The JSP Standard Tag Library (JSTL) is a collection of standard JSP tags that perform
several common tasks. This frees us from having to develop custom tags for these
tasks, or from using a mix of tags from several organizations to do our work. JSTL
contains core tags that perform, among other things, conditional logic and iteration
through collections; format tags that do String formatting and internationalization;
SQL tags that interact with a database; XML tags for XML processing. Additionally,
JSTL contains a number of functions that perform several tasks, most of which are for
String manipulation.
In this chapter, we will cover each of the JSTL tag libraries, providing examples
for the most commonly used tags and functions. Topics we will cover in this
chapter include:
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Core JSTL tag library
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Formatting JSTL tag library
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SQL JSTL tag library
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XML JSTL tag library
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JSTL functions
