Dinesh on Java

JSP

JSP Auto Refresh

The following scriptlet code adds a Refresh header that specifies a 60-second interval for refreshing the JSP. Place this code at the top of the JSP before any content appears:

<% response.addHeader("Refresh","60"); %>

If you want to refresh the JSP to another web component or page, use this syntax:

<% response.addHeader("Refresh","10;
  http://localhost:8080/myapp/index.jsp"); %>

Consider a webpage which is displaying live game score or stock market status or currency exchange ration. For all such type of pages, you would need to refresh your web page regularly using refresh or reload button with your browser.

JSP makes this job easy by providing you a mechanism where you can make a webpage in such a way that it would refresh automatically after a given interval.

The simplest way of refreshing a web page is using method setIntHeader() of response object. Following is the signature of this method:

public void setIntHeader(String header, int headerValue)

This method sends back header “Refresh” to the browser along with an integer value which indicates time interval in seconds.

Auto Page Refresh Example:
Following example would use setIntHeader() method to set Refresh header to simulate a digital clock:

<%@ page import="java.io.*,java.util.*" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Auto Refresh Header Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<center>
<h2>Auto Refresh Header Example</h2>
<%
   // Set refresh, autoload time as 5 seconds
   response.setIntHeader("Refresh", 5);
   // Get current time
   Calendar calendar = new GregorianCalendar();
   String am_pm;
   int hour = calendar.get(Calendar.HOUR);
   int minute = calendar.get(Calendar.MINUTE);
   int second = calendar.get(Calendar.SECOND);
   if(calendar.get(Calendar.AM_PM) == 0)
      am_pm = "AM";
   else
      am_pm = "PM";
   String CT = hour+":"+ minute +":"+ second +" "+ am_pm;
   out.println("Crrent Time: " + CT + "n");
%>
</center>
</body>
</html>

Now put the above code in idex.jsp and try to access it. This would display current system time after every 5 seconds as follows. Just run the JSP and wait to see the result:

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Dinesh Rajput

Dinesh Rajput is the chief editor of a website Dineshonjava, a technical blog dedicated to the Spring and Java technologies. It has a series of articles related to Java technologies. Dinesh has been a Spring enthusiast since 2008 and is a Pivotal Certified Spring Professional, an author of a book Spring 5 Design Pattern, and a blogger. He has more than 10 years of experience with different aspects of Spring and Java design and development. His core expertise lies in the latest version of Spring Framework, Spring Boot, Spring Security, creating REST APIs, Microservice Architecture, Reactive Pattern, Spring AOP, Design Patterns, Struts, Hibernate, Web Services, Spring Batch, Cassandra, MongoDB, and Web Application Design and Architecture. He is currently working as a technology manager at a leading product and web development company. He worked as a developer and tech lead at the Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd and was the first developer in his previous company, Paytm. Dinesh is passionate about the latest Java technologies and loves to write technical blogs related to it. He is a very active member of the Java and Spring community on different forums. When it comes to the Spring Framework and Java, Dinesh tops the list!