The c:forEach tag in the core JSTL library is one of the most useful and versatile being used whenever it is necessary to iterate over data. A common use of c:forEach is to produce a HTML table containing data gathered from a SQL query or other data source. The example below shows a simple usage of the c:forEach tag which acquires it's data from a bean called people wraps a collection of person objects. The forEach iterates over the people producing one row for each person. Each person has a name, age and height properties.

While this is certainly a nice working example it is possible to produce better results but introducing another tag c:choose. By using c:choose one can apply banding to the table which makes it easier to view the page. To apply a different colour to alternate rows a construct such as that shown below can be used.