JavaServer Pages, 3rd Edition

Generating Elements Dynamically

Example 17-10 contains a JSP standard action that you have not seen in previous examples, combined with a couple of actions that are more familiar:

    <jsp:element name="${param.element}">
      <jsp:attribute name="style">${param.style}</jsp:attribute>
      <jsp:body>${param.body}</jsp:body>
    </jsp:element>

The <jsp:element> action generates a new XML element in the response with the name specified by the name attribute. The <jsp:attribute> and <jsp:body> elements perform the same function as in previous chapters—adding an attribute and a body to the element, respectively. Together, these standard actions allow you to create any XML element, with any number of attributes and a body based on the evaluation result of their bodies, while still keeping the JSP Document as a well-formed XML document. For instance, if the page in Example 17-10 receives the parameters element with the value p, style with the value font-weight:bold, and body with the value Hello+World, this element is generated:

<p style="font-weight:bold">Hello World</p>