Possible bug on Spring 'tags/form' for input title and placeholder attributes working with Spring 'message' element [SPR-13444]

[spring-projects-issues]

Manuel Jordan opened SPR-13444 and commented

I am working with Spring 4.2.0

I have the following:

<%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="spring" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="form" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/form"%>

...
<label for="fecha"><spring:message code="persona.fecha.label" text="_fecha" /></label>
<form:input path="fecha" 
          size="50" 
          readonly="true" 
          title="<spring:message code='persona.fecha.title' />" />
...	
<input type="submit" 
           value="<spring:message code='button.register' text='_button.register' />" />

i18n (MessageSource) works fine.
For the label and submit the spring:message works fine.

The problem is for the input's title attribute. It always shows the raw content.
It means <spring:message code='persona.fecha.title' /> is not tranformed or interpreted

I can confirm that using <%@ taglib prefix="form" uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/form"%> and
for <form:input the STS with Ctrl+Space can show the title attribute.

Seems it is a bug because:

If I use (html directly within the JSP file)

<input type="text" id="abc" 
           name="abc" 
           placeholder="enter input" 
           title="<spring:message code='persona.fecha.title' />"
           />

<spring:message code='persona.fecha.title' /> is really tranformed or interpreted

Therefore works fine...

Warning: Same problem for the placeholder attribute.

<form:input path="fecha" size="50"
          placeholder="<spring:message code='persona.fecha.title' />"
          title="<spring:message code='persona.fecha.title' />" />

---

Affects: 4.2.1

[spring-projects-issues]

Brian Clozel commented

I believe this works as designed - we don't evaluate JSP tags in attributes (this is obviously possible in the body part of a tag).

There are many ways to work around this, one of them being:

<spring:message code='persona.fecha.title' var='fechaTitle' />
<form:input path="fecha" size="50" readonly="true" title="${fechaTitle}" />

[spring-projects-issues]

Manuel Jordan commented

Hi Brian

Thanks by the explanation, has sense…

About: "we don't evaluate JSP tags in attributes"
Why that approach? Would be viable do viable that?

Thanks

[spring-projects-issues]

Brian Clozel commented

I may be mistaken, but I think this is a JSP limitation (JSPs can evaluate expressions in attributes, but not nested tags) and not necessarily a choice on our end.
If you have a pointer to a resource that says otherwise, I'd be happy to look into it!

Thanks,