Struts <logic:notEmpty> not working or bean property not being written properly to JSP?

Question

I'm beginning on bug fixes for a program with which I have little familiarity. I've changed a section of code on one of the JSPs. I need it to print names with either of the two following formats (depending on whether or not the middle name property exists):

LastName, FirstName M.

LastName, FirstName

I believe my code should print the middle initial and the period if and only if that property exists, but for each name in the list, it prints:

LastName, FirstName .

It prints either no middle initial or a middle initial that is an empty string, followed by the period.

The relevant code is as follows:

<html:link styleClass="recordLink" action="/secure/admin/users?actionMethod=details" paramId="userId" paramName="users" paramProperty="userId">
    <bean:write name="users" property="lastName"/>,
    <bean:write name="users" property="firstName"/>
    <logic:notEmpty name="users" property="middleName">
        <bean:write name="users" property="middleName"/>.
    </logic:notEmpty>
</html:link>

Why is the <logic:notEmpty> tag not working? Could the middleName property be determined to be non-empty if the property doesn't exist? Is there something wrong with my syntax?

I've also tried to use JSTL tags, but I could not get it working in OC4J (Error: "http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" is not a registered TLD namespace.)

Solution 1

The tag logic:notEmpty evaluates to true because your middle name string has spaces. You should get rid of spaces before returning it to the tag. Better do it in the form bean like

public String getMiddleName() { return middleName != null? middleName.trim(): middleName;}   

Solution 2

I suspect your middleName is empty string or has spaces. if so try using logic:equal to match and print some character instead of period, see what happens. If true, then trim the middleName, before sending it of to JSP.

Comments

[Matt Shank]

It doesn't seem like my middle name Strings have spaces. It prints an empty string or nothing at all.

[Roman C]

Nothing at all it can't print, make sure you have a valid characters.

[Matt Shank]

I think you're on to something. I placed quotes around the printing of the middle name ("<bean:write name="users" property="middleName"/>".) and it printed a space.