JSTL variables are not shown in EL

Question

JSTL variable values are not shown in EL. For example this code:

<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="s" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags" %>
<html>
<body>
  <c:forEach var="i" begin="1" end="5" >
    <c:out value="${i}" /> 
  </c:forEach>
</body>
</html>

browser renders like: ${i} ${i} ${i} ${i} ${i}

Or this one:

<c:set var="someVar" value="Hello"/>
<c:out value="${someVar}"/>

browser displays: ${someVar}

I'm using Spring-MVC 3 and Maven to build the sample project, deploying it to Tomcat 7. In Spring's context I have view resolver configurated as follows:

<bean class=
    "org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
    <property name="viewClass" value="
        org.springframework.web.servlet.view.JstlView"></property>
    <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/"></property>
    <property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />
</bean>

Model variables passed form Spring's controller not shown as well.

Mavens pom.xml has following jstl related dependencies:

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
    <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
    <version>1.2</version>
    <scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.servlet.jsp</groupId>
    <artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
    <version>2.1</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

So, any suggestions how to resolve this?

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

So, the EL (those ${} things) doesn't get executed? That can happen when your servletcontainer runs at Servlet 2.3 / JSP 1.2 modus or lower, while you're using JSTL 1.1 or newer. During the change from JSTL 1.0 to 1.1, EL was moved from JSTL into JSP. That was JSP 2.0, which is part of Servlet 2.4. JSP 1.2 and older doesn't have EL bundled. JSTL 1.1 and newer doesn't have EL bundled.

You need to make sure that your web.xml root declaration conforms at least Servlet 2.4. As you're using JSP 2.1, which is part of Servlet 2.5, you're apparently targeting a Servlet 2.5 compatible container. So, make sure that your web.xml root declaration conforms Servlet 2.5:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app
    xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
    version="2.5">

    <!-- Config here. -->

</web-app>

Tomcat 7 is however a Servlet 3.0 compatible container. I'd consider changing maven pom to declare Servlet 3.0 / JSP 2.2 so that you can benefit all the new Servlet 3.0 features.

JSTL variables are not shown in EL

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