The <x:parse> tag in JSTL (JavaServer Pages Standard Tag Library) is used to parse an XML document into an object that can be manipulated using XPath expressions. Here's an example of how to use it:

<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/xml" prefix="x" %>

<x:parse var="myXml">
  <root>
    <item id="1">Item 1</item>
    <item id="2">Item 2</item>
    <item id="3">Item 3</item>
  </root>
</x:parse>


<x:forEach select="$myXml/root/item" var="item">
    - <x:out select="$item"/>

  </x:forEach>

In this example, we use the <x:parse> tag to parse an XML document into an object named myXml. The XML document is defined using XML markup directly within the JSP file.

Within the <x:forEach> tag, we use the <x:out> tag to output the text content of each item element in the XML document. The select attribute is used to specify an XPath expression that selects the current item element.

Note that the <x:parse> tag can also be used to parse an XML document from an external file, like this:

<x:parse var="myXml" xml="path/to/my/xml/file.xml"/>

In this case, the xml attribute is used to specify the path to the XML file to be parsed.