Not able to specify path for form:select tag with list of objects...

[Anoop Nair]

I have a doubt when using Spring.

I have a model class (A) which has a list of objects of another class (B).
In my JSP, I have to iterate over this list of objects.
I am trying to set the path attribute of a select box during the iteration. The path is a member of class B.
For each iteration, I have to refer to the member of the corresponding object only. I am not able to figure out how to specify this in JSP.

Below is a snippet of the model class and also the JSP. Also I have mentioned two things which I tried.


Model class:

public class UserForm implements Serializable  {
   SpecialGroupForm newSpecialGroup;
 List existedSpecialGroups;    // Contains objects of type SpecialGroupForm
 // Other fields go here…
 
 public static class SpecialGroupForm {
    SpecialAccess newAccess;
    List existedAccesses;     // Contains objects of type SpecialAccess
	String specialGroupId;
    // Other fields go here…

    public static class SpecialAccess {
	   String levelId;
  	   String beginDate;
	   String endDate;
    }
 }
}

JSP:

<form:form id="user_form" action="changeAccess" method="post" commandName="createUserForm">
<c:forEach items="${createUserForm.existedSpecialGroups}" var="specialGroups" varStatus="iterIndex">
   <form:select path="specialGroups.specialGroupId" items="${formLoadData.groups}" />
   <c:forEach items="specialGroups.existedAccesses" var="accessLevel" varStatus="iterIndex">
       <form:select path="accessLevel.levelId" items="${accessLevel.accessLevels}" />
   </c:forEach>    
</c:forEach>
</form:form>

Below are the two approaches I tried:
1. Set the path as just a string as in above example.
In this case, Spring looks for a member with the name of the iteration variable (specialGroups in my case) in the model class. And since its not able to find one, it throws error.

2. Set the path by ${specialGroups.specialGroupId}
In this case, the value in the EL got evaluated. Spring then looks for a member having the name as the EL value. Again, in this case it throws error as there is no field with that name.

[Anoop Nair]

I got it working by using below tag

<form:select path="existedSpecialGroups[${iterIndex.index}]" items="${formLoadData.groups}" />