JSP / Custom Tag Libraries

JStrummer · May 20, 2004

I am writing my first page in JSP and am trying to get my arms around
custom tag libraries.

What I'd like to do is mimic an ASP-type subroutine here, where I call
a subroutine, pass in a parameter, and output HTML code. For instance,
in ASP, writePageTitle("My homepage") would yield <TITLE>My
homepage</TITLE>.

I am having problems passing the parameter to a tag file in JSP. Here
is what I have. I would appreciate any pointers, and, if I am going
about this the wrong way, I am very, very open to suggestion. Thanks
in advance.

index.jsp
==================
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<c:set var="PageKeywords" value="Home, Homepage, Main Page" />
<c:set var="PageTitle" value="Home" />

<%@ taglib prefix="HTMLTitle"
tagdir="/WEB-INF/tags" %>
<HTMLTitle:html_title/ PageTitle="<%=PageTitle%>">

and so on....

html_title.tag
===================
<%
out.println("<TITLE>${PageTitle}</TITLE>");
%>

Sudsy · May 20, 2004

JStrummer said:
I am writing my first page in JSP and am trying to get my arms around
custom tag libraries.

What I'd like to do is mimic an ASP-type subroutine here, where I call
a subroutine, pass in a parameter, and output HTML code. For instance,
in ASP, writePageTitle("My homepage") would yield <TITLE>My
homepage</TITLE>.

I am having problems passing the parameter to a tag file in JSP. Here
is what I have. I would appreciate any pointers, and, if I am going
about this the wrong way, I am very, very open to suggestion. Thanks
in advance.

Oh boy! You are so far away from how custom tags work that I would
suggest running, not walking, to your nearest computer book store
and picking up "Advanced JavaServer Pages" by David Geary (ISBN
0-13-030704-1).
First of all, your taglib statement should read like this:
<%@ taglib uri="some_uri" prefix="some_prefix" />
Then, some_uri has to be declared in your web.xml file, vis:
<taglib>
<taglib-uri>some_uri</taglib-uri>
<taglib-location>some_file.tld</taglib-location>
</taglib>
In that file you will find the tag definitions, hence the tld
(tag library definition) file extension. There you will find
the connection to the actual Java class, something like this:
<tag>
<name>some_tag_name</name>
<tagclass>tag_class_name</tagclass>
...
</tag>
Finally, you'll have to find tag_class_name in one of the
jars known to the web application, i.e. in WEB-INF/lib, or
as a stand-alone file in the WEB-INF/classes directory tree.
This class will typically extend either TagSupport or
BodyTagSupport...
There's a lot at play here. You're trying to use the facility
as if it was simply a matter of including content. Sorry, but
it's a bit more complicated than that.

Ryan Stewart · May 20, 2004

Sudsy said:
Oh boy! You are so far away from how custom tags work that I would
suggest running, not walking, to your nearest computer book store
and picking up "Advanced JavaServer Pages" by David Geary (ISBN
0-13-030704-1).

Ditto that.

*snip*

In that file you will find the tag definitions, hence the tld
(tag library definition) file extension. There you will find

Actually, tag library descriptor.

*snip*

There's a lot at play here. You're trying to use the facility
as if it was simply a matter of including content. Sorry, but
it's a bit more complicated than that.

Ditto again. In my experience, JSP is almost infinitely more structured than
ASP. You can't just sling parts together and expect it to give some result.

kaeli · May 20, 2004

Oh boy! You are so far away from how custom tags work that I would
suggest running, not walking, to your nearest computer book store
and picking up "Advanced JavaServer Pages" by David Geary (ISBN
0-13-030704-1).

I agree.
I found this site to be very useful when I was learning taglibs. It has
usable code to play with, too.

http://www.orionserver.com/tutorials/taglibs/

--
--
~kaeli~
Jesus saves, Allah protects, and Cthulhu thinks you'd make
a nice sandwich.
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/wildAtHeart
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/kaelisSpace

custom tag in jsp	1	Jan 7, 2009
JSP custom tag, passing a non-string attribute	0	Nov 9, 2005
HTML Anchor tag not working	2	Dec 15, 2020
Newbie - problem with JSP tag libraries	1	Jul 16, 2008
Using a dot tag file with JSP	0	Jul 12, 2004
J2EE: Implementing custom tag handler	0	Oct 25, 2007
How to create an home page using xsl and jsp with header,footer and navbar written in separate file	0	May 3, 2007
JSF tags enclosed in custom JSP tags?	0	May 12, 2005

JSP / Custom Tag Libraries

JStrummer

Sudsy

Ryan Stewart

kaeli

Ask a Question

Similar Threads

Members online

Forum statistics

Latest Threads