JSTL c:out not showing the variable's value

Question

I'm following a tutorial about spring and I'm supposed to set a variable in a controller in order to be printed within the jsp rendering the request. The code is as follows:

@Controller
public class HelloController {

    @RequestMapping(value="/hello.htm")
    public ModelAndView handleRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse  response) throws ServletException, IOException {
        String now = (new Date()).toString();
        return new ModelAndView("WEB-INF/views/hello.jsp", "now", now);
    }
}

Then, the hello.jsp code is as follows:

<%@ page session="true"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="fmt" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/fmt" %>
<html>
    <body>
        <p>Greetings, it is now <c:out value="${now}" /></p>
    </body>
</html>

I am expected to get an html showing this:

Greetings, it is now Mon Fri Dec 06 00:39:35 CET 2013

But all I get is:

Greetings, it is now ${now}

I've checked everything twice (or even more!) but everything seems to be as the tutorial says but there must be something missing, I hope...

What's wrong with my code?

I think you coded hello controller wrong. You need to put now into a MAP with key is now. — LHA, Dec 06 '13 at 00:04
I've also tried the following code without any success: `Map params = new HashMap(); params.put("now", now); ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView("hello.jsp"); mav.addAllObjects(params); return mav;` — Lluís Suñol, Dec 06 '13 at 00:09

score 14 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 06 '13 at 03:41

14

This is an E xpression L anguage issue. Your ${} is not being resolved. This can happen for a number of reasons. One, and the most likely, is that your web.xml is declaring Servlet 2.3 and under. You'll have to specify 2.4+. Now, obviously, your Servlet container must also support that higher version.

answered Dec 06 '13 at 03:41

Sotirios Delimanolis

274,122
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1

It worked! I've changed to 2.5, as in the tutorial, and now it parses the expressions. Thank you Sotirios, you hit the nail on the head!! I created the webapp by using the maven's archetype and you get 2.3 version servlet by default. – Lluís Suñol Dec 06 '13 at 08:46
maven 3 still generates web.xml with servlet 2.3 – Balaji Krishnan Feb 16 '15 at 18:00

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 08 '14 at 23:43

3

Change this - the pad a library is bad:

<!--  %@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>-->
<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="fmt" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/fmt" %>

edited Jan 08 '14 at 23:43

jww

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answered Jan 08 '14 at 23:21

user3175453

57
5

JSTL c:out not showing the variable's value

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