dequoting jstl/el results

I have text stored in my database using HTML character entities, e.g., ™ for the trademark symbol, á for a with an accent. When I hand this to the jstl <c

ut> tag, it gets requoted, so the webpage shows the entity instead of the desired character. That is, the user sees "á" instead of the accented "a".

I want a way to de-quote the data, or bypass the quoting mechanism.

I can think of several ways this might be done, but none of the things I've tried so far have worked. I went to the Jasper output and copied the code that extracts values, e.g.,

String s = (String) proprietaryEvaluate("${param.navmodel}", java.lang.String.class, (PageContext)_jspx_page_context, null, false);

[I have already done a <%@ page import = "org.apache.jasper.runtime.*"%>]

Then I looked through the Jsp class documentation in the J2EE API, and coded

<%@ page import = "javax.servlet.jsp.el.*"%>
...
ExpressionEvaluator exval = null;
exval = pageContext.getExpressionEvaluator();
Object o;
o = exval.evaluate(
"${feature.shortName.english}",
o.getClass(),
pageContext,
null, false);

And that failed as well.

My problem is made more frustrating because the webapp is set up with "errorPage" param declarations, so I never get to see the compilation errors, it just goes to the error page. I tried commenting out the errorPage params, but I still don't get the compile errors.

Any suggestions on this problem? If I could solve any piece of it, I would probably be OK:
1. Getting jstl to not quote my already quoted entities,
2. Extracting the jstl/el forms into java so I can manipulate them directly and de-quote them as needed.
3. At least getting the compile errors so I can see what I'm doing wrong.

P.S. I also looked in "catalina.out" for the error messages, but there are none there. There are limits on what I can do because I don't have "root" privilege on the server where my webapp is running.

bypass the quoting mechanism.

There is an escapeXml attribute to the <c

ut> tag that controls whether the value is HTML-encoded prior to emitting it to the page. The default is true.

I highly recommend having a copy of the JSTL Specification open on your desk if you are using the JSTL in your pages.

Yes, thank you. That solved the immediate problem.

I feel particularly stupid because I did have a summary of the relevant JSTL tags open in another window, and it shows the escapeXML option, I just didn't look far enough.

I'll start a new thread for my next problem, which is protecting the page from missing attributes - what happens if the desired attribute is empty.

Oh, I forgot to ask, if I _do_ want to put some actual java code into this JSP, is there any place I can look to see the compilation error messages?

I don't get them on the webpage because there's an errorPage parameter, and I couldn't find them in catalina.out. Anywhere else to look for compilation errors?

Originally posted by Barry Gold:
Oh, I forgot to ask, if I _do_ want to put some actual java code into this JSP, is there any place I can look to see the compilation error messages?

I don't get them on the webpage because there's an errorPage parameter, and I couldn't find them in catalina.out. Anywhere else to look for compilation errors?

- You can see the log file under TOMCAT_HOME/logs
- You can see the console, if you are running the console
- You can remove the errorPage parameter in development mode