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342

Chapter 14 Creating Custom JSP Tag Libraries

Figure 14 8 Result of RepeatExample.jsp when accessed with a repeats 

parameter of 20.

can only appear within 

TABLE

. The color and alignment settings of 

TABLE

 are

inherited by 

TR

, and the values of 

TR

 affect how 

TD

 and 

TH

 behave. So, the

nested elements cannot act in isolation even when nested properly. Similarly,

the tag library descriptor file makes use of a number of elements like 

taglib

,

tag

, 

attribute

 and 

required

 where a strict nesting hierarchy is imposed.

This section shows you how to define tags that depend on a particular nest 

ing order and where the behavior of certain tags depends on values supplied

by earlier ones.

The Tag Handler Classes

Class definitions for nested tags can extend either 

TagSupport

 or 

BodyTag 

Support

, depending on whether they need to manipulate their body content

(these extend 

BodyTagSupport

) or, more commonly, just ignore it or include

it verbatim (these extend 

TagSupport

). 

Second edition of this book: www.coreservlets.com; Sequel: www.moreservlets.com.

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