Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages™

Chapter 14. CREATING CUSTOM JSP TAG LIBRARIES

Topics in This Chapter

• Tag handler classes

• Tag library descriptor files

• The JSP taglib directive

• Simple tags

• Tags that use attributes

• Tags that use the body content between their start and end tags

• Tags that modify their body content

• Looping tags

• Nested tags

JSP 1.1 introduced an extremely valuable new capability: the ability to define your own JSP tags. You define how the tag, its attributes, and its body are interpreted, then group your tags into collections called tag libraries that can be used in any number of JSP files. The ability to define tag libraries in this way permits Java developers to boil down complex server-side behaviors into simple and easy-to-use elements that content developers can easily ...