html:select and html:options

[Cory Max]

Hi Everyone,

My name is cory and I have a problem... no... its not alcoholism, not smoking, not drugs.... my problem is this darned html select control. Here is my scenario:

I have a class called AdminForm:

public class AdminForm extends ActionForm {
private ArrayList dealers;
private String currentDealer;

public void setDealers(ArrayList dealers) { this.dealers = dealers; }
public ArrayList getDealers() { return dealers; }
public void setCurrentDealer(String currentDealer) {this.currentDealer = currentDealer; }
public String getCurrentDealer() { return currentDealer; }
}

the ArrayList is a collection of dealers:

public class Dealer
{
public Dealer() { }
private String dealerNumber;
private String dealerName;
public void setDealerNumber(String dealerNumber)
{ this.dealerNumber = dealerNumber; }
public String getDealerNumber() { return dealerNumber; }
public void setDealerName(String dealerName)
{ this.dealerName = dealerName; }
public String getDealerName() { return dealerName; }
}



In my action class, I do something like the following:

AdminForm adminForm = new AdminForm();
ArrayList dealers = service.getVisibleDealers();
adminForm.setDealers(dealers);
request.getSession().setAttribute("ADMINFORM",adminForm);

How do I output a html:select/html ptions box containing a list of the dealers? This wont work (below) Please help... this has taken me wayyyyyyy to long.

<pdk-struts-html:select name="ADMINFORM" property="currentDealer">
<pdk-struts-html ptions collection="dealers" property="dealerNumber" labelProperty="dealerName" />
</pdk-struts-html:select>

This seems soooo simple... to have stumped me for sooo long.
[ January 28, 2006: Message edited by: Cory Max ]

[Merrill Higginson]

Cory,

Believe me, you're not alone. There are a lot of posts on this forum dealing with html:select.

My best advice to you is to use the html:optionsCollection instead of html:options. You can accomplish what you need to with either tag, but I find that the former is more intuitive and easier to use.

The documentation on both these tags can be found at:

http://struts.apache.org/struts-doc-1.2.x/userGuide/struts-html.html

Here's how you'd do it using html:optionsCollection:

<html:select name="ADMINFORM" property="currentDealer">
<html:optionsCollection property="dealers" value="dealerNumber" label="dealerName" />
</html:select>

What makes optionsCollection more intuitive is that the property is more like the property attribute for the other html:xxx tags. It's the property of a form bean that represents the collection of options.

With html:options, property means something entirely different: The property of the bean that will represent that "value" of each individual option. Collection represents the name of a bean that represents the collection of objects to be iterated over. Since your collection is actually a property of the form bean, using html:options requires a bean:define before the statement. Here's how you'd have to do it with html:options:

<bean:define id="dealersCollection" name="ADMINFORM" property="dealers" />
<html:select name="ADMINFORM" property="currentDealer">
<html:options collection="dealersCollection" property="dealerNumber" labelProperty="dealerName" />
</html:select>
[ January 29, 2006: Message edited by: Merrill Higginson ]

[Cory Max]

Wow... thanks. Your help is much appreciated.

Cheers,

Cory

[D Sheth]

Hi,

I have done the exactly what you provided. I think I am missing something though.

I am getting an error - [ServletException in:/jsp/searchBySystem.jsp] Cannot retrieve definition for form bean null'

Form is:
public final class SearchBySystemForm extends ActionForm {

private ArrayList systems;
private int systemId;

public int getSystemId() {
return systemId;
}

public ArrayList getSystems() {
return systems;
}

public void setSystemId(int i) {
systemId = i;
}

public void setSystems(ArrayList list) {
systems = list;
}

}

My Bean is:
public class System implements java.io.Serializable {
private int systemId;
private String systemName;
/**
* @return
*/
public int getSystemId() {
return systemId;
}

/**
* @return
*/
public String getSystemName() {
return systemName;
}

/**
* @param i
*/
public void setSystemId(int i) {
systemId = i;
}

/**
* @param string
*/
public void setSystemName(String string) {
systemName = string;
}

}

My Action Class is:
public class SearchBySystemAction extends Action {

public ActionForward execute(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form,
HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws Exception {

String forward = "error";

ArrayList systemList = new ArrayList();
SearchBySystemForm systemForm;
systemForm = new SearchBySystemForm();

System system = new System();
system.setSystemId(1);
system.setSystemName("MARS");
systemList.add(system);

system = new System();
system.setSystemId(2);
system.setSystemName("JUPITER");
systemList.add(system);

systemForm.setSystems(systemList);

request.getSession().setAttribute("SYSTEMFORM",systemForm);
forward = "showSystemList";

return (mapping.findForward(forward));

}

My jsp is:
<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/struts-html.tld" prefix="html" %>

<html>
<title>System List</title>
</head>
<body>
<html:errors/>
<html:form action="/searchBySystem">
<table>
<tr>
<td>System:</td>
<td>
<html:select name="SYSTEMFORM" property="systemId">
<html ptionsCollection property="systemList" value="systemId" label="systemName"/>
</html:select>
</td>
<td><html:submit>Ok</html:submit></td>
<td><html:cancel>Cancel</html:cancel></td>
</tr>

</table>
</html:form>
</body>
</html>

[Merrill Higginson]

Change property="systemList" to property="systems"
[ May 22, 2006: Message edited by: Merrill Higginson ]

[Fidel Edwards]

I know it is bad thing to write on old posts.. But I really could not stop to give big Thanks to Merrill for such a useful post... which will always remain helpful..!