Calling Java Getter from JSTL Confusion

Question

In a lot of website tutorials and code examples I have found, I see code that goes something like this
public class SomeBean {
  private int[] values;
  public SomeBean() {}
  public void setValues(int[] v) {
    values = v;
  public int[] getValues() {
    return values;
}And then they use the array in a <c:forEach> by calling something like
<c:forEach var="value" items="${Bean.values}">Now my confusion comes from the statement ${Bean.values}. What is 'values' referring to? Is it somehow bypassing the encapsulation of the object and grabbing the values data member? Is it calling the method 'getValues' without the word 'get' in front?
Anything to help clarify this would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

Values is referring to the array of ints that you have.
It is calling it via the getValues() method defined.
You can find a reference to the EL expression language here
See the section entitled "variables" on how it resolves the parent.child.grandchild syntax.
Basic rules for EL in JSP2.0
- if the variable is a map, look up a property of the map
- if the variable is a list, look up an array index within that list
- otherwise treat it as an object, and look for a relevant javabeans property.