Difference Between Page and PageContext?

page and pageContext are implicit variables.

Page : page is of class java.lang.Object,and it refers to instance of generated servlet.It is declared as

Object page=this;

// this refers to the instance of this servlet

page cannot be used to directly call the servlet methods.

1) <%=page.getServletInfo()%>

Error because page is java.lang.Object type

2) <%=((servlet)page).getServletInfo()%> <----OK:typecast

3) <%=this.getServletInfo()%> <-------OK

PageContext :

-> pageContext is of type javax.servlet.jsp.PageContext.

-> pageContext class is an abstract class.

It does the following things:

1.provide convenience methods to get and set attributes in diff scopes.

2.provide convenience methods for transfering requests to other resources in the web application

void include(String relativeURL) & void forward(String relativeURL)

Ex; pageContext.forward("kiran.jsp");

3.store the references to implicit objects