JSP basics: include directive to read content at compile time

Contributed by qmchenry March 11, 2004  
Tagged: JSP programming

JSPs are compiled entities. Two include techniques read the included content before and after compilation. This recipe describes the compiled include directive.

When including a file header.jsp with the following syntax:

<%@ include file="header.jsp" %>

the contents of header.jsp are read into the JSP before it is compiled. Subsequent changes to the header.jsp file will not be included in the JSP until the JSP is recompiled.