Re: Mixing EL and Java expressions

Since Martin Cooper is probably still sleeping in his time zone, here is 
how I fixed the constants problem thanks to him once.
You need something called the unstandard tag-lib by Apache:

http://jakarta.apache.org/taglibs/sandbox/doc/unstandard-doc/index.html

once you have that, you can do something like (SomeClassOrInterface is 
where your constants are defined):

 <un:useConstants var="ct" className="com.mycom.app.SomeClassOrInterface" />
   <c:forEach var="item"  items="${list}">
    <c:choose>
     <c:when test="${item.type == ct.EMPLOYEE}">
       bla bla relevant to employee
     </c:when>

Let me know if this helps

Luca

Tarek Nabil wrote:

>Hi everyone,
>
> 
>
>I'm moving from the Struts tag libraries to JSTL and I'm having a bit of
>a hard time. Things don't work as I thought they would. For example, I'm
>not able to use constants defined in classes for comparison, which is
>something I used to do easily with Struts tags. Here's an example; I
>want to do something if the display parameter equals the constant
>DISPLAY_BY_SERVICE defined in some class and do something else if it has
>the value DISPLAY_BY_BU. First, I tried this
>
> 
>
>    <c:choose>
>
>      <c:when test="${param.display == <%=
>MainPageAction.DISPLAY_BY_SERVICE %>}">
>
>            By Service
>
>      </c:when>
>
>      <c:when test="${param.display == <%= MainPageAction.DISPLAY_BY_BU
>%>}">
>
>            By BU
>
>      </c:when>
>
>    </c:choose>
>
> 
>
>That didn't even compile, so I learned my first lesson: I can not use
>Java expression inside EL expressions. So, I tried this
>
> 
>
>    <c:set var="displayParam" value="${param.display}"/>
>
>    <c:choose>
>
>      <c:when test="<%=
>MainPageAction.DISPLAY_BY_SERVICE.equals(displayParam) %>">
>
>      <%= MainPageAction.DISPLAY_BY_SERVICE %>
>
>      </c:when>
>
>      <c:when test="<%=
>MainPageAction.DISPLAY_BY_BU.equals(displayParam) %>">
>
>      <%= MainPageAction.DISPLAY_BY_BU %>
>
>      </c:when>
>
>    </c:choose>
>
> 
>
>That didn't compile either, so now I know that unlike <bean:define>,
><c:set> doesn't define a scripting variable, but only a page scope
>variable. So, I tried this
>
> 
>
>    <c:choose>
>
>      <c:when test="${param.display} == <%=
>MainPageAction.DISPLAY_BY_SERVICE %>">
>
>            By Service
>
>      </c:when>
>
>      <c:when test="${param.display} == <%= MainPageAction.DISPLAY_BY_BU
>%>">
>
>            By BU
>
>      </c:when>
>
>      <c:otherwise>Otherwise</c:otherwise>
>
>    </c:choose>
>
> 
>
>Now, that compiled. But it didn't work!!! So, now I know that the value
>of test should either be the String true or an expression that evaluates
>to true, so mixing expressions won't work this way.
>
> 
>
>Now, this is what worked, and it's not elegant at all.
>
> 
>
>    <c:set var="DISPLAY_BY_SERVICE" value="<%=
>MainPageAction.DISPLAY_BY_SERVICE %>"/> 
>
>    <c:set var="DISPLAY_BY_BU" value="<%= MainPageAction.DISPLAY_BY_BU
>%>"/>
>
>    <c:choose>
>
>      <c:when test="${param.display == DISPLAY_BY_SERVICE}">
>
>            By Service
>
>      </c:when>
>
>      <c:when test="${param.display == DISPLAY_BY_BU}">
>
>            By BU
>
>      </c:when>
>
>      <c:otherwise>Otherwise</c:otherwise>
>
>    </c:choose>
>
> 
>
>What if I had 5 constants, do I have to re-define the 5 constants as
>vars using <c:set>? Either I'm missing something or JSTL is really not
>what I thought it was. I mean, maybe I should go back to the bean and
>logic libraries from Struts, they used to really do the job for me.
>
> 
>
>Could someone please guide me on this issue?
>
> 
>