How to fix jstl cforeach tag not rendering in Tomcat 7?

Question

I have set up Tomcat (TomEE)/7.0.62 (1.7.2) in Netbeans and the server runs fine. I added these jars in $CATALINA_HOME/lib:

• javaee-api-6.0-6.jar
• javax.servlet.jsp.jstl-1.2.1.jar

I have the proper configuration in context.xml and web.xml for accessing the database using JDBC for Mysql because i'm able to see the data with these JSTL tags:

<c:forEach var="cartItem" items="${cart.items}" varStatus="iter">
               <c:set var="product" value="${cartItem.product}"/>

            <div id="product_container_cart" class="lazyload">

            <div class="product_img_container">
                <div id="product_image"><a href="viewProduct?${product.id}">
                                <img class="cart_img" alt="" src="${initParam.productGalleryImagePath}${product.id} (1).jpg" /></a></div>
            </div>
                                <div class="product_name_container">
                                    <div style="text-align:center;" id="product_name"><a class="category_links" href="viewProduct?${product.id}">${product.name}</a></div>
                                </div>

                                <div class="product_price_container">
                                    <div id="product_price" style="text-align:center;" >$${product.price}</div></div>

                <div id="button_wrapper_cart">

                    <div id="add_toList_cart"><form id="wishlistFormCart" action="addToWishlist" method="post">
          <input name="productId" value="${product.id}" type="hidden">

          <input id="submit_list_cart" class="submit" value="<fmt:message key='AddToWishlist'/>" type="submit">
        </form></div>

                <div id="updateCart">

                    <form id="updateForm" action="updateCart" method="post">
                                                <input type="hidden"
                                                       name="productId"
                                                       value="${product.id}">

                                                <label for="quantity">Quantity</label>
                                                <input type="text"

                                                       maxlength="2"
                                                       size="2"
                                                       value="${cartItem.quantity}"
                                                       name="quantity"
                                                       style="margin:0px">

                                                <input class="updateButton"  type="submit"
                                                       name="submit"
                                                           onclick="updatedCart()"
                                                       value="<fmt:message key='update'/>">

                                            </form>
                </div>


                </div>

            </div>
          </c:forEach>

but with these tags, the data do NOT display:

<c:forEach var="product" items="${categoryProducts}" varStatus="iter">

            <div id="product_container" class="lazyload">

            <div class="product_img_container">
                <div id="product_image"><a href="viewProduct?${product.id}">
                                <img class="img" alt="" src="${initParam.productGalleryImagePath}${product.id} (1).jpg" /></a></div>
            </div>
                                <div class="product_name_container">
                                    <div id="product_name"><a class="category_links" href="viewProduct?${product.id}">${product.name}</a></div>
                                </div>

                                <div class="product_price_container">
                                    <div id="product_price">$${product.price}</div></div>

                <div id="button_wrapper_category">
                <div id="add_toList">

                    <form id="wishlistForm" action="addToWishlist" method="post">
          <input name="productId" value="${product.id}" type="hidden">

          <input id="submit_list" class="submit" value="<fmt:message key='AddToWishlist'/>" type="submit">
        </form></div>

                <div id="add_toCart">

                    <form id="cartForm" action="addToCart" method="post">


          <input name="productId" value="${product.id}" type="hidden">
          <input id="submit_cart" class="submit" value="<fmt:message key='AddToCart'/>" type="submit">


                    </form></div>
                </div>

            </div>
          </c:forEach>

Any idea why? I tested the connection to the database by trying to display simple product ids with this:

<%@ page import="java.sql.*" %>
<% Connection connection = null;
Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver").newInstance();
connection = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://localhost/<DATABASE NAME>?user=<USERNAME>&password=<PASSWORD>");
Statement sql = connection.createStatement();
ResultSet result = sql.executeQuery("SELECT product FROM category_has_product");
while(result.next() )
{
out.println(result.getString("product_id") + "<br />");
} %>

I was able to display all the product IDs which is a good sign that Tomcat can successfully connect to the DB and retrieve requested data. So what is the issue with the second tag?

Answer 1

The problem should be:

<c:forEach var="product" items="${categoryProducts}" varStatus="iter">

Check if you binding this variable categoryProducts to request object and it has content