20.7. Defining Custom JSP Tags
JSP 1.1 introduced an extremely valuable new capability: the ability to create your own JSP tags. You define how a 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 incorporate into their JSP pages.
Custom tags accomplish some of the same goals as beans that are accessed with jsp:useBean (see Section 20.6)—encapsulating complex behaviors into simple and accessible forms. There are several differences, however. First, beans cannot ...
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