Equivalent to Struts 1.x "bean:define" tag?

Question

Hi guys,

I'm working on converting an old Struts 1.x application to Spring MVC, and in some of the jsp pages the "bean:define" tag is being used to get a string from a resource bundle, and is then used later in the page:

<bean:define id="example_title"><fmt:message bundle="${example_Labels}" key="example_field"/></bean:define>

then later:

title="<%=example_title%>".

I'm not sure what the equivalent JSTL (or if it even should be JSTL) tag should be in order to do away with the Struts tag, can anyone offer a suggestion? I've tried playing with JSTL "set", and "jsp:useBean", but either they're the wrong way to go or I'm implementing them improperly.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Answer 1

You can access your defined bean using the ${} notation

<%
  title = ${example_title}
%>

If you want to print it, you could use the <c:out> tag

<c:out value=${example_title}/>

Here's a quick link on JSTL

Answer 2

Use the var attribute of the fmt:message.

<fmt:message bundle="${example_Labels}" key="example_field" var="example_title" />

This basically exports the value associated with the key into a page scoped variable named example_title. You can print it later in the page the usual EL way:

title="${example_title}"

Or if you're still on pre-JSP-2.0 where EL in template text isn't supported (consider upgrading..), then use <c:out> to display it:

title="<c:out value="${example_title}" />"