<c:forEach>, <c:forTokens> Tags

These tags encapsulate the for, while, and do-while loops in Java.

In comparison, the <c:forEach> tag is a more versatile tag because it iterates over objects in a collection.

The <c:forTokens> tag splits a string into an array using a specified delimiter and then iterates over them.

forEach Syntax Format

<c:forEach
    items="<object>"
    begin="<int>"
    end="<int>"
    step="<int>"
    var="<string>"
    varStatus="<string>">

    ...

forTokens Syntax Format

<c:forTokens
    items="<string>"
    delims="<string>"
    begin="<int>"
    end="<int>"
    step="<int>"
    var="<string>"
    varStatus="<string>">

Attributes

The <c:forEach> tag has the following attributes:

Attribute	Description	Required?	Default Value
items	The items to be iterated over	no	None
begin	Starting element (0=first element, 1=second element)	no	0
end	Last element (0=first element, 1=second element)	no	Last element
step	Step size for each iteration	no	1
var	Variable name representing the current item	no	None
varStatus	Variable name representing the loop status	no	None

The <c:forTokens> tag has similar attributes to the <c:forEach> tag, but <c:forTokens> has another attribute:

Attribute	Description	Required?	Default Value
delims	Delimiter	Yes	None

<c:forEach> Example

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8"
    pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>c:forEach 标签实例</title>
</head>
<body>
<c:forEach var="i" begin="1" end="5">
   Item <c:out value="${i}"/><p>
</c:forEach>
</body>
</html>

The output is as follows:

Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Item 4
Item 5

<c:forTokens> Example

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8"
    pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>c:forTokens 标签实例</title>
</head>
<body>
<c:forTokens items="google,example,taobao" delims="," var="name">
   <c:out value="${name}"/><p>
</c:forTokens>
</body>
</html>