This is quite an odd one. Struts 2 comes with it’s own tag library for accessing properties of actions but I thought it would be interesting to see if you can access it via JSTL EL instead. In the Hello World example I naively tried ${name} and ${requestScope.name}. Result: nada, as might be expected.

However if you reload the page (and repost the request) then suddenly the EL is populated! I presume that this is some artefact of re-executing the Action but it is very strange!

Update: this page set me right on how to mix JSTL EL and the Struts 2 Value Stack but I am still slightly mystified by what appears in which scope when the Result is returned.