JSTL install, confusing instructions

[Gregory Guthrie <gu...@mum.edu>]

Phew, I just got it working, but there seems (to me) to be unclear 
instructions at http//jakarta.apache.org/taglibs/binarydist.html -

1) The navigation pane shows JSTL (1.2), but only 1.0.x is available.

2) At binary downloads, the mirrors link for taglibs is broken,
     and at the main site, I'm given a choice of standard-1.0, and standard.

     Standard then lets me choose between standard-current, or 
binaries/standard-1.0.3
     -- The standard-1.0 directory is empty.
     -- Standard-current didn't work for me with current Tomcat (see below).

3) I found that standard-current would not work with Tomcat 4.1.24,
      Gives an error:
        "This Absolute URI "http//java.sun.com/jstl/core"
     cannot be resolved in either web.xml or the jar files deployed...

        -- Replacing with 1.0.3 libraries seemed to fix this.
        -- Are there Tomcat compatibility issues with various releases?

4) More recent advice than the install instructions are:

    Don't use any <taglib> elements in the web.xml file, ...,
    or copy the raw TLDs to web application directory structure;

              ( 
http//www.mail-archive.com/taglibs-user@jakarta.apache.org/msg04592.html)

        JSP 1.2 has simplified the use of tag libraries by supporting the
        auto discovery of TLD mappings in jar files. One simply has to
        drop the tag-library's jar file at the proper location, and 
voila... the
        container will process any TLD contained in these jar files and record
        the proper mappings.

       -- update the instructions?

5) I also don't understand the standard install instructions;
   They say to copy {library}.tld and {library}.jar to the appropriate places,
     where {library} is the short name of the project.

    But the distributed files give:
    In c.tld:
          <uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/core</uri>
       <short-name>c</short-name>
   And for web.xml:
       <taglib>
           <taglib-uri>http://java.sun.com/jstl/core</taglib-uri>
           <taglib-location>/WEB-INF/c.tld</taglib-location>
       </taglib>

    And the .jar is named jstl.jar

    What is the {library} name here, and how is the name "c" mapped to "jstl"?

I followed the instructions (I think!), and it still took me a long time to 
resolve all of these issues and ambiguities.

Thanks for any clarification.
Gregory


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Gregory Guthrie
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