Unordered list in java for JSP page from database

[Paddu Hegde]

Hello Friends,

I was trying to generate unordered lists from database through java code in JSP. I am facing difficulties to generate subcategories in <UL> list.

I have a table with Menu Items :

  
cat_id | parent_id | title
-------------------------
1 | 0 | Solutions
2 | 0 | Products
3 | 1 | Web
4 | 1 | Development
5 | 2 | Softies
6 | 2 | PHP Book
-------------------------  

I want to list get the out put in the form as below :

 
Solutions
  Web
  Development
Products
  Softies 
  PHP Book   

What i have written is :

 public  String generateMenuHTML(String id) throws SQLException {
String html, cId, pId;
pdb = new Pdb();
rset = pdb.executeQuery("select ID,PARENT_ID,TITLE,URL,SORT,ICON from menu");

    html = "<ul id='menu" + id + "'>";
 
    while(rset.next())
    {
      cId = rset.getString("id");
      System.out.println(cId);
      pId =rset.getString("PARENT_ID");
      html = html + "<li id='it" + cId + "'><a href='" + rset.getString("url") + "'>" + rset.getString("title") + "</a>";
      if (pId.equalsIgnoreCase("1"))
      {
      System.out.println(pId);
      html = html + generateMenuHTML(cId);
      }
      html = html + "</li>";
      
      
    }  
    rset.close();
    html = html + "</ul>";
        return html;
}
   

Could you please help me where i am wrong.. how should i join the tables? any idea? Could you please help me how to retrieve sub categories and get the output in :

<ul>
<li>
<ul>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

Please help me if you can.. Thanks a lot!

Rgds,
Paddu

[ September 14, 2008: Message edited by: Paddu Hegde ]
[ September 14, 2008: Message edited by: Paddu Hegde ]

[Bear Bibeault]

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[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Paddu,
First of all, note that it is considered extremely poor practice to put Java code in a JSP - especially JDBC code.

I can think of two possible approaches here.
1) Do the query as you are doing and create a Java data structure to represent what you want to output.
2) Write a query to generate the following and use a new entry in the first column to drive the header.
solutions - web
solutions - development
products - softies
etc

[Steve Luke]

A solution was provided in your Sun Forums post on this same subject:
Unordered List <UL> generation in JSP.