why no while loop tag in JSTL

[Pradeep bhatt]

Hi,
I am surprise that there is no direct support for while loop in JSTL. Even though it can be simulated by combination of if and forEach, I feel that JSTL is missing it.

[Simon Brown]

Just out of interest, is there any specific reason that you feel a "while" tag would be a useful addition?
If you take the MVC approach, JSP is used to render the pages of a web application which means that the controller should setup the model appropriately. Using a while loop tends to imply that a certain degree of logic is embedded within the page.
Just my opinion...
Simon
[ October 31, 2002: Message edited by: Simon Brown ]

[Shawn Bayern]

I agree with Simon -- as did the JSTL expert group. We couldn't come up with a compelling reason to introduce a <c:while> tag.

[Jagadeesh Verri]

In case you don't want to iterate over Collections, you can use <c:forEach> as a conventional loop equivalent by the following approach:

<c:set var="startIndex" scope="page" value="0"/>
<c:set var="endIndex" scope="page" value="12"/>

<select name="milestone_count" id="milestone_count">
    <option value="">-select-</option>
    <c:forEach begin="${startIndex}" end="${endIndex}" step="1" var="index">
        <option value="${index}">${index}</option>
    </c:forEach>
</select>

This will produce a select drop down ranging from 0 to 12