Java – JSP Tag Files in subdirectories, using a single taglib prefix. Is that possible

javajspjsp-tagstaglib

I currently have my .tag files declared with:

<%@taglib prefix="t" tagdir="/WEB-INF/tags" %>

Example of the path of a tag file :

/WEB-INF/tags/test.tag

And I use them like so :

<t:test oneAttributeKey="oneAttributeValue">
   some content...
</t:test>

My problem : I don't want to put all my tag files in one single folder, "/WEB-INF/tags".

I would prefere to have them in different subdirectories :

/WEB-INF/tags/users/

/WEB-INF/tags/widgetsA/

/WEB-INF/tags/widgetsB/

(…)

Is this possible, without creating a different taglib prefix for each and everyone of them?

Example of what I'd like to avoid :

<%@taglib prefix="t_users" tagdir="/WEB-INF/tags/users" %>
<%@taglib prefix="t_widgetsA" tagdir="/WEB-INF/tags/widgetsA" %>
<%@taglib prefix="t_widgetsB" tagdir="/WEB-INF/tags/widgetsB" %>

Example of what I would like, using a single "t" prefix :

<t:users/onetag oneAttributeKey="oneAttributeValue">
   some content...
</t:users/onetag>

Does a similar solution exist?

UPDATE : BalusC showed it's possible to use one prefix only, by defining all the tag files in a single .tld. I guess my question was not clear enough then : I'd like to know if it's possible to use the tag files in multiple subdirectories, without having to specify a path to each of them anywhere except in the element that use them (ex: "<t:users/onetag")!

What I do not like about JSP Tags is that they act very differently than regular JSP files, even if they actually share very similar content. In fact, I even decided to put all my jsp files inside the /WEB-INF/tags/ folder, so they are side to side with the tag files (I had to choose /WEB-INF/tags/ for that, since this folder is mandatory for the tag files, for some reason)! I don't understand why some of my files containing HTML would go in /WEB-INF/jsp/ and some others in /WEB-INF/tags/!!

I want to be able to group the jsp and tag files into directories, depending of what they are related to! Example :

 /WEB-INF/tags/users/userProfileLayout.tag
 /WEB-INF/tags/users/employeeProfile.jsp
 /WEB-INF/tags/users/employerProfile.jsp

 /WEB-INF/tags/widgetsA/widgetALayout.tag
 /WEB-INF/tags/widgetsA/oldWidgetA.jsp
 /WEB-INF/tags/widgetsA/newWidgetA.jsp

But this forces me to declare the path of each of the subdirectories, in multiple @tablib or in a .tld, which I find a little bit inconvenient. I'll live with it, but I think it could be improved.

Best Answer

Define them as <tag-file> in a single .tld file which you put in /WEB-INF folder.

E.g. /WEB-INF/my-tags.tld

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<taglib 
    xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-jsptaglibrary_2_1.xsd"
    version="2.1"
>    
    <display-name>My custom tags</display-name>    
    <tlib-version>1.0</tlib-version>
    <short-name>my</short-name>
    <uri>http://example.com/tags</uri>

    <tag-file>
        <name>foo</name>
        <path>/WEB-INF/tags/users/foo.tag</path>
    </tag-file>

    <tag-file>
        <name>bar</name>
        <path>/WEB-INF/tags/widgetsA/bar.tag</path>
    </tag-file>

    <tag-file>
        <name>baz</name>
        <path>/WEB-INF/tags/widgetsB/baz.tag</path>
    </tag-file>
</taglib>

Use it in your JSPs as follows

<%@taglib prefix="my" uri="http://example.com/tags" %>
...
<my:foo />
<my:bar />
<my:baz />
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