How would I write (just a template) for a custom tag with 2 attributes that lets me output a html fragment (a html table) using jstl tag logic, that can be called from my jsp.
Can this be done without writing a java class, which is what I have seen in all the examples.
What I'm trying to acheive is to externalise repeated JSTL logic in my JSPs into a custom tag then pass the dynamic values needed to the tag at run time using the attributes.
Thanks,
Answer
Don't use scriptlets! They're a bad practice and they let business-logic leak into your view layer.
You can create a tag file using JSTL; it's pretty simple. This is a good place to start.
An example:
mytable.tag:
<%@ attribute name="cell1" required="true" type="java.lang.String" description="Text to use in the first cell." %>
<%@ attribute name="cell2" required="false" type="java.lang.String" description="Text to use in the second cell." %>
<table>
<tr>
<td id = "cell1">${cell1}</td>
<td id = "cell2">${cell2}</td>
</tr>
</table>
Assuming that your tag is in /WEB-INF/tags, you can then use it like this:
<%@ taglib prefix="mystuff" tagdir="/WEB-INF/tags" %>
<mystuff:mytable cell1="hello" cell2="world" />