Mailing-List: contact commons-dev-help@jakarta.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Subject: Re: [jexl] size method unit test failing
From: "Mark H. Wilkinson" <mhw-commons-dev@kremvax.net>
To: Jakarta Commons Developers List <commons-dev@jakarta.apache.org>
Cc: tobrien@discursive.com
In-Reply-To: <4B1CA35F-E2C4-11D7-A788-000A95A01192@optonline.net>
References: <4B1CA35F-E2C4-11D7-A788-000A95A01192@optonline.net>
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Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2003 15:30:55 +0100

On Tue, 2003-09-09 at 13:51, Geir Magnusson Jr. wrote:
> 
> I think that just using size() is the right way to go.

The only reason I can see to support foo.length for arrays is if the JSP
expression language supports it, on the basis that Jexl claims to be an
extension of the JSP expression language. I can't see an explicit
statement that foo.length should be treated specially in the section of
the JSP 2.0 spec that describes evaluation of . and [], so my conclusion
is that it's not supposed to be part of the standard expression
language. Does anyone have evidence to the contrary? If not then I agree
with geir that the size function would do.

On a related point, JSTL 1.1 has added some standard functions to the
expression language, but they've gone for a length() function rather
than the size() function that Jexl had introduced. Would it make sense
to deprecate size() in favour of length() and JSP EL/JSTL compatibility?

-Mark.