JSTL 1.2 tag libraries for Tomcat 7

OMG!  Trying to find stable taglibs for Tomcat is like pulling teeth.

Fear not!  If you are looking for JTSL 1.2 libraries for Tomcat 7, since Tomcat doesn't ship with any, then you can actually pull the JSTL libraries from the Glassfish project and use them in Tomcat.  The libraries are top notch, so I recommend that you use them.

Here are the links to the files, note: these are not directly from the Glassfish projects website , these are from the mvnrespository.

JSTL-API version 1.2 -- Link
JSTL-IMPL version 1.2 -- Link

So what is JSTL you may ask?  It is the JSP Standard Tag Library.  You've been seeing the jsp:useBean tag and what-not.  The jsp namespace has been using the "built-in" tag library.  Now it is time to bring in some more tags that we can use.  The JSTL is an essential tag library for everyone to know.

Pretty much every server out there includes the built in tag library (jsp) and usually includes the JSTL.  Tomcat is the exception to this, however, it comes only with the built in library.  Apache is working on their implementation of the JSTL version 1.2, but no telling when that will ever make it out.  So we're just going to borrow the Glassfish project's implementation of the JSTL.

As you can guess, there are tons of other tag libraries out there that do all kind of stuff.  Each one is a little niche, some are pretty wide known.  However, all JSP developers need to know JSTL.  It's just like C++ programmers needing to know the standard template library (STL).

So, I'll go over how to use these in the next post.  Or something.

Cheers!