Chapter 5. JavaServer Pages Documents

5. JavaServer Pages Documents

A JSP document is a JSP page written in XML syntax as opposed to the standard syntax described in Chapter 4. Because it is written in XML syntax, a JSP document is also an XML document and therefore gives you all the benefits offered by the XML standard:

• You can author a JSP document using one of the many XML-aware tools on the market, enabling you to ensure that your JSP document is well-formed XML.

• You can validate the JSP document against a document type definition (DTD).

• You can nest and scope namespaces within a JSP document.

• You can use a JSP document for data interchange between web applications and as part of a compile-time XML pipeline.

In addition to these benefits, the XML syntax gives the JSP page author less complexity and more flexibility. For example, a page author can use any XML document as a JSP document. Also, elements in XML syntax can be used in JSP pages written in standard syntax, allowing a gradual transition from JSP pages to JSP documents.

This chapter gives you details on the benefits of JSP documents and uses a simple example to show you how easy it is to create a JSP document.

You can also write tag files in XML syntax. This chapter covers only JSP documents. Writing tag files in XML syntax will be addressed in a future release of the tutorial.