Why there is a need of pageContext in JSP?

Question

When we can access all the implicit variables in JSP, why do we have pageContext ?

My assumption is the following: if we use EL expressions or JSTL, to acc

Answer 1

You need it to access non-implicit variables. Does it now make sense?

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Update: Sometimes would just like to access the getter methods of HttpServletRequest and HttpSession directly. In standard JSP, both are only available by ${pageContext}. Here are some real world use examples:

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Refreshing page when session times out:

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Passing session ID to an Applet (so that it can communicate with servlet in the same session):

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Displaying some message only on first request of a session:

Welcome!

note that new has special treatment because it's a reserved keyword in EL, at least, since EL 2.2

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Displaying user IP:

Your IP is: ${pageContext.request.remoteAddr}

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Making links domain-relative without hardcoding current context path:

login

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Dynamically defining the tag (with a bit help of JSTL functions taglib):

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Etcetera. Peek around in the aforelinked HttpServletRequest and HttpSession javadoc to learn about all those getter methods. Some of them may be useful in JSP/EL as well.