Tomcat 4.x body tags not exposing variables?

[Ryan Daigle <RD...@healthdec.com>]

I'm having a problem with Tomcat 4.x and body tags.  I am trying to migrate
from a JBoss/Tomcat4.x environment to a Tomcat 4.1.9 setup.  I say this
because the tags in question function as I would expect with the JBoss setup
but not the Tomcat setup.

Here is the situation.  I have a tag that exposes certain variables to the
page:

public class ExposerTag extends BodyTagSupport {

   public int doStartTag() throws JspTagException {
   
      //This "team" variable is properly declared in a TEI class   
      pageContext.setAttribute("team", team);
      return EVAL_BODY_INCLUDE;
    }
}

And I call this tag as such within a jsp page:

<softball:softballExposer>
   <%= team.toString(); %>
</softball:softballExposer>

I get a NullPointer exception from this JSP page at the "team.toString()"
line.  I know from logging statements within the tag that there is a valid
Team object being sent to the page context.

Taking a look at the resulting servlet source of this jsp page, it looks
like that because the tag returns the EVAL_BODY_INCLUDE result, the team
attribute is never set (the code has been cleaned for your viewing
pleasure):

int result = exposer.doStartTag();
if (result != javax.servlet.jsp.tagext.Tag.SKIP_BODY) {
   if (result != javax.servlet.jsp.tagext.Tag.EVAL_BODY_INCLUDE) {
            javax.servlet.jsp.tagext.BodyContent _bc =
pageContext.pushBody();
            _bc.clear();
            out = _bc;
            exposer.setBodyContent(_bc);
            exposer.doInitBody();
            team = (Team) pageContext.findAttribute("team");
   }
   do {
      out.write(team.toString());
   } while {
      //blah.... 
   }
}

So I believe my problem is that because I am using the EVAL_BODY_INCLUDE
result for the doStartTag() method of my exposer tag, the attribute is never
sent to the page context for consumption within the page.

My questions are; 1) Why would this work in a JBoss/Tomcat setup and not in
a purely Tomcat setup and 2) Should I not be using the EVAL_BODY_INCLUDE
result code for a method of this type?

When I change the tag to return the EVAL_BODY_BUFFERED result, then any
nested tags are properly written out to the output stream, so I don't
believe this is an acceptable option.

Can anybody shed some light on my situation.  I have that eerie feeling that
I'm missing something incredibly simple here...

-Ryan

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