Mastering the JSTL (Java Standard Tag Library) training

JSTL Training Outline

• Introduction
• The role of taglibs in JSP
• The genesis of the Jakarta Taglibs project
• Overview of each tag and the features it supports
• Downloading and installing the taglibs
• Core JSTL design principles
• Naming conventions for JSTL actions
• Scoped variables versus scripting variables
• Understanding JSTL expression language (EL)
• Overview of EL
• Expressions
• Identifiers
• Operators
• Type coercion
• Literal values
• Implicit objects
• Method invocation
• EL expressions in custom actions
• Common mistakes
• General-purpose and conditional actions
• General purpose actions with c:out, c:set, c:remote, and c:catch
• Conditional actions
• Using conditional and general-purpose actions together
• Iteration actions
• The c:forEach action
• The c:forTokens action
• Iteration status
• Custom iteration actions
• URL actions
• The c:import action
• The c:redirect action
• The c:url action
• The c:param action
• Accessing external resources
• Configuring settings
• Formatting actions
• Formatting and parsing numbers
• Formatting and parsing dates and times with DateTime
• Using time zones
• Determining a formatting locale
• Database actions with the DBTags library
• How JSTL locates data sources
• Creating data sources
• Querying and updating a database
• Executing database transactions
• Implementing database custom actions
• Using the DBTags and Input tag libraries together to create data-bound forms
• File IO with IO library
• Using the IO tags to read text and bytes
• Using the IO tags to write text and bytes
• Using the IO tags for other file IO operations
• XML actions with the XTags library
• Understanding XML and related technologies (XML, DTDs, Schemas, XSL, and XPath)
• XML actions overview
• XPath overview
• Parsing XML
• Using scoped variables in XPath instructions
• Transforming XML with XSLT
• Filtering XML
• Accessing external entities
• Additional useful tag libraries in JSTL
• Validating forms and data with the Regexp tag lib
• Using the Request and Response taglibs to facilitate easier handling of JSP requests and responses
• Using the Session and Application tag libraries for easier state management
• Generating random numbers and strings with the Random taglib
• Sending email with the Mailer taglib
• Extracting content from documents on the Web with the Scrape taglib
• Manipulating strings with the String taglib
• Conclusion