Question

Embedded custom-tag in dynamic content (nested tag) not rendering.

I have a page that pulls dynamic content from a javabean and passes the list of objects to a custom tag for processing into html. Within each object is a bunch of html to be output that contains a second custom tag that I would like to also be rendered. The problem is that the tag invocation is rendered as plaintext.

An example might serve me better.

1 Pull information from a database and return it to the page via a javabean. Send this info to a custom tag for outputting.

<jsp:useBean id='ImportantNoticeBean' scope='page' class='com.mysite.beans.ImportantNoticeProcessBean'/>  <%-- Declare the bean --%> <c:forEach var='noticeBean' items='${ImportantNoticeBean.importantNotices}'> <%-- Get the info --%>     <mysite:notice importantNotice='${noticeBean}'/> <%-- give it to the tag for processing --%> </c:forEach> 

this tag should output a box div like so

*SNIP* class for custom tag def and method setup etc out.println('<div class=\'importantNotice\'>'); out.println('   ' + importantNotice.getMessage()); out.println('   <div class=\'importantnoticedates\'>Posted: ' + importantNotice.getDateFrom() + ' End: ' + importantNotice.getDateTo()</div>'); out.println('   <div class=\'noticeAuthor\'>- ' + importantNotice.getAuthor() + '</div>'); out.println('</div>'); *SNIP* 

This renders fine and as expected

<div class='importantNotice'>     <p>This is a very important message. Everyone should pay attenton to it.</p>     <div class='importantnoticedates'>Posted: 2008-09-08 End: 2008-09-08</div>     <div class='noticeAuthor'>- The author</div> </div> 

2 If, in the above example, for instance, I were to have a custom tag in the importantNotice.getMessage() String:

*SNIP* 'This is a very important message. Everyone should pay attenton to it. <mysite:quote author='Some Guy'>Quote this</mysite:quote>' *SNIP* 

The important notice renders fine but the quote tag will not be processed and simply inserted into the string and put as plain text/html tag.

<div class='importantNotice'>     <p>This is a very important message. Everyone should pay attenton to it. <mysite:quote author='Some Guy'>Quote this</mysite:quote></p>     <div class='importantnoticedates'>Posted: 2008-09-08 End: 2008-09-08</div>     <div class='noticeAuthor'>- The author</div> </div> 

Rather than

<div class='importantNotice'>     <p>This is a very important message. Everyone should pay attenton to it. <div class='quote'>Quote this <span class='authorofquote'>Some Guy</span></div></p>    // or wahtever I choose as the output     <div class='importantnoticedates'>Posted: 2008-09-08 End: 2008-09-08</div>     <div class='noticeAuthor'>- The author</div> </div> 

I know this has to do with processors and pre-processors but I am not to sure about how to make this work.

Answer 1

Just using

<bodycontent>JSP</bodycontent> 

is not enough. You should do soimething like

JspFragment body = getJspBody();  StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter();  StringBuffer buff = stringWriter.getBuffer();  buff.append('<h1>');  body.invoke(stringWriter);  buff.append('</h1>');  out.println(stringWriter); 

to get inner tags rendered (example is for SimpleTag doTag method).

However, in the question’s code I see that inner tag is comming from a string which is not rendered as a part of JSP, but just some random string. I do not think you can force JSP translator to parse it.

You can use regexp in your case or try to redesign your code in a way to have a jsp like this:

<jsp:useBean id='ImportantNoticeBean' scope='page class='com.mysite.beans.ImportantNoticeProcessBean'/> <c:forEach var='noticeBean' items='${ImportantNoticeBean.importantNotices}'>     <mysite:notice importantNotice='${noticeBean}'>         <mysite:quote author='Some Guy'>Quote this</mysite:quote>         <mysite:messagebody author='Some Guy' />     </mysite:notice> </c:forEach> 

I whould go with regexp.