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Chapter

JSP directive affects the overall structure of the servlet that results

from the JSP page. The following templates show the two possible

A

forms for directives. Single quotes can be substituted for the double

quotes around the attribute values, but the quotation marks cannot be omit 

ted altogether. To obtain quote marks within an attribute value, precede

them with a back slash, using 

\'

 for 

'

 and 

\"

 for 

"

.

<%@ directive attribute="value" %>

<%@ directive attribute1="value1" 

              attribute2="value2"

              ...

              attributeN="valueN" %>

In JSP, there are three types of directives: 

page

, 

include

, and 

taglib

.

The 

page

 directive lets you control the structure of the servlet by importing

classes, customizing the servlet superclass, setting the content type, and the

like. A 

page

 directive can be placed anywhere within the document; its use is

the topic of this chapter. The second directive, 

include

, lets you insert a file

into the servlet class at the time the JSP file is translated into a servlet. An

include

 directive should be placed in the document at the point at which

you want the file to be inserted; it is discussed in Chapter 12 (Including Files

and Applets in JSP Documents) for inserting files into JSP pages. JSP 1.1

introduces a third directive, 

taglib

, which can be used to define custom

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