CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaspringjsptomcat7
Chris Howe-Jones
Chris Howe-Jones

Reputation: 41

Spring 3 - Petclinic - ${owner.new} invalid expression in Tomcat 7

I have deployed the petclinic code from the SPring 3 svn samples repository in Tomcat7 and I get the following exception:

Internal error

Root cause is: /WEB-INF/jsp/owners/form.jsp(4,1) "${owner.new}" contains invalid expression(s): javax.el.ELException: [new] is not a valid Java identifier org.apache.jasper.JasperException: /WEB-INF/jsp/owners/form.jsp(4,1) "${owner.new}" contains invalid expression(s): javax.el.ELException: [new] is not a valid Java identifier

This expression resolves perfectly well in SpringSOurce tc Server Developer Edition 2.0.

Any ideas why Tomcat 7.0.2 has a problem with it?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 2538

Answers (4)

BalusC
BalusC

Reputation: 1108802

Bozho has ever reported this bug: 50147 - static is not a valid identifier.

It boils down to:

The important part for this discussion is on page 21 (of the EL specification).

Identifier ::= Java language identifier

Java language identifier is defined by the Java Language Specification (JLS).

Identifiers are specified in chapter 3.8 of the JLS which indeed confirms that identifiers may not be a keyword. As per the bug report, you need to access it as follows instead:

${owner['new']}

or

${owner.isNew()}

Upvotes: 4

Nestor Urquiza
Nestor Urquiza

Reputation: 3027

It will work with ${owner.isNew()} instead of ${owner.new}.

Upvotes: 0

Mark Thomas
Mark Thomas

Reputation: 16625

The EL specification does not permit the use of Java keywords as identifiers. "new" is a Java keyword and hence ${owner.new} is not legal EL. Tomcat 7 enforces this rule by default (Tomcat 6 doesn't for backwards compatibility). The bug is in the Spring sample app.

Upvotes: 2

skaffman
skaffman

Reputation: 403501

My guess is that the EL parser in Tomcat 7 is just a bit more strict than that in tcServer (which is based on Tomcat 6).

I suggest filing a bug at http://jira.springsource.org to that effect, it's almost certainly something they'll want to fix.

Upvotes: 1

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