The J2EE™ Tutorial Second Edition

Expression Language

A primary feature of JSP technology version 2.0 is its support for an expression language (EL). An expression language makes it possible to easily access application data stored in JavaBeans components. For example, the JSP expression language allows a page author to access a bean using simple syntax such as ${name} for a simple variable or ${name.foo.bar} for a nested property.

The test attribute of the following conditional tag is supplied with an EL expression that compares the number of items in the session-scoped bean named cart with 0:

<c:if test="${sessionScope.cart.numberOfItems > 0}">
  ...
</c:if>

The JSP expression evaluator is responsible for handling EL expressions, which are enclosed by the ${ } characters and ...