Getting Started

The JUEL distribution contains the following JAR files:

1. juel-api-2.2.x.jar - contains the javax.el API classes.
2. juel-impl-2.2.x.jar - contains the de.odysseus.el implementation classes.
3. juel-spi-2.2.x.jar - contains the META-INF/service/javax.el.ExpressionFactory service provider resource. (You will need this if you have several expression language implementations on your classpath and want to force JUELs implementation to be chosen by ExpressionFactory.newInstance()).

Here's all you need to use the EL in your application (assuming you added the JUEL JAR files to your classpath and did import javax.el.*):

1. Factory and Context

   // the ExpressionFactory implementation is de.odysseus.el.ExpressionFactoryImpl
   ExpressionFactory factory = new de.odysseus.el.ExpressionFactoryImpl();
   
   // package de.odysseus.el.util provides a ready-to-use subclass of ELContext
   de.odysseus.el.util.SimpleContext context = new de.odysseus.el.util.SimpleContext();

2. Functions and Variables

   // map function math:max(int, int) to java.lang.Math.max(int, int)
   context.setFunction("math", "max", Math.class.getMethod("max", int.class, int.class));
   
   // map variable foo to 0
   context.setVariable("foo", factory.createValueExpression(0, int.class));

3. Parse and Evaluate

   // parse our expression
   ValueExpression e = factory.createValueExpression(context, "${math:max(foo,bar)}", int.class);
   
   // set value for top-level property "bar" to 1
   factory.createValueExpression(context, "${bar}", int.class).setValue(context, 1);
   
   // get value for our expression
   System.out.println(e.getValue(context)); // --> 1