JSP Tags, EL and toString() method

Question

Hi,
I want to pass a Java object to a custom tag via EL, but am finding that since the class has a toString() method, EL automatically converts the class to a string using the toString method. Consequently, I get an error because the string cannot be cast back to the parent object in the tag handler class.
I played around with a dummy class and found that if the toString() method wasn't defined, EL would pass the object as is without converting to a string.
Is there some reason for this behaviour and is there some way I can get around this without having to remove the toString() method ? The object I am trying to process is from an external library, so I can't modify it.
Thanks for any tips on this.
Paul Samuel

Answer 1

My initial guess was that you hadn't defined the type of the attribute, and it was defaulting to String as a result. Now that I've seen the tld file thats obviously not the cause.
Next guess: EL evaluation is disabled, and it is interpreting ${model.results} as a string, rather than evaluating it.
1 - What happens if you just put ${1 + 1} onto a JSP page. Does it print ${1 + 1} or evaluate it as 2?
2 - What server are you using? What version? Which J2EE spec does it support?
You can use the following JSP snippet to confirm this info:
<h2> Server Info</h2>
Server info = <%= application.getServerInfo() %> <br>
Servlet engine version = <%=  application.getMajorVersion() %>.<%= application.getMinorVersion() %><br>
Java version = <%= System.getProperty("java.vm.version") %><br>
Session id = <%= session.getId() %><br>3 - What version is your web.xml declared as? 2.3 or 2.4?
4- If you have a Servlet2.4/JSP2.0 container (eg Tomcat 5), try putting the following on your page and see if it works
<%@ page isELIgnored="false" %>
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=629437&tstart=0
Cheers,
evnafets