Question

Is there a JSTL tag specifically for displaying messages, and only if there are messages to display? So that I don’t have to surround the displaying with an “c:if” tag.

If so, how do I use it? How should I add the messages to be displayed?

Answer 1

This sounds like a job for c:out. For example, this should display the value of person.name, or nothing if it is null.

    <c:out value="${person.name}" />

If you want to display a default value in the case of a null, then:

    <c:out value="${person.name}" default="no name" />

or

    <c:out value="${person.name}">no name</c:out>

(If this doesn’t answer your question, you need to be more explicit about what you mean by “messages” … and how you want them to be displayed.)

---

If you have zero or more messages in a collection:

    <c:forEach items="${messages}" var="message">
        <c:out value="${message}"/>
    </c:forEach>