if I try <str:escape><bean:write name='foo' property='bar'/></str:escape> I get no escaping of special characters in foo.bar's content. However, if do <str:escape>Tes't</str:escape> I get the desired effect. Test\'t This seems very limiting since in most cases people would like to have dynamic content.
I believe this should be working fine for JSP 2.0 onwards when this became automatic.