What is OGNL

OGNL stands for Object Graph Navigation Language. It is an expression and binding language for getting and setting properties of Java objects. For instance, OGNL is used as:

• A binding language between GUI elements
  
• A data source language to map between table columns and a Swing TableModel
  
• A binding language between web components and the underlying model objects (WebOGNL, Tapestry, WebWork, WebObjects)
  
• A more expressive replacement for the property-getting language used by the Jakarata Commons BeanUtils package or JSTL's EL (which only allow simple property navigation and rudimentary indexed properties)
  

Most of what you can do in Java is possible in OGNL, plus other extras such as list projection and selection and pseudo-lambda expressions.