Head First Servlets and JSP, 2nd Edition

You can use nested expressions inside the brackets

It’s expressions all the way down in EL. You nest expressions to any arbitrary level. In other words, you can put a complex expression inside a complex expression inside a... (it keeps going). And the expressions are evaluated from the inner most brackets out.

This part will seem completely intuitive to you, because it’s no different than nesting Java code within parens. The tricky part is to watch out for quotes vs. no quotes.

In a servlet

java.util.Map musicMap = new java.util.HashMap();
musicMap.put("Ambient", "Zero 7");
musicMap.put("Surf", "Tahiti 80");
musicMap.put("DJ", "BT");
musicMap.put("Indie", "Frou Frou");
request.setAttribute("musicMap", musicMap);

String[] musicTypes = {"Ambient", "Surf", "DJ", "Indie"};
request.setAttribute("MusicType", musicTypes);

This DOES work in a JSP