Ajax with JQuery and Java

I had a need to populate some drop-down select fields with database values for a customer form. I got it to work using JQuery 1.4.2 and Java 6.

HTML or JSP page:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
 jQuery(function($){
  // other initial setup
    startup();
 });
</script>
</head>

JavaScript

function startup() {
 loadJobData();
 // other initial functions
}

function loadJobData() {
 $("select#jobPosition").load("MyAjax",{id: "jobtitles", ajax: 'true'});
}

Java Controller

public class MyAjaxController extends HttpServlet {

protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request,
  HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
 processRequest(request, response);
}

public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
throws ServletException, IOException {
 processRequest(request, response);
}

private void processRequest(HttpServletRequest request,
  HttpServletResponse response) throws IOException {

 String dataRequested = request.getParameter("id");
 JobListData listData = new JobListData();
 String displayText = listData.getData(dataRequested); // go to database, file, whereever

 response.setContentType("text/xml");
 PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
 out.println(displayText);
 out.flush();
 out.close();
}

Standard web.xml entry

<servlet>
 <description>my ajax</description>
 <display-name>MyAjaxController</display-name>
 <servlet-name>MyAjaxController</servlet-name>
 <servlet-class>com.mysite.MyAjaxController</servlet-class>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
 <servlet-name>MyAjaxController</servlet-name>
 <url-pattern>/MyAjax</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>