JavaServer Pages, Second Edition

Escape Characters

Because certain character sequences represent start and stop tags, you sometimes need to escape a character so the container doesn’t interpret it as part of a special character sequence.

In a scripting element, if you need to use the characters %> literally, you must escape the greater-than character with a backslash:

<% String msg = "Literal %\> must be escaped"; %>

To avoid the character sequence <% in template text being interpreted as the start of a scripting element, you must escape the percent sign:

This is template text, and <\% is not a start of a scriptlet.

In an attribute value, you must use the following escapes:

attr='a value with an escaped \' single quote'
attr="a value with an escaped \" double quote"
attr="a value with an escaped \ backslash"
attr="a value with an escaped %\> scripting end tag"
attr="a value with an escaped <\% scripting start tag"