Programming WebLogic JSP Tag Extensions

Administration and Configuration

The following sections provide an overview of administration and configuration tasks for using JSP tag extensions:

• Configuring JSP Tag Libraries

• Packaging a JSP Tag Library as JAR File

 

---

Configuring JSP Tag Libraries

The following steps describe how to configure a JSP tag library. You can also package a tag library as a jar file (see Packaging a JSP Tag Library as JAR File).

1. Create a tag library descriptor (TLD).

   For more information, see Creating a Tag Library Descriptor.

2. Reference this TLD in the Web Application deployment descriptor, web.xml. For example:

   <taglib>
   

     <taglib-uri>myTLD</taglib-uri>
   
     <taglib-location>WEB-INF/library.tld</taglib-location>
   

   </taglib>
   

   In this example the tag library descriptor is a file called library.tld. Always specify the location of the tld relative to the root of the Web application.

3. Place the tag library descriptor file in the WEB-INF directory of the Web application.

4. Reference the tag library in the JSP page.

   In your JSP, reference the tag library with a JSP directive. For example:

   <%@ taglib uri="myTLD" prefix="mytaglib" %>
   

5. Place the tag handler Java class files for your tags in the WEB-INF/classes directory of your Web application.

6. Deploy the Web application on WebLogic Server. For more information, see “Deploying and Packaging from a Split Development Directory” in Developing WebLogic Server Applications.

 

---

Packaging a JSP Tag Library as JAR File

In addition to the procedure described in the previous section Configuring JSP Tag Libraries, you can also package a JSP tag library as a jar file:

1. Create a TLD (tag library descriptor) file named taglib.tld.

   For more information, see Creating a Tag Library Descriptor.

2. Create a directory containing the compiled Java tag handler class files used in your tag library.

3. Create a subdirectory of the directory you created in step 2 and call it META-INF.

4. Copy the taglib.tld file you created in step 1 into the META-INF directory you created in step 3

5. Archive your compiled Java class files into a jar file by executing the following command from the directory you created in step 2

   jar cv0f myTagLibrary.jar
   

   (where myTagLibrary.jar is a name you provide)

6. Copy the jar file into the WEB-INF/lib directory of the Web application that uses your tag library.

7. Reference this tag library descriptor in the Web application deployment descriptor, web.xml. For example:

   <taglib>
   
     <taglib-uri>myjar.tld</taglib-uri>
   
     <taglib-location>
   
        /WEB-INF/lib/myTagLibrary.jar
   
     </taglib-location>
   
   </taglib>
   

8. Reference the tag library in your JSP. For example:

   <%@ taglib uri="myjar.tld" prefix="wl" %>