Head First Servlets and JSP, 2nd Edition

You can even nest <c:forEach> tags

What if you have something like a collection of collections? An array of arrays? You can nest <c:forEach> tags for more complex table structures. In this example, we put String arrays into an ArrayList, then make the ArrayList a request attribute. The JSP has to loop through the ArrayList to get each String array, then loop through each String array to print the actual elements of the array.

Servlet code

String[] movies1 = {"Matrix Revolutions", "Kill Bill", "Boondock Saints"};
String[] movies2 = {"Amelie", "Return of the King", "Mean Girls"};
java.util.List movieList = new java.util.ArrayList();
movieList.add(movies1);
movieList.add(movies2);
request.setAttribute("movies", movieList);

JSP code

There are no Dumb Questions

Q:

Q: How did you know that the “varStatus” attribute was an instance of whatever that was, and how did you know that it has a “count” property?

A:

A: Ahhhh... we looked it up. It’s all there in the JSTL 1.1 spec. If you don’t have the spec already, go download it NOW (the intro of this book tells you where to get the specs covered on the exam). It is THE reference for all the tags in the JSTL, and tells you all the possible attributes, whether they’re optional or required, the attribute type, and any other details on how you use the tag. Everything you need to know about these tags (for the exam) is in this chapter. But some of the tags ...