Expression Language 3.0 feature functions

The Expression Language (EL) 3.0 feature provides full support for the EL 3.0 specification.

Key enhancements include...

• EL 3.0 is now available as a separate feature and we can configure it independently of JSP 2.3.

• Add support for Lambda expressions (value expression with parameters). See Section 1.20 of the EL 3.0 specification.

• Addition of operations on collections objects. See Chapter 2.0 of the EL 3.0 specification.

• New operators:
  • String concatenation. See section 1.8 of the EL 3.0 specification.
  • Assignment. See section 1.13 of the EL 3.0 specification.
  • Semi-colon. See section 1.14 of the EL 3.0 specification.
  • Field and Methods. See Section 1.22 of the EL 3.0 specification.

Important: There is a change in the EL 3.0 feature that might break existing applications. The default coercion for nulls to non-primitive types (except String) returns nulls. For instance, a null that is coerced to a Boolean now returns a null value, while a null that is coerced to Boolean returns false. The following code example describes this scenario:

Integer number=null;
factory.coerceToType(number, java.lang.Double.class)

For more information refer to: JSR-000341 Expression Language 3.0 Specification.