Assigning outcome of another JSTL tag as value of one JSTL tag

Question

I've got this, which is working:

<c:choose>
    <c:when test="${sometest}">
        Hello, world!
    </c:when>
    <c:otherwise>
        <fmt:message key="${page.title}" />
    </c:otherwise>
</c:choose>

And I want to change it to this:

<c:choose>
    <c:when test="${sometest}">
        <c:set var="somevar" scope="page" value="Hello, world!"/>
    </c:when>
    <c:otherwise>
        <c:set var="somevar" scope="page" value="<fmt:message key="${page.title}">"
    </c:otherwise>
</c:choose

But of course the following line ain't correct:

<c:set var="somevar" scope="page" value="<fmt:message key="${page.title}">"

How can I assign to the somevar variable the string resulting from a call to fmt:message?

Answer 1

The fmt:message has a var attribute as well which does effectively what you want.

 <fmt:message key="${page.title}" var="somevar" />

That's all. Bookmark the JSTL tlddoc, it may come in handy.

Answer 2

It is also possible to specify the value to set using the contents of the body, rather than through the value attribute:

<c:set var="somevar" scope="page">
  <fmt:message key="${page.title}"/>
</c:set>