Struts - Taglib directive in a JSP page for .tld provided by Struts

Asked 6/3, 2010 at 15:32 Answered 26/8, 2015 at 9:4

I am developing a Struts based application. I am new to Struts. I want to use html tags , specified in a taglib directory provided by Struts, in a JSP page.

But don't know how to use it. I know how to use taglib directive but I came to know from sources that the .tld file has been embedded in a .jar file after version 1.2.8. I am using Struts version 2.1.8.

I don't know in which .jar file the struts-html.tld file is located.

Armure answered 6/3, 2010 at 15:32 Comment(0)

I'm using Struts 1.3.10 for this illustration:

Download the latest struts library here (http://struts.apache.org/download.cgi#struts1310). Remember, the Full Distribution is that what you have to download as it contains a war file with the Struts TLD's.
On your web application, copy all the lib in the archive file you downloaded to your /WEB-INF/lib folder.
For JSTL libraries (which works well with struts) go here (http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/jstl/)
Once you have your Struts TLD's and JSTL Tld's, put them under the /WEB-INF/tld/ folder (it must be situated in the /WEB-INF/ folder).

On web.xml add the following stuff (under the <web-app> element)

  <jsp-config>
    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>/WEB-INF/struts-bean.tld</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/struts-bean.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>
    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>/WEB-INF/struts-html.tld</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/struts-html.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>
    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>/WEB-INF/struts-logic.tld</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/struts-logic.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>
    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>/WEB-INF/struts-nested.tld</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/struts-nested.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>
    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>/WEB-INF/struts-tiles.tld</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/struts-tiles.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>
    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>/WEB-INF/sslext.tld</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/sslext.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>
    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>/WEB-INF/struts-layout.tld</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/struts-layout.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <!-- Sun's JSTL -->
    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/fn</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/fn.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/fmt</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/fmt.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/fmt-1-0</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/fmt-1_0.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/fmt-rt</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/fmt-rt.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/fmt-1-0-rt</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/fmt-1_0-rt.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/core</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/c.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/core-1-0</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/c-1_0.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/core-rt</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/c-rt.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/core-1-0-rt</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/c-1_0-rt.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/sql</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/sql.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/sql-1-0</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/sql-1_0.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/sql-rt</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/sql-rt.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/sql-1-0-rt</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/sql-1_0-rt.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/x</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/x.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/x-1-0</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/x-1_0.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/x-rt</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/x-rt.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>

    <taglib>
        <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/x-1-0-rt</taglib-uri>
        <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/tld/x-1_0-rt.tld</taglib-location>
    </taglib>
</jsp-config>

This tells that once you call your TLD from the JSP, your webapp will look for the matching <taglib-uri> then look for it's location on <taglib-location> and find relevant class to call.

On your JSP, now you can do this:

<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/struts-html.tld" prefix="html" %>
<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/struts-bean.tld" prefix="bean" %>
<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/struts-logic.tld" prefix="logic" %>
<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/struts-layout.tld" prefix="layout"%>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/fmt" prefix="fmt" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/fn" prefix="fn" %>

Hope this helps.

Sheley answered 6/3, 2010 at 21:45 Comment(2)

I don't do Struts, so I won't say anything about it, but for JSTL there's absolutely no need to extract the JAR file and clutter the /WEB-INF with loose TLD files. Just dropping the JAR file(s) in /WEB-INF/lib and declaring the taglibs in top of JSP as per the TLD documentation is sufficient to get JSTL to work. That ought also be the normal practice for all the other JSP taglibs: 1) drop JAR file(s) in classpath (i.e. /WEB-INF/lib), 2) declare taglib in JSP. That's all. Similar answer: stackoverflow.com/questions/2323645 – Butt 6/3, 2010 at 21:57

JSF all the way. Further I've played a bit with Stripes and Spring MVC as well (just for hobby purposes). I've also a private/homegrown convention-over-configuration MVC framework on top of JSP/Servlet. – Butt 7/3, 2010 at 6:36

Even if this question has an (to me, incomprehensibly) accepted answer, I feel obliged to have a go at it myself. The real answer is contained in BalusC's comment and suggesting stray .tld files laying around in WEB-INF is really bad advice. My intention is expand on this using the exact version of Struts2 the OP was asking about (v2.1.8), which I downloaded from Apache's historical archive.

I don't know in which .jar file the struts-html.tld file is located.

There is no struts-html.tld in Struts2 - Instead there are the following:

struts-tags.tld, which resides in the META-INF directory of struts2-core-2.1.8.jar and contains all standard Struts tags, like the ones you'd expect to find in struts-html.tld in Struts1.
tiles-jsp.tld, which resides in the META-INF directory of tiles-jsp-2.0.6.jar and corresponds to what was struts-tiles.tld in Struts1.
some more TLDs, e.g. for SiteMesh which are not directly related to the question.

I want to use html tags, specified in a taglib directory provided by Struts, in a JSP page. But don't know how to use it. I know how to use taglib directive but I came to know from sources that the .tld file has been embedded in a .jar file after version 1.2.8.

That is correct. The way it generally works is the following:

When the servlet container starts up, it looks through the WEB-INF/lib directory and loads any .jar files it finds there - This is where you need to place the Struts2 library.
Inside these .jar files, any TLDs are expected to reside in the META-INF directory. Obviously and as mentioned above, this already is the case for struts2-core-2.1.8.jar, so there's nothing that needs to be done.
When the servlet container loads the TLD, it looks for the <uri> element inside the root element <taglib> and stores a mapping between that TLD and its URI. Correspondingly, this URI is used in your .jsp files to reference the TLD.

In the case of struts2-core-2.1.8.jar, the URI is /struts-tags and thus you need to reference it in a .jsp file like this (of course you can change the prefix attribute to your liking)...

<%@ taglib uri="/struts-tags" prefix="s" %>

...and subsequently put it to use, like e.g. this:

<s:form action="HelloWorld">
    (...)
</s:form>

Wolsey answered 26/8, 2015 at 9:4 Comment(1)

Well, reading it second time it isn't S1 related. Plus one for complete answer. – Toy 26/8, 2015 at 9:11

BalusC is correct: you just need the JAR files in /WEB-INF/lib and a proper taglib in each JSP. One thing that tripped me up initially was the sensitive JSP syntax; spaces between some elements are important. Per the Stripes documentation, each taglib for the Stripes TLD should look like:

<%@ taglib prefix="stripes" uri="http://stripes.sourceforge.net/stripes.tld" %>

Illumine answered 24/8, 2010 at 11:9 Comment(0)

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