You can disable EL evaluation in a JSP page by setting the isELIgnored attribute to true in the page directive.
✅ Syntax:
<%@ page isELIgnored="true" %>
This tells the JSP engine to treat ${...} as plain text, not as an EL expression.
EL will be completely ignored in that page.
🔥 Example:
<%@ page isELIgnored="true" %>
<html>
<body>
Hello, ${user.name}!
</body>
</html>
Result on browser:
Hello, ${user.name}!
The EL ${user.name} is not evaluated, just printed literally.
🛠️ How it Works Technically
| Attribute | Meaning |
|---|---|
isELIgnored="false" (default) | EL expressions are processed |
isELIgnored="true" | EL expressions are ignored and treated as normal text |
📢 Important Notes:
- By default, in JSP 2.0 and newer, EL is enabled (
isELIgnored="false"). - If you want to disable it globally (for all JSPs), you can configure it in
web.xml(less common today).
Example (global disabling in web.xml):
<jsp-config>
<jsp-property-group>
<url-pattern>*.jsp</url-pattern>
<el-ignored>true</el-ignored>
</jsp-property-group>
</jsp-config>
This disables EL for all .jsp files matching the pattern.
🎯 Quick Summary
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
isELIgnored="false" (default) | EL expressions evaluated normally |
isELIgnored="true" | EL expressions ignored and output literally |
🚀 In real projects today:
- You almost never disable EL — it is considered the cleanest way to access dynamic data in JSP.
- Disabling it might make sense only for special legacy pages or static template pages where
${}could conflict with text content.