jspservletcookbook package for all the JSP pages found in the web application specified by the -webapp switch.

Example 5-6. Using weblogic.jspc to precompile all JSP pages in a web application

@echo off
set WLCLASSPATH=k:\bea\weblogic700\server\lib\weblogic.jar;%CLASSPATH%
java -cp %WLCLASSPATH% weblogic.jspc -d .\classes -package jspservletcookbook -compileAll 
-webapp h:/home

Example 5-7 shows a Unix shell script that does the same thing.

Example 5-7. Precompiling all JSP pages in a web application with a shell script

#!/bin/sh
WLCLASSPATH=/Users/bruceper/java/weblogic_jar/weblogic.jar:$CLASSPATH;
export WLCLASSPATH;
java -cp $WLCLASSPATH weblogic.jspc -d /Users/bruceper/books/cookbook/code/chap5/classes
-package jspservletcookbook -compileAll -webapp /Users/bruceper/books/cookbook/code/chap5

Note this portion of the instruction in the example:

-compileAll -webapp h:/home

The -compileAll switch, along with an argument to -webapp, tells weblogic.jspc to precompile all the JSP files found in the web application configured in the h:\home directory, including any JSP files nested in subdirectories. This web application is in exploded directory format (not archived into a WAR file). In Example 5-6, the compiled classes are stored in the \classes\jspservletcookbook directory path.