Using Template Text

Besides JSP elements, notice that the easy.jsp page contains mostly regular HTML, highlighted in Example 5-2.

Example 5-2. JSP page template text
<%@ page contentType="text/html" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>JSP is Easy</title>
  </head>
  <body bgcolor="white">
    <h1>JSP is as easy as ...</h1>
    <%-- Calculate the sum of 1 + 2 + 3 dynamically --%>
    1 + 2 + 3 = <c:out value="${1 + 2 + 3}" />
  </body>
</html>

In JSP parlance, this is called template text. Everything that’s not a JSP element (i.e., not a directive, action or scripting element) is template text. Template text is sent to the browser as is. This means you can use JSP to generate any type of text-based output, such as XML, WML, or even plain text. The JSP container doesn’t care what the template text represents.

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