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(Quick Reference) # 8.3.7 Tag return value - Reference Documentation Authors: Graeme Rocher, Peter Ledbrook, Marc Palmer, Jeff Brown, Luke Daley, Burt Beckwith, Lari Hotari Version: 2.4.3 ## 8.3.7 Tag return value A taglib can be used in a GSP as an ordinary tag or it might be used as a function in other taglibs or GSP expressions. Internally Grails intercepts calls to taglib closures. The "out" that is available in a taglib is mapped to a `java.io.Writer` implementation that writes to a buffer that "captures" the output of the taglib call. This buffer is the return value of a tag library call when it's used as a function. If the tag is listed in the library's static `returnObjectForTags` array, then its return value will written to the output when it's used as a normal tag. The return value of the tag lib closure will be returned as-is if it's used as a function in GSP expressions or other taglibs. If the tag is not included in the returnObjectForTags array, then its return value will be discarded. Using "out" to write output in returnObjectForTags is not supported. Example:

    class ObjectReturningTagLib {
    	static namespace = "cms"
    	static returnObjectForTags = ['content']	def content = { attrs, body ->
    		CmsContent.findByCode(attrs.code)?.content
        }
    }
Given this example cmd.content(code:'something') call in another taglib or GSP expression would return the value "CmsContent.content" directly to the caller without wrapping the return value in a buffer. It might be worth doing so also because of performance optimization reasons. There is no need to wrap the tag return value in an output buffer in such cases. | Quick Reference (hide)