purpose of .tag files?

[Jeyalakshmi Palaniyandi]

i have read about .tag files in head first servlet/jsp.
they mentioned that .tag files are just glorified includes.
is it same like <jsp:include> and <c:import>?
can any one please tell me whats the difference between the two.
and also what is the main purpose of .tag files?

thanks,
Jeyalakshmi

[Bear Bibeault]

Tag files allow you to create custom actions (tags) using JSP markup rather than writing a tag handler in Java code. They are well-suited to tags that emit lots of template text or that need to perform JSP-like actions.

They are superior to include or imports for creating re-usable components because data can be formally passed to the tags via the attributes. With includes and imports, data passing is informal via scoped variables.

[Jeyalakshmi Palaniyandi]

thanks a lot Bear Bibeault