- Basic JSP Tutorial
- JSP - Home
- JSP - Overview
- JSP - Environment Setup
- JSP - Architecture
- JSP - Lifecycle
- JSP - Syntax
- JSP - Directives
- JSP - Actions
- JSP - Implicit Objects
- JSP - Client Request
- JSP - Server Response
- JSP - Http Status Codes
- JSP - Form Processing
- JSP - Writing Filters
- JSP - Cookies Handling
- JSP - Session Tracking
- JSP - File Uploading
- JSP - Handling Date
- JSP - Page Redirect
- JSP - Hits Counter
- JSP - Auto Refresh
- JSP - Sending Email
- Advanced JSP Tutorials
- JSP - Standard Tag Library
- JSP - Database Access
- JSP - XML Data
- JSP - Java Beans
- JSP - Custom Tags
- JSP - Expression Language
- JSP - Exception Handling
- JSP - Debugging
- JSP - Security
- JSP - Internationalization
- JSP Useful Resources
- JSP - Questions and Answers
- JSP - Quick Guide
- JSP - Useful Resources
- JSP - Discussion
- Selected Reading
- UPSC IAS Exams Notes
- Developer's Best Practices
- Questions and Answers
- Effective Resume Writing
- HR Interview Questions
- Computer Glossary
- Who is Who
JSP - The taglib Directive
The JavaServer Pages API allow you to define custom JSP tags that look like HTML or XML tags and a tag library is a set of user-defined tags that implement custom behavior.
The taglib directive declares that your JSP page uses a set of custom tags, identifies the location of the library, and provides means for identifying the custom tags in your JSP page.
The taglib directive follows the syntax given below −
<%@ taglib uri = "uri" prefix = "prefixOfTag" >
Where, the uri attribute value resolves to a location the container understands and the prefix attribute informs a container what bits of markup are custom actions.
You can write the XML equivalent of the above syntax as follows −
<jsp:directive.taglib uri = "uri" prefix = "prefixOfTag" />
When you use a custom tag, it is typically of the form <prefix:tagname>. The prefix is the same as the prefix you specify in the taglib directive, and the tagname is the name of a tag implemented in the tag library.
Example
For example, suppose the custlib tag library contains a tag called hello. If you wanted to use the hello tag with a prefix of mytag, your tag would be <mytag:hello> and it will be used in your JSP file as follows −
<%@ taglib uri = "http://www.example.com/custlib" prefix = "mytag" %>
<html>
<body>
<mytag:hello/>
</body>
</html>
We can call another piece of code using <mytag:hello>. We will see how to develop our custom tags and how to use them in JSP - Custom Tags tutorial.