EL expressions with c:out tags?

Question

Hi,
If EL expressions are normally evaluated and displayed on a page, what is the purpose of enclosing them in <c:out> tags?
Take the following snippet for example:
<img src="<c:out value='${initParam.categoryImagePath}${category.name}.jpg'/>"The same snippet without the <c:out> tag produces the same output in a browser:
<img src="${initParam.categoryImagePath}${category.name}.jpg"I understand that <c:out> also enables you to escape XML content, but if this isn't required, should the <c:out> tag be used? Are there any 'best practice' concerns involved?
Many thanks for any replies!

Answer 1

It is for historical reasons.
The Expression Language EL was originally only available as part of the JSTL tags, ie you could only use it with a <c:out> tag or similar.
That was JSTL1.0
As of Servlet2.4/JSP2.0 (eg Tomcat 5) EL expressions became part of the JSP specification, and containers had to evaluate them as runtime expressions.
That was one of the major changes with JSTL1.1
By all means if the value doesn't have to be escaped for HTML purposes, then I would say use the expression without the tag.
BTW your example leads to repetition. Maybe that should be made into a custom tag? <my:img image="${category.name}"/>
cheers,
evnafets