Accessing complex beans in struts

[jay denzel]

Hi,
I have a problem accessing beans in struts.
My bean looks something like this.
class Category {
private int catId;
private List products;
..
.
}
The list is used to store Product objects.
How can access the products in a jsp page by only
using struts tags?
Using iterate and bean:write will not do the trick because I need to access the objects in the list.
Any ideas?
Thanks.
jay
------
SCJP, SCJD

[Junilu Lacar]

(Edit: sorry about previous edition of this post. I got a couple of things mixed up -- indexed properties are a different thing. You just need a List)
logic:iterate and bean:write should work.

// java:
 
/*
 * ResumeForm.java
 */
 
package com.mystuff;
...
  
public class ResumeForm extends ActionForm {
  java.util.List workHistory;
  ...
  public List getWorkHistory() {
    return workHistory;
  }
  
  public void setWorkHistory(List newList) {
    workHistory = newList;
  }
  
  public void addWorkHistoryItem(WorkHistoryItem item) {
    workHistory.add(item);
  }
  ...
}
   
------------------
  
/*
 * WorkHistoryItem.java
 */
package com.mystuff;
  
...
   
public class WorkHistoryItem {
  private String companyName;
  private String position;
  ...
  
  // accessors/mutators:
  
  public String getCompanyName() {
  ...
}
  
--------------
#
# struts-config.xml
# 
<form-bean name="resumeForm" type="com.mystuff.ResumeForm" />
  
---------------------------------  
// JSP:
      
<logic:iterate 
   id="historyItem"    [I]// name used to access item inside loop[/I]
   name="resumeForm"   [I]// form name in struts-config.xml[/I]
   property="workHistory"  [I]// List property in form bean[/I]
   type="com.mystuff.WorkHistoryItem"  [I]// type of items in the List[/I]
   indexId="itemNumber">
  
   Item #<%= itemNumber %><br>
   Company: <bean:write name="historyItem" property="companyName" /><br>
   Position: <bean:write name="historyItem" property="position" /><br>
   ...
</logic:iterate>

[ December 27, 2002: Message edited by: Junilu Lacar ]

[Matthew Marquand]

You can create a form bean that has the attributes of
your Category, or some such approach to make the products list
available to the tag library in some scope. The example below
assumes the form bean contains a getProducts() method that returns
your list of products and that the Product object has a
getProductName() method:

<ul>
<logic:iterate id="product" name="yourForm" property="products">
<bean:write name="product" property="productName"/>
</logic:iterate>
</ul>

If the Product object is more complex you can use "dot" syntax
to obtain "deeper" properties. For example, property="type.name"
instructs struts to call getType().getName() on the object.
Hope that helps.
Matthew Marquand
Object Ovation, Inc.

[jay denzel]

Hi guys,
thanks for your answers.
I just solved the problem myself.
Greets,
jay
-------
SCJP, SCJD