JSP.2.8 Implicit Objects

When you author JSP pages, you have access to certain implicit objects that are always available for use within scriptlets and expressions, without being declared first. All scripting languages are required to provide access to these objects.

Each implicit object has a class or interface type defined in a core Java technology or Java servlet API package, as shown in Table JSP.2-4.

Table JSP.2-4. Implicit Objects Available in JSP Pages

Implicit Variable	Of Type	What It Represents	Scope
request	protocol dependent subtype of: javax.servlet.ServletRequest e.g.: javax.servlet.HttpServletRequest	The request triggering the service invocation.	request
response	protocol dependent subtype of: javax.servlet.ServletResponse e.g.: javax.servlet.HttpServletResponse	The response to the request.	page
pageContext	javax.servlet.jsp.PageContext	The page context for this JSP page.	page
session	javax.servlet.http.HttpSession	The session object created for the requesting client (if any). This variable is valid only for Http protocols.	session
application	javax.servlet.ServletContext	The servlet context obtained from the servlet configuration object (as in the call getServletConfig().getContext() )	application
out	javax.servlet.jsp.JspWriter	An object that writes into the output stream.	page
config	javax.servlet.ServletConfig	The ServletConfig for this JSP page.	page
page	java.lang.Object	The instance of this page's implementation class processing the current request. [a]	page

^[a] When the scripting language is "java" then "page" is a synonym for "this" in the body of the page.

In addition, in an error page, you can access the exception implicit object, described in Table JSP.2-5.

Table JSP.2-5. Implicit Objects Available in Error Pages

Implicit Variable	Of Type	What It Represents	scope
exception	java.lang.Throwable	The uncaught Throwable that resulted in the error page being invoked.	page

Object names with prefixes jsp , _jsp , jspx , and _jspx , in any combination of uppercase and lowercase, are reserved by the JSP specification.

See Section JSP.5.8.1 for some non-normative conventions for the introduction of new implicit objects.