JavaServer Pages, 3rd Edition

Chapter 7. Using Custom Tag Libraries and the JSP Standard Tag Library

So far we’ve covered the JSP basics—the primary parts of a page and installation and execution of a page—and how to use beans to dynamically add content to a page. Before we start working on real applications, let’s turn to another fundamental JSP feature: custom tag libraries.

Custom tag libraries are, in my opinion, what make JSP so powerful. They make it possible for page authors to embed pretty much any logic in a page using familiar, HTML-like elements. In this chapter, we take a close look at what a custom tag library is, how to install and use it, and what the JSP Standard Tag Library (JSTL) brings to the table.