Boolean operations inside conditional tags

[Jacob Fenwick]

When I run this code, I get True test failed. I would have thought that I would get True test passed since you can do boolean operations inside an EL statement.

<c:choose>
<c:when test="true || true">
<c:out value="True test passed"/>
</c:when>
<c:otherwise>
<c:out value="True test failed"/>
</c:otherwise>
</c:choose>

[ July 06, 2006: Message edited by: Jacob Fenwick ]

[Bear Bibeault]

I see no EL statement in the code you posted.

(That's a strong hint).

[Christophe Verré]

(That's a strong hint)

And it will cost Jacob a few dollars (that's another strong hint)

[Jacob Fenwick]

Ok, so it doesn't actually contain an expression. I thought the part where the test attribute was evaluated was an expression, but I guess an expression is actually anything where ${x} is replaced by x.
What would you call the test attribute that gets evaluated?
The original statement where I was having the problem did have an expression in it. I've included it below.
At first I thought it might not have worked because EL didn't recognize null, but then I did the test with the two trues that are OR'd together and saw it fail, so now I want to know why you can't OR two statements inside a c:when tag or a c:if tag, or whatever other conditional tag you might use.

<c:choose>
<c:when test="${param.returnuri==null} || ${param.returnuri=='null'}">
<c:out value="True test passed"/>
</c:when>
<c:otherwise>
<c:out value="True test failed"/>
</c:otherwise>
</c:choose>

[ July 06, 2006: Message edited by: Jacob Fenwick ]

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Jacob Fenwick:
Ok, so it doesn't actually contain an expression. I thought the part where the test attribute was evaluated was an expression, but I guess an expression is actually anything where ${x} is replaced by x.

All EL expressions are enclosed in the ${} delimiters. In your example

<c:when test="true || true">

there is no EL expression. The value passed to the test attribute is the string "true || true".

If you want it to be an EL expression, you need to use the correct syntax:

<c:when test="${true || true}">

then I did the test with the two trues

As I pointed out, you did not. Your test is flawed as described.

now I want to know why you can't OR two statements

You can.

[Jacob Fenwick]

Thanks Bear. I was going to ask another question because I was still having problems but I figured it out. Oh well, I'll post what I learned anyways since I already typed it.

I thought something like this might work:

${param.returnuri==null} || ${param.returnuri=='null'}

If I only put in param.returnuri==null and then didn't pass a variable, or if I only use param.returnuri=='null' and then pass the variable null, then it works. But as soon as I add in the OR, it stops working.

This was ludicrous but I tried it anyways:

${${param.returnuri=null} || ${param.returnuri=='null'}}

Of course it's not proper syntax so it failed.

I finally did:

${param.returnuri==null || param.returnuri=='null'}

[ July 06, 2006: Message edited by: Jacob Fenwick ]

[Christophe Verré]

Jacob, do you know the 'empty' operator ?
${empty param.returnuri}

[Bear Bibeault]

I finally did:

Yes, the ${} encloses the entire EL expression. It is not some sort of fetch operator. This is a common misconception, so don't feel too bad about it.

And, as Satou pointed out, the empty operator will return true if the operand is null or the empty string.