Core JSTL: Mastering the JSP Standard Tag Library [Paperback]

David Geary (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0131001531 | ISBN-13: 978-0131001534 | Publication Date: December 6, 2002 | Edition: 1

In Core JSTL, leading Java platform expert David Geary presents the definitive guide to JSTL. Through practical examples and extensive sample code, Geary demonstrates how JSTL simplifies, streamlines, and standardizes a wide range of common Web development tasks. Coverage includes using JSTL tags for accessing JavaBeans components and collections, iteration, importing URLs, database access, working with XML, internationalization and localization; using the brand new JSTL expression language; and extending JSTL with custom tags.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The breakthrough solution for easier, faster, and more powerful Web development.

• Powerful techniques for accelerating, simplifying, and standardizing Web application development
• In-depth coverage of JSTL 1.0, including built-in tags, the new JSTL expression language, and custom tag development
• Written for both experienced Java platform developers and Web page authors
• By the best-selling author of Graphic Java and Advanced JavaServer Pages

Using JSTL, software developers and Web page authors can create robust, flexible Web applications more quickly and easily than ever before. Now, best-selling author and JSTL expert David Geary presents the definitive guide to JSTL: its built-in tags, powerful expression language, and extensibility. Through practical examples and extensive sample code, Geary demonstrates how JSTL simplifies, streamlines, and standardizes a wide range of common Web development tasks and helps you build Web applications far more easily than JavaServer Pages technology alone.

Key topics covered:

• Building HTML forms; accessing form data, JavaBeans components (beans), collections, and maps; constructing URLs and importing their content; redirecting HTTP responses; iterating over collections of objects; handling errors
• Localizing Web sites for multiple languages and countries, including localizing text and formatting and parsing numbers, currencies, percents, and dates.
• Creating and accessing data sources, making queries and iterating over the results; performing database inserts, updates, and deletes; executing database transactions
• Parsing XML documents; using XPath with JSTL custom actions; transforming XML with XSLT, filtering XML; accessing external entities

Core JSTL shows you how to:

• Use JSTL to simplify Web development tasks
• Use the new JSTL expression language
• Access databases and execute transactions
• Develop internationalized Web sites
• Work with XML documents and JSP technology
• Extend JSTL with custom tags

About the Author

DAVID M. GEARY is the president of Sabreware, Inc., a training and consulting company focusing on server-side Java technology. He has been developing object-oriented software for nearly 20 years and was among the pioneers who worked on the Java platform APIs at Sun Microsystems from 1994 to 1997. Geary is the author of six books on Java technology, including the runaway best-selling Graphic Java series, and Advanced JavaServer Pages. A member of the expert group that developed JSTL, he is also a contributor to the Apache Struts JSP software application framework and wrote questions for the Web component developer certification exam. Since 1996, he has been a columnist for Java Report magazine. He also writes JavaWorld's Java Design Patterns column.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (December 6, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131001531
• ISBN-13: 978-0131001534
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,356,946 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Welcome Addition with Reservations, January 11, 2003

By 

Daniel Fitzgerald (Ottawa Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Core JSTL: Mastering the JSP Standard Tag Library (Paperback)

I like Geary and have his Swing book ( which is in my opinion the definitive tome on the subject ). He's a good author. This new outing covers the tags quite well and with some good practical insights. There are a few things that I just would have done differently had I been the writer, but I liked the formatting and I18N chapters, perhaps the best ones out of the lot.

However, there is not even a mention of the JSP 1.2 XML syntax or how to use JSTL with it, which is [imho] a pretty glaring oversight. In the sample code none of the beans implement 'Serializable' which according to the javaDocs, is a bean requirement. The DTD the samples point to is erroneous. You have to type the samples in because the site from where you are supposed to be able to download them doesn't exist.

For someone who was so meticulous in his previous books, I find this one written by a different Geary. Maybe this is the case. But it did get me on top of the JSTL pretty quickly and that gets 3 stars. There is not much else out there on this subject at the moment.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Take the Next Step with Java Server Pages, March 19, 2003

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Core JSTL: Mastering the JSP Standard Tag Library (Paperback)

Last year I built a website that used Java Server Pages to dynamically generate most of the pages. It worked well, but was very kludgy. JSPs invariably mix the HTML display code with some of the internal data logic. Through a judicious use of the
Model-View-Controller paradigm, I was able to reduce this mixing. But a minimal amount was still inevitable. This is a common experience with JSPs. You end up with files containing java code and HTML. Ugly and brittle. Plus, it calls upon two areas of expertise. A separation of the two would be much more
robust, and allow people with skills in only one of these areas to still contribute to the development.

In answer to this, Sun has been refining its Standard Tag Library. Specifically, it now has an expression language that is a programming language in its own right and is comprehensively described in this book, which bears Sun's official impramateur. Programmers versed in other languages can quickly absorb this. Thru it, you can easily write code to access Java Beans and other java programs. Plenty of clear examples are provided.

Of interest to several will be how to use STL to hook up to back end SQL databases; transferring from them into webpages and transmitting user changes back into the databases.

The author also covers the important case of interacting with XML, which is now a de facto standard for data interchange. Nor does he neglect describing issues of internationalisation. Practical for those who have to support several languages.

The sum of all these is to make this book very useful for those of you needing to build JSPs in business applications. I do wish I had this book last year!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars J2EE Guy, March 15, 2005

By 

Yankees Rule "J2EE Guy" (NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Core JSTL: Mastering the JSP Standard Tag Library (Paperback)

One of the best books i found on JSTL. Provides in-depth knowledge & extensive examples of JSTL.
This book helps us to understand why, where and how to use JSTL tags. follows the typical MVC pattern [ a clear separation of View from Model]
Though, I am not a great fan of SQL, XML tags, the Core & I18N JSTL tags are not only valuable but also easy to use. Now we could have non-Java programmers to design all of your JSP pages.
[our last project leveraged JSTL/ Struts/ Tiles frameworks]