Embedded custom-tag in dynamic content (nested tag) not rendering.

Question

Embedded custom-tag in dynamic content (nested tag) not rendering.

I have a page that pulls dynamic content from a javabean and passes the list of objects to a custom tag for processing into html. Within each object is a bunch of html to be output that contains a second custom tag that I would like to also be rendered. The problem is that the tag invocation is rendered as plaintext.

An example might serve me better.

1 Pull information from a database and return it to the page via a javabean. Send this info to a custom tag for outputting.

<jsp:useBean id="ImportantNoticeBean" scope="page" class="com.mysite.beans.ImportantNoticeProcessBean"/>  <%-- Declare the bean --%>
<c:forEach var="noticeBean" items="${ImportantNoticeBean.importantNotices}"> <%-- Get the info --%>
    <mysite:notice importantNotice="${noticeBean}"/> <%-- give it to the tag for processing --%>
</c:forEach>

this tag should output a box div like so

*SNIP* class for custom tag def and method setup etc
out.println("<div class=\"importantNotice\">");
out.println("   " + importantNotice.getMessage());
out.println("   <div class=\"importantnoticedates\">Posted: " + importantNotice.getDateFrom() + " End: " + importantNotice.getDateTo()</div>");
out.println("   <div class=\"noticeAuthor\">- " + importantNotice.getAuthor() + "</div>");
out.println("</div>");
*SNIP*

This renders fine and as expected

<div class="importantNotice">
    <p>This is a very important message. Everyone should pay attenton to it.</p>
    <div class="importantnoticedates">Posted: 2008-09-08 End: 2008-09-08</div>
    <div class="noticeAuthor">- The author</div>
</div>

2 If, in the above example, for instance, I were to have a custom tag in the importantNotice.getMessage() String:

*SNIP* "This is a very important message. Everyone should pay attenton to it. <mysite:quote author="Some Guy">Quote this</mysite:quote>" *SNIP*

The important notice renders fine but the quote tag will not be processed and simply inserted into the string and put as plain text/html tag.

<div class="importantNotice">
    <p>This is a very important message. Everyone should pay attenton to it. <mysite:quote author="Some Guy">Quote this</mysite:quote></p>
    <div class="importantnoticedates">Posted: 2008-09-08 End: 2008-09-08</div>
    <div class="noticeAuthor">- The author</div>
</div>

Rather than

<div class="importantNotice">
    <p>This is a very important message. Everyone should pay attenton to it. <div class="quote">Quote this <span class="authorofquote">Some Guy</span></div></p>    // or wahtever I choose as the output
    <div class="importantnoticedates">Posted: 2008-09-08 End: 2008-09-08</div>
    <div class="noticeAuthor">- The author</div>
</div>

I know this has to do with processors and pre-processors but I am not to sure about how to make this work.

Answer 1

Just using

<bodycontent>JSP</bodycontent>

is not enough. You should do soimething like

JspFragment body = getJspBody(); 
StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter(); 
StringBuffer buff = stringWriter.getBuffer(); 
buff.append("<h1>"); 
body.invoke(stringWriter); 
buff.append("</h1>"); 
out.println(stringWriter);

to get inner tags rendered (example is for SimpleTag doTag method).

However, in the question's code I see that inner tag is comming from a string which is not rendered as a part of JSP, but just some random string. I do not think you can force JSP translator to parse it.

You can use regexp in your case or try to redesign your code in a way to have a jsp like this:

<jsp:useBean id="ImportantNoticeBean" scope="page class="com.mysite.beans.ImportantNoticeProcessBean"/>
<c:forEach var="noticeBean" items="${ImportantNoticeBean.importantNotices}">
    <mysite:notice importantNotice="${noticeBean}">
        <mysite:quote author="Some Guy">Quote this</mysite:quote>
        <mysite:messagebody author="Some Guy" />
    </mysite:notice>
</c:forEach>

I whould go with regexp.