Bug 16994

Summary:	no error on multiple close tags
Product:	Taglibs	Reporter:	Leo Mekenkamp <issues.apache.org>
Component:	Standard Taglib	Assignee:	Tomcat Developers Mailing List <dev>
Status:	RESOLVED INVALID
Severity:	major
Priority:	P3
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	Other
OS:	other

Description Leo Mekenkamp 2003-02-12 14:16:14 UTC

The following jsp runs without problems. Don't know how else to describe it
other than: it should not run without errors/warnings.

Apache Tomcat/4.1.18 1.4.1_01-b01 Sun Microsystems Inc. Linux
2.4.19-16mdkenterprise i386

8<--------8<--------8<-------8<--------

<%@taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core" prefix="c"%>
</c:if>
</c:if>
</c:if>
</c:if>
</c:if>
</c:if>

Comment 1 Shawn Bayern 2003-02-12 14:52:34 UTC

The behavior is correct with respect to the JSP specification and is, in any 
case, beyond the scope of the JSTL implementation at Apache.

Comment 2 Leo Mekenkamp 2003-02-12 21:23:27 UTC

That might be true, but who does honestly think that the provided example is (or
should be) 100% valid? I spend 1 hour on a bug only to find that it was caused
by an 'if' tag that was mistakenly closed somewhere. Any modern programming
environment that allows an 'endif' without an 'if' is a big step backwards in
computer science if you ask me.
I think this is not explicitly in the specs because noone saw a need for it.
Imho if the supplied example _is_ allowed it should be specifically mentioned in
the specs because it goes against all other 'if' behaviour in iterative languages.

As there is no mention of this being allowed in the specs, one might be safe to
assume 'normal' behaviour.

Comment 3 Serge Knystautas 2003-02-12 21:33:36 UTC

As Shawn said, this has nothing to do with the JSTL.  Take any custom taglib,
and Tomcat will do this.  The issue is with Tomcat and specifically the Jasper
JSP page compiler.  They are following the JSP spec, but as you said, this can
be frustrating.  I know that Caucho's Resin servlet container will catch
multiple close tags, if you're open to changing servlet engines.