Expression Language
A primary feature of JSP technology version 2.0 is its support for an expression language (EL). An expression language makes it possible to easily access application data stored in JavaBeans components. For example, the JSP expression language allows a page author to access a bean using simple syntax such as${name}
for a simple variable or${name.foo.bar}
for a nested property.
Thetest
attribute of the following conditional tag is supplied with an EL expression that compares the number of items in the session-scoped bean namedcart
with 0:
The JSP expression evaluator is responsible for handling EL expressions, which are enclosed by the${ }
characters and can include literals. Here's an example:
Any value that does not begin with${
is treated as a literal and is parsed to the expected type using thePropertyEditor
for the type:
Literal values that contain the${
characters must be escaped as follows:
Deactivating Expression Evaluation
Because the pattern that identifies EL expressions--${ }
--was not reserved in the JSP specifications before JSP 2.0, there may be applications where such a pattern is intended to pass through verbatim. To prevent the pattern from being evaluated, you can deactivate EL evaluation.
To deactivate the evaluation of EL expressions, you specify theisELIgnored
attribute of thepage
directive:
The valid values of this attribute aretrue
andfalse
. If it istrue
, EL expressions are ignored when they appear in static text or tag attributes. If it isfalse
, EL expressions are evaluated by the container.
The default value varies depending on the version of the web application deployment descriptor. The default mode for JSP pages delivered using a Servlet 2.3 or earlier descriptor is to ignore EL expressions; this provides backward compatibility. The default mode for JSP pages delivered with a Servlet 2.4 descriptor is to evaluate EL expressions; this automatically provides the default that most applications want. You can also deactivate EL expression evaluation for a group of JSP pages (seeDeactivating EL Expression Evaluation)
.
Using Expressions
EL expressions can be used:
The value of an expression in static text is computed and inserted into the current output. If the static text appears in a tag body, note that an expressionwill notbe evaluated if the body is declared to betagdependent
(seebody-content Attribute).
There are three ways to set a tag attribute value:
<some:tag value="${expr}"/>
The expression is evaluated and the result is coerced to the attribute's expected type.
<some:tag value="some${expr}${expr}text${expr}"/>
The expressions are evaluated from left to right. Each expression is coerced to aString
and then concatenated with any intervening text. The resultingString
is then coerced to the attribute's expected type.
<some:tag value="sometext"/>
In this case, the attribute'sString
value is coerced to the attribute's expected type.
Expressions used to set attribute values are evaluated in the context of an expected type. If the result of the expression evaluation does not match the expected type exactly, a type conversion will be performed. For example, the expression${1.2E4}
provided as the value of an attribute of typefloat
will result in the following conversion:
See section JSP2.8 of theJSP 2.0 specificationfor the complete type conversion rules.
Variables
The web container evaluates a variable that appears in an expression by looking up its value according to the behavior ofPageContext.findAttribute(String)
. For example, when evaluating the expression${product}
, the container will look forproduct
in the page, request, session, and application scopes and will return its value. Ifproduct
is not found,null
is returned. A variable that matches one of the implicit objects described inImplicit Objectswill return that implicit object instead of the variable's value.
Properties of variables are accessed using the.
operator and can be nested arbitrarily.
The JSP expression language unifies the treatment of the.
and[]
operators.expr-a.identifier-b
is equivalent to expr-a["identifier-b"]
; that is, the expressionexpr-b
is used to construct a literal whose value is the identifier, and then the[]
operator is used with that value.
To evaluateexpr-a[expr-b]
, evaluateexpr-a
intovalue-a
and evaluateexpr-b
intovalue-b
. If eithervalue-a
orvalue-b
is null, returnnull
.
value-a
is a
Map
, return
value-a.get(value-b)
. If
!value-a.containsKey(value-b)
, then return
null
.
value-a
is a
List
or array, coerce
value-b
to
int
and return
value-a.get(value-b)
or
Array.get(value-a, value-b)
, as appropriate. If the coercion couldn't be performed, an error is returned. If the
get
call returns an
IndexOutOfBoundsException
,
null
is returned. If the
get
call returns another exception, an error is returned.
value-a
is a JavaBeans object, coerce
value-b
to
String
. If
value-b
is a readable property of
value-a
, then return the result of a
get
call. If the
get
method throws an exception, an error is returned.
Implicit Objects
The JSP expression language defines a set of implicit objects:
pageContext
: The context for the JSP page. Provides access to various objects including:
servletContext
: The context for the JSP page's servlet and any web components contained in the same application. See
Accessing the Web Context.
session
: The session object for the client. See
Maintaining Client State.
request
: The request triggering the execution of the JSP page. See
Getting Information from Requests.
response
: The response returned by the JSP page. See
Constructing Responses.
In addition, several implicit objects are available that allow easy access to the following objects:
param
: Maps a request parameter name to a single value
paramValues
: Maps a request parameter name to an array of values
header
: Maps a request header name to a single value
headerValues
: Maps a request header name to an array of values
cookie
: Maps a cookie name to a single cookie
initParam
: Maps a context initialization parameter name to a single value
Finally, there are objects that allow access to the various scoped variables described inUsing Scope Objects.
pageScope
: Maps page-scoped variable names to their values
requestScope
: Maps request-scoped variable names to their values
sessionScope
: Maps session-scoped variable names to their values
applicationScope
: Maps application-scoped variable names to their values
When an expression references one of these objects by name, the appropriate object is returned instead of the corresponding attribute. For example,${pageContext}
returns thePageContext
object, even if there is an existingpageContext
attribute containing some other value.
Literals
The JSP expression language defines the following literals:
true
and
false
"
is escaped as
\"
, '
is escaped as
\
', and
\
is escaped as
\\
.
null
Operators
In addition to the.
and[]
operators discussed inVariables, the JSP expression language provides the following operators:
+
,
-
(binary),
*
,
/
and
div
,
%
and
mod
,
-
(unary)
and
,
&&
,
or
,
||
,
not
,
!
==
,
eq
,
!=
,
ne
,
<
,
lt
,
>
,
gt
,
<=
,
ge
,
>=
,
le
. Comparisons can be made against other values, or against boolean, string, integer, or floating point literals.
empty
operator is a prefix operation that can be used to determine whether a value is
null
or empty.
A ? B : C
. Evaluate
B
or
C
, depending on the result of the evaluation of
A
.
The precedence of operators highest to lowest, left to right is as follows:
[] .
()
- Used to change the precedence of operators.
-
(unary)
not ! empty
* / div % mod
+ -
(binary)
< > <= >= lt gt le ge
== != eq ne
&& and
|| or
? :
Reserved Words
The following words are reserved for the JSP expression language and should not be used as identifiers.
Note that many of these words are not in the language now, but they may be in the future, so you should avoid using them.
Examples
Table 12-2contains example EL expressions and the result of evaluating them.
${1 > (4/2)}
false
${4.0 >= 3}
true
${100.0 == 100}
true
${(10*10) ne 100}
false
${
'
a
'
<
'
b
'
}
true
${
'
hip
'
gt
'
hit
'
}
false
${4 > 3}
true
${1.2E4 + 1.4}
12001.4
${3 div 4}
0.75
${10 mod 4}
2
${empty param.Add}
Add
is null or an empty string
${pageContext.request.contextPath}
${sessionScope.cart.numberOfItems}
numberOfItems
property of the session-scoped attribute named
cart
${param[
'
mycom.productId
'
]}
mycom.productId
${header["host"]}
${departments[deptName]}
deptName
in the
departments
map
${requestScope['javax.servlet.
forward.servlet_path']}
javax.servlet.
forward.servlet_path
Functions
The JSP expression language allows you to define a function that can be invoked in an expression. Functions are defined using the same mechanisms as custom tags (SeeUsing Custom Tagsand Chapter15).
Using Functions
Functions can appear in static text and tag attribute values.
To use a function in a JSP page, you use ataglib
directive to import the tag library containing the function. Then you preface the function invocation with the prefix declared in the directive.
For example, the date example pageindex.jsp
imports the/functions
library and invokes the functionequals
in an expression:
<%@ taglib prefix="f" uri="/functions"%> ... <c:when test="${f:equals(selectedLocaleString, localeString)}" >
Defining Functions
To define a function you program it as a public static method in a public class. Themypkg.MyLocales
class in thedate
example defines a function that tests the equality of twoString
s as follows:
package mypkg; public class MyLocales { ... public static boolean equals( String l1, String l2 ) { return l1.equals(l2); } }
Then you map the function name as used in the EL expression to the defining class and function signature in a TLD. The followingfunctions.tld
file in the date example maps theequals
function to the class containing the implementation of the functionequals
and the signature of the function:
<function> <name>equals</name> <function-class>mypkg.MyLocales</function-class> <function-signature>boolean equals( java.lang.String, java.lang.String )</function-signature> </function>
A tag library can have only onefunction
element that has any givenname
element.