c:import is similar to JSP 'include', which has an additional feature of using absolute URL to include the content of any resource within the server or from a different server to the current JSP page.



<c:import> Tag Syntax

Syntax:

<c:import url="relative_url"/>

<c:import> Tag Attributes

Attribute Required Default Description
url Yes None The URL of the resource to be imported
context No Current application The context specifies the name of an external resource when accessing a relative resource using a relative path.
charEncoding No ISO-8859-1 The character encoding used for the imported data.
var No Print to page The name of the variable to store the imported content.
scope No Page The variable scope.
varReader No None Optional variables for providing java.io.Reader object.

<c:import> Tag Examples

Here is an example where it imports the content of another resource specified in the url attribute of the '<c:import>' tag. The Imported content will be stored in a variable called 'info'; then it will print on the next line using the '<c:out>' tag.

Example:

<%@ taglib uri = "http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix = "c" %>

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title> Example of core-import tag </title>
</head>
<body>
    <c:import var="info" url="//www.w3schools.in" charEncoding="UTF-8" />
    <c:out value = "${info}"/>
</body>
</html>

Output:

The above example will fetch the entire source code from w3schools.in and store in a variable name "info" which will eventually be printed.

If you're importing content from the same web app, you don't need a full URL; you need the URI relative to the web app root.

Example:

<c:import url="/menu.jsp" charEncoding="UTF-8" />  


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