This two-day course introduces the JSTL, or JSP Standard Tag Library, actually a set of four custom tag libraries that establish a portable standard for common processing tasks in JSP. JSTL is a major part of the new scriptless authoring style encouraged (and enabled) by the JSP 2.0 specification. This module covers all four JSTL libraries in depth:

• The core actions, which support JSP expressions for JSP 1.x containers, flow control for procedural processing in JSPs, and resource access
• The formatting and internationalization/localization actions, which standardize formatted numeric and date/time output as well as multi-language support
• The SQL actions, which dramatically simplify access to relational data from a JSP
• The XML actions, which give JSPs a simple, powerful framework by which to parse, address and transform XML data using XPath and XSLT

Each individual tag in each library is covered, with precise syntactic rules shown in a standard format in the student guide, and JSTL techniques and best practices are discussed for each library. An extensive set of example applications illustrates common usage of each major group of actions, and the module culminates with a wrap-up workshop that brings core, SQL, and XML techniques to bear in a single application.

During class, students will:

• Describe the use of the JSP expression language to simplify dynamic page output.
• Write JSP expressions and implement JSPs that use them in favor of scripts.
• Implement JSPs that use basic JSTL actions to simplify presentation logic.
• Decompose a JSP application design into fine-grained, reusable elements including JavaBeans, custom tag handlers and tag files that use JSTL.
• Use core JSTL actions to complement standard actions, custom actions, and JSP expressions for seamless, script-free page logic.
• Direct conditional and iterative processing of page content by looping through ranges of numbers, over elements in a collection, or over tokens in a master string.
• Import external resources by URL for processing, or redirect the JSP container to an external resource to handle the current request.
• Set locale and time zone information in JSPs, and use them to correctly format numbers, dates and times for all clients.
• Use resource bundles to manage application strings, and produce the appropriate strings at runtime for a particular client locale.
• Locate a data source, query for relational data, and parse result sets.
• Perform updates, inserts and deletes on relational data using SQL actions.
• Manage queries and updates in transaction contexts.
• Parse XML content from a variety of sources.
• Derive information from parsed XML content using XPath expressions.
• Implement conditional processing and loops based on XML information.
• Apply XSLT transformations to XML content.
• Implement a simple Web service that reads and writes SOAP

1. JSTL Overview

The JSP Standard Tag Library
The JSP Expression Language
EL Syntax
Type Coercion
Error Handling
Implicit Objects for EL
JSTL Namespaces
Using JSTL in a Page
The Core Actions
Going Scriptless
Object Instantiation
Sharing Objects
Decomposition
Parameterization

2. The Core Actions

The JSTL Core Library
< c:out>
< c:set>
Gotchas
Conditional Processing
Iterative Processing
Iterating Over Maps
Tokenizing Strings
Catching Exceptions
Resource Access

3. The Formatting and i18n Actions

The JSTL Formatting Library
Locales
Determining Locale
Time Zones
Setting Locale and Time Zone
Formatting and Parsing Dates
Formatting and Parsing Numbers
Internationalization
Working with Resource Bundles
Supporting Multiple Languages

4. The SQL Actions

The JSTL SQL Library
Using Relational Data
Connecting with a DriverManager
Connecting via a DataSource
The Result Interface
Making a Query
Inserts, Updates and Deletes
Parameterized SQL
Transactions

5. The XML Actions

The JSTL XML Library
Using XML
XML Data Sources
Parsing and Addressing
Using XPath in JSTL
XPath vs. EL
XPath Context
Implicit Objects for XPath
Conditional Processing
Iterative Processing
Changing XPath Context
Working with XML Namespaces
Using XSLT
Chaining Transformations
Reading XML from the Request Body
XML and SOAP Web Services