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3. Basic Examples

This chapter covers a number of initial examples of webMathematica. Many of these can be copied and used as the

basis for your own work.

These examples are a form of JavaServer Pages (JSPs) that use a special library of tags that work with Mathematica.

JSPs support the embedding of Java into HTML, and are frequently used along with Java Servlets to develop large

dynamic web sites. The library of tags is called the MSP Taglib and will work on any compliant servlet engine. One

advantage of the use of a tag library is that it can completely hide any use of the Java programming language; this is

the case with the MSP Taglib.

This  chapter  considers  the  basics  of  webMathematica  scripts.  It  requires  some  knowledge  of  HTML,  including

form  and input  elements.  A reference to HTML  is included  at the end of  this document.  If you have  no under 

standing of form elements, it will be hard to write interactive examples for webMathematica.

The  description  given  here  will  work  through  a  collection  of  sample  JSPs,  each  of  which  will  demonstrate  some

detail  or  feature.  The  sources  for  all  these  examples  are  included  in  the  webMathematica  web  application  in  the

directory  Examples  (the  full  path  in  Tomcat  would  be  webapps/webMathematica/Examples).  If  you

followed the installation steps when you installed your server, you should be able to see these examples running live

in your server. Please note that these examples are designed to be simple examples of how to program with webMath 

ematica technology and have not been created for pleasing visual appearance.

These  examples  can  be  reached  from  the  webMathematica  home  page,  which  you  should  be  able  to  reach  via

http://localhost:8080/webMathematica. (You may have some other URL for accessing your server.) The home page

shows  examples  wrapped  up  in  a  template  that  adds  more  design  around  the  pages  to  give  them  a  better  visual

appearance. To study the details of how to program for webMathematica this extra design may be a distraction and

it is also possible to reach the examples without using the template.

When  you have  finished  this  chapter,  you may  wish  to look  at  the next  chapter:  

Developing  Your  Own  Pages

.

This gives some ideas for getting started to develop your own site.

3.1 Hello.jsp

If  you  installed  webMathematica  as  described  

above

,  you  should  be  able  to  connect  to  this  JSP  via

http://localhost:8080/webMathematica/Examples/Hello.jsp.  (You  may  have  some  other  URL  for  accessing  your

server.)

This example  evaluates the  Date[]  function of  Mathematica.  The result changes  each  time the  page  is accessed,

demonstrating that this really is a dynamic process. The source for this page is in webMathematica/Examples/ 

Hello.jsp. 

 .