Please help ... evaluating jsp:expression in attributes

Question

Dear All,
I have searched the forum and found a few posts expressing a similar problem. However none seemed to divulge any solution.
<option value="<jsp:expression> signals[count] </jsp:expression>"><jsp:expression> signals[count] </jsp:expression></option>In the code above the second expression evaluates fine but the first causes problems. Its the angle brackets of the jsp:expression:
The value of attribute "value" must not contain the '<' characterI have also tried <%= %> and %= % as has been suggested in previous posts
<%= => fails also because of the angle brackets
%= % is set to the value, instead of the evaluated expression.
Am Completely Stumped. Surely there must be a way to do this!?!
Thanks is advance

Answer 1

Hi Steve, thanks for your help I have resolved the problem. Somewhere in the J2EE Tutorial I found a snippet of code that talked about using CDATA tags.
My working code now looks like this:
<td><select name="signal_list" multiple="multiple">
    <jsp:useBean id="signalslist" class="acreweb.SignalsList" scope="session" />
        <jsp:scriptlet>
            int count = 0;
            System.out.println("useBean");
            String[] signals = signalslist.getSignals();
            while(count < signals.length)
     //Display signal names in select box
     System.out.println(signals[count]);
     </jsp:scriptlet>
          <![CDATA[<option value=']]><jsp:expression>new String(signals[count])</jsp:expression><![CDATA[' />]]><jsp:expression> signals[count] </jsp:expression>
     <jsp:scriptlet>     
     count++;
           </jsp:scriptlet>
    </select>
</td>Sorry about formatting am being dragged to the pub, impatient work colleagues