how to use c:forEach....

[Vijay Vaddem]

Hi,
I have a problem.....(hope i will get an answer..)
I have the following piece of scriplet in my jsp and i want to
display it using expression language....
<%
masterData mData = session.getAttribute("databean");
for(int i = 0; i < mData.size(); i ++)
{
childBean cBean = mData.getChildBean();
cBean.getText();
cBean.getAnnotation();
cBean.getUrl();
}
%>
Hope im clear in my message ..........

[Bear Bibeault]

What have you tried? Why not post your first attempt at it an we will take it from there.
Also, is mData a collection class?

[Vijay Vaddem]

Hi,
mBean is a custom bean which is storing childBean.....
and child bean has the above 3 methods....
So, at one stage, I may have 1 mBean with 3 childBeans nested in it....
mBean
|
|---getChildBean(i)
|---setChildBean(cBean)
|

childBean
|
|---getXXX()
|---setXXX()
|---getXXX()
|---setXXX()
|---getXXX()
|---setXXX()

To be honest, Im very new to Expression language and JSTL......
I donno how to do it........

[Bear Bibeault]

For starters, the c:forEach tag must have an array or collection to iterate over. So your mBean must have a way of exposing the child beans as something that it can digest. Frequently, this will take the form of an array, List, or Iterator.
I'd suggest you start by adding a property to your mBean that exposes the children as such. So any of the following would work:

  List getChildren();
  or
  ChildBean[] getChildren();
  or
  Iterator getChildren();
  

whichever makes the most sense for your bean.
This is the property that you would feed to the items attribute of the c:forEach action.
Give it a try and post your code. Yeah, you may be a novice at JSTL, but you'll learn more if you write the code and get help on it than if someone just gives it to you.

[Vijay Vaddem]

Hi again,.
This is how i was trying to do........
<c:forEach items="${dataBean.size}" var="index" varStatus="resultLoopStatus">
<c:forEach items="${dataBean.childBean[index]}" var="cBean" varStatus="resultLoopStatus">
<tr>
<td>
<c ut value="${cBean.url}" escapeXml="false"/>
<c ut value="${cBean.linkText}" escapeXml="false"/>
<c ut value="${cBean.annotation}" escapeXml="false"/>
</td>
</tr>
</c:forEach>
</c:forEach>
And i got the following Exception....

Exception
Message: javax.servlet.jsp.JspTagException: Don't know how to iterate over supplied "items" in <forEach>
Stack: org.apache.taglibs.standard.tag.common.core.ForEachSupport.toForEachIterator(ForEachSupport.java:286)
org.apache.taglibs.standard.tag.common.core.ForEachSupport.supportedTypeForEachIterator(ForEachSupport.java:250)
org.apache.taglibs.standard.tag.common.core.ForEachSupport.prepare(ForEachSupport.java:172)
javax.servlet.jsp.jstl.core.LoopTagSupport.doStartTag(LoopTagSupport.java:262)
org.apache.taglibs.standard.tag.el.core.ForEachTag.doStartTag(ForEachTag.java:105)
...
.;..
...
..

[Bear Bibeault]

Firstly, when entering code, be sure to click the "disable smiles" checkbox. That way, your <c ut> tags will look less surprised.
OK let's start with your outer loop:

<c:forEach items="${dataBean.size}" var="index" varStatus="resultLoopStatus">

If you check your JSTL reference (you are using a good reference, aren't you?), you will see that the items attribute specifies the collection to iterate over. And yet, you have given it a size (presumably an int). Not surprising that it complains:

Don't know how to iterate over supplied "items" in <forEach>

since one can't iterate an int.
Let's assume that you have placed your data bean as scoped variable dataBean, and, as I instructed in a previous reply, you have created a method getChildren that returns a List or array of ChildBeans.
Then your forEach tag would look something like:

<c:forEach items="${dataBean.children}" var="child">
   ...
</c:forEach>

Now, within the confines of the foreEach, each child is in-turn exposed as scoped variable child.
Before proceeding you need to understand why and how.
[ April 29, 2004: Message edited by: Bear Bibeault ]