Calling a Static Method From EL

In my previous post I showed how to pass parameters in EL methods. In this post, I will describe how to call static methods from EL.

Step 1: Download Call.java and ELMethod.java

Download the classes Call.java and ELMethod.java, and copy them to your project.

Step 2: Add an instance of Call.java as an application scoped bean

There are many ways to do this, depending on this technology you are using. Here are some examples:

How to set request scope in JSP

request.setAttribute("call", new Call());  

How to set session scope in JSP

session.setAttribute("call", new Call()); 

this.getServletContext().setAttribute("call", new Call())  

How to set application scope from JSP

 <jsp:useBean id="call" class="Call" scope="application" />  

How to set application scope in Seam

Add these annotations to your class

@Name("call")
@Scope(ScopeType.APPLICATION)

Step 3: Call any static method from EL as follows

Let us say you have a static method which formats date.

   package com.mycompany.util;  
     
   import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;  
   import java.util.Date;  
     
   public class DateUtils {  
    public static String formatDate(String format, Date date) {  
     return new SimpleDateFormat(format).format(date);  
    }  
  }  

You can call the above static method from EL as follows. Here “account” is a request scoped bean with a Date property call “creationDate”.

 ${call["com.mycompany.util.DateUtils.formatDate"]["MMM, dd"][account.creationDate]}  

In general the format is:

  ${call["full.package.name.MethodName"][arg1][arg2][...]}

• Use map notation with [square brackets] when passing arguments to ${call}
• First argument is the full package name + “.” + method name
• If the static method you are calling takes arguments, simply pass those arguments using more [square brackets]
• Overloaded methods are not supported, i.e. you cannot call methods where two methods with the same name exist in the class

References

• Call.java source code from my Google code project
• ELMethod.java source code from my Google code project
• How to pass parameters in EL methods

From http://www.vineetmanohar.com/2010/08/calling-static-methods-from-el/