JSTL forEach: zero iteration is not allowed

Question

I have just written one of my first JSP pages with JSTL.
I used
<c:forEach var="numero" begin="0" end="${righe -1}" >
to replace
for (int i = 0; i < righe; i++ )
It seems to me that a c:forEach loop must be executed at least one time: in fact setting begin = end
the loop is executed once while setting end < begin causes an exception.
So I had to put the c:forEach inside a <c:if test="${righe > 0}"> .... </c:if>
Is there a better and cleaner way to translate a for loop into JSTL ?
Thanks

Answer 1

Nope, doesn't look like it.
It states clearly in the documentation:
end is INCLUSIVE
end must be >= begin
So your if tag around the forEach seems the only solution. I agree its not perfect, but it can be done.
What is the code you are repeating? Most of the time you want to iterate this variable i, ACTUALLY what you are doing is iterating through an array. In that case use the forEach tag with the var and items attributes, and it works wonderfully.
Cheers,
evnafets