JSTL: JSP Standard Tag Library Kick Start By Jeff Heaton
Table of Contents
Introduction
JSTL is designed to work with JSP version 1.2 and the new JSP version 2.0. JSP 2.0 implements some very significant advantages over previous versions of JSP. One of the most important additions to JSP version 2.0 is the expression language, called EL, which is the way that Sun intends future expressions to be represented in JSP programming. JSTL supports this new expression language. For added flexibility, JSTL also supports the expression language typically used in JSP scriptlet programming in versions prior to JSP version 2.0. The EL expression language supports many advanced features.
The EL expression language allows you to access scoped variables. These variables are the primary means by which JSTL stores both temporary and sessionwide data. PCL expressions can be passed to most of the tags provided by the JSTL tag library.