[Keith Fetterman]

I installed Eclipse 3.2.1 and MyEclipse 5.1 on my RHE 3 Linux workstation. I then checked out my Web project from CVS and edited a JSP file that contains JSTL and Struts tags. The JSP editor validation is not working. I checked the validation settings and found the JSP validator turned off so I enabled it. I then created some invalid JSTL tags and the validator is still not working. I also checked to see if my project was overriding the JSP validation settings and it was not.

Please help.

I am currently using Eclipse 3.1.2 and MyEclipse 4.1.1 as my primary development platform and JSP validation works great with the same project.

A couple of notes. I get the popup that the visual design views will be disabled because of the browser issue. I have tried editing the JSP file with both the MyEclipse JSP Editor and the MyEclipse Visual JSP Designer. Both fail to validate the JSP file.

I tried creating a startup script to work around the internal browser issue. When I fired up eclipse with the script, I received a bunch of Exceptions and stack traces when displaying a JSP file.

Please help. I must fall back to my Eclipse 3.1.2 and MyEclipse 4.1.1

Thanks,
Keith

[Riyad Kalla]

Keith,
Can you paste, from your new install, the information from MyEclipse > Installation Summary > Installation Details here for me?

Also, can you right click on your JSP file and make sure that it is being opened with the MyEclipse JSP Editor?

[Keith Fetterman]

Also, can you right click on your JSP file and make sure that it is being opened with the MyEclipse JSP Editor?

The default editor is the JSP visual designer. I explicitly openned a JSP file with the MyEclipse JSP Editor using the “Open With” context menu option.

The editor did not validate (or mark invalid) some broken JSTL code. I looked at the projects properties/My Eclipse/Validation. The JSP syntax validation and JSP semantics validation were checked.

I did notice that the Validation Builder checkbox was unchecked. I don’t know what this is.

I then tried creating a new Web project. I configured this project to reference the struts and JSTL jars in my common Java project. I then created a JSP file with struts and jstl tags. It also did not identify invalid jstl tags.

Here are my installation details:

*** Date: 
Thursday, November 16, 2006 3:23:34 PM PST

** System properties:
OS=Linux
OS version=2.4.21-47.0.1.ELsmp
Java version=1.5.0_09


*** MyEclipse details:
MyEclipse Enterprise Workbench
Version: 5.1.0 GA
Build id: 20061111-5.1.0-GA


*** Eclipse details:
Eclipse SDK

Version: 3.2.1
Build id: M20060921-0945




Eclipse Platform

Version: 3.2.1.r321_v20060921-b_XVA-INSQSyMtx
Build id: M20060921-0945


Eclipse RCP

Version: 3.2.1.r321_v20060801-2ekW2BxmcpPUOoq
Build id: M20060921-0945


Eclipse Java Development Tools

Version: 3.2.1.r321_v20060905-R4CM1Znkvre9wC-
Build id: M20060921-0945


Eclipse Plug-in Development Environment

Version: 3.2.1.r321_v20060823-6vYLLdQ3Nk8DrFG
Build id: M20060921-0945


Eclipse Project SDK

Version: 3.2.1.r321_v20060801-tQ1w49KnTArT0FZ
Build id: M20060921-0945


Eclipse Graphical Editing Framework

Version: 3.2.1.v20060921
Build id: 20060921-1617




Eclipse startup command=-os
linux
-ws
gtk
-arch
x86
-launcher
/home/kdf/eclipse-3.2/eclipse/eclipse
-name
Eclipse
-showsplash
600
-exitdata
180015
-vm
/usr/java/jdk/bin/java

[Riyad Kalla]

Keith,
What happens when you put it something like this?

<% INVALID

in your JSP page and save it? (copy and paste what I put, invalid scriptlet segment like that)

[Keith Fetterman]

As soon as I added your invalid scriptlet segment, I saw red squares in the right hand side of the editor. When I saved the JSP file, red circles with white ‘X’s appeared on the left hand side of the editor. So editor is identifying this as invalid.

BTW, I decided to set the default editor for JSP and JSPF files to the MyEclipse JSP editor in the Eclipse Preferences. I got tired of clicking through the pop-up box about the browser problem.

[Riyad Kalla]

Keith,
It sounds like validation is working… can you give me a specific example of errors you are not seeing marked?

[Keith Fetterman]

Validation of custom tags from standard tag libraries isn’t working. I have prepared a simple example. I have included a sample JSP snippet that contains both Struts and JSTL tags. In a separate include file, I have the tag library declarations:

JSP Snippet

<%@ include file="/includes/tag_lib_defs.jspf"%>

<html:link action="/category" paramId="no" paramName="category"
    paramProperty="id" styleClass="no_line">
        <c:if test="${!empty category.thumbnailImageURL}">
            <html:img src="${category.thumbnailImageURL}"
                styleClass="photo_border_thumbnail" border="0" hspace="3"
                align="absmiddle" height="30" width="30"
                alt="${fn:escapeXml(category.name)}" />
        </c:if>
        <c:out value="${category.name}" />
</html:link>

Tag Library Declarations File (/includes/tag_lib_defs.jspf)

<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %> 
<%@ taglib prefix="fmt" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/fmt" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="fn" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/functions" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="bean" uri="http://struts.apache.org/tags-bean" %> 
<%@ taglib prefix="html" uri="http://struts.apache.org/tags-html" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="logic" uri="http://struts.apache.org/tags-logic" %>
<%@ taglib prefix="tiles" uri="http://struts.apache.org/tags-tiles" %>

In MyEclipse 4.1.1, If I alter the tag name “<html:link” to “<html:lnk”, I get the validation error ‘No tag “lnk” defined in tag library imported with prefix “html”‘. MyEclipse 5.1 does not identify this tag as invalid.

If I do the same thing with a JSTL tag, for example “<c:if” as “<c:f”, MyEclipse 5.1 does not flag this as an error.

In MyEclipse 4.1.1, If I alter an attribute name in a custom tag, I also get a validation error. For example, if I alter the attribute “action” in the “<html:link” tag to “acion”, I get the validation error “Attribute acion invalid for tag link according to TLD”. MyEclipse 5.1 does not flag this as an error.

[Riyad Kalla]

I think you just found a bug. I did some testing on my end, and if you name the file “taglibDefs” or any other name that doesn’t have underscores in it, the tag validation works. But if you use underscores, it breaks. I’m filing this for investigation.

[Keith Fetterman]

I removed the underscores from the included file and it didn’t make any difference. Still didn’t work. I also missnamed the file and noticed that the JSP editor didn’t flag that as an error either. In 4.1.1, if the included file didn’t exist, it was flagged as an error.

[Keith Fetterman]

I discovered a separate validation issue with my Web project. I discovered that MyEclipse 5.1 is validating ‘*.jspf’ files. In 4.1.1, it didn’t do that. MyEclipse 5.1 is displaying validation errors on many of my JSPF files because variables exist in these files, but they are not declared in these files. They were declared in the outer JSP file. Is this a bug, or do I need to change a setting?

[Riyad Kalla]

Keith,
Is this project actually a web project, or a Java project? (Under project preferences, do you have MyEclipse then Web preference panel?)

Also, under Window > Prefs > MyEclipse > Editors > JSP, do you have jspf extension listed as a “fragment” extension?

[Keith Fetterman]

Is this project actually a web project, or a Java project? (Under project preferences, do you have MyEclipse then Web preference panel?)

This is a Web project. There is a Web preference under the MyEclipse project preference.

Also, under Window > Prefs > MyEclipse > Editors > JSP, do you have jspf extension listed as a “fragment” extension?

under Window > Prefs > MyEclipse > Files & Editors > JSP, I don’t see a place in the preferences that lists “fragment” extensions. The only thing listed on this panel related to fragments is the checkbox “Validate JSP fragments”. It was checked. I unchecked it, cleared the MyEclipse validation markers and then validated the project. The JSPF files are no longer displaying validation errors.

The problem with validating the custom tags and the nonexistent include file still exists.

[Riyad Kalla]

Keith,
I received your test project and was able to reproduce the issue right away. The reconciler catches the warning, but you are right, the validator is not marking the tag as uknown *or* marking the variable as invalid as it should be. As soon as you move the files into a web project along with the libraries, things start behaving. This does look like a bug, I’ll file it ASAP.

[Keith Fetterman]

Riyad,

Can you give me some idea when the next release of MyEclipse is planned? Since the bug with JSP validation exists in the current release, I can’t move to MyEclipse 5.1, so I waiting for the next release to see if it is fixed. There are some very nice features in Eclipse 3.2/MyEclipse 5.1 that I would like to use.

Thanks,
Keith

[Riyad Kalla]

Keith,
Our next release will be 5.5 around March timeframe. We will have a Milestone 1 release out in about a week and I would like it if you could test it out and beat on it and see how things are looking.

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