Re: JSTL- el - nested beans from a map used in a form?

[Jason Lea]

Hi Rick,

Rick Reumann wrote:
On Sat, 2003-06-28 at 19:00, Jason Lea wrote:
 

Here are some ideas, I haven't tested them so they could be horribly 
wrong :)

The html-el:text tag are just like the html:text tag, but I can evaluate 
EL expressions.

What you want to generate is something like this:

someCode:  <input type="text" name="fooMap['aCode'].someCode" 
value="aCode"><br>

because when this is submitted Struts will do something like:
formBean.getFooMap().get("aCode").setSomeCode("a new value")


Thanks Jason. I'll have to try some of this. The problem with the above
though is what do i substitute in for "aCode" that represents "key". The
keys can be different obviously as the iterations take place.  


So then looking at the html:text tag documentation we see for 'property':

"Name of this input field, and the name of the corresponding bean 
property if value is not specified. The corresponding bean property (if 
any) must be of type String."

This means the value of 'property' will be the name of the text input 
field - this is the bit we want to become name="fooMap['aCode'].someCode".

The other importent part is the 'indexed' property:

"Valid only inside of logic:iterate tag.  


Actually this seemed to also work within the JSTL foreach loop.


If true then name of the html 
tag will be rendered as "id[34].propertyName". Number in brackets will 
be generated for every iteration and taken from ancestor logic:iterate tag."

You are using JSTL and have not created a logic:iterate tag so the index 
isn't going to be generated for you.  You could switch to using 
logic:iterate and I think the tags figure out what to call themselves eg

<html:form action="....">
    <logic:iterate id="beanInMap" name="fooMap">
        someCode:     <html-el:text name="beanInMap" 
property="deptCode" indexed="true"/><br>
    </logic:iterate>
</html:form>


I tried the above but it complained that it couldn't find my map (fooMap
in the above example).
Are you using the html:form tag?  All of these tags should be inside one 
so they know what formBean to use.



or use the <nested:*> tags, which would be something like:

<nested:form action="....">
    <nested:iterate name="fooMap">
        someCode:     <nested:text property="deptCode" /><br>
    </nested:iterate>
</html-el:form>
If you want to use JSTL, you probably have to generate the property name 
yourself:

<html:form action="....">
    <c:forEach var="beanInMap" items="${formBean.fooMap}">
        someCode:     <html-el:text 
property="fooMap['${beanInMap.someCode}'].someCode" /><br>
        someDescrip:  <html-el:text 
property="fooMap['${beanInMap.someDescrip}'].someDescrip" /><br>
        <br>
    </c:forEach>
</html:form>


With the above I end up with the error:

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: An error occurred while evaluating
custom action attribute "property" with value
"departments['${beanInMap.deptCode}'].deptCode": Unable to find a value
for "deptCode" in object of class "java.util.HashMap$Entry" using
operator "." (null)
Ahh, yes.  That now triggers something I read a while ago.  When JSTL 
gets something out of a map it will be of the type java.util.Map.Entry 
so perhaps try

<c:forEach var="beanInMap" items="${employeeForm.departments}">
      Code:  <html-el:text 
property="departments['${beanInMap.key}'].deptCode" />
<br>
      Name:  <html-el:text 
property="departments['${beanInMap.key}'].deptName" />
<br>
<br>
</c:forEach>

You will have to use the <html-el:text> to evaluate the ${beanInMap.key} 
 (at least I hope it tries to evaluate it that way).  If you use 
<html:text> then it will just treat it as text, essentially looking up 
the departments map with '${beanInMap.key}' instead of the actual key.


the syntax looks like:

<c:forEach var="beanInMap" items="${employeeForm.departments}">
      Code:     
<html:text  property="departments['${beanInMap.deptCode}'].deptCode" />
<br>
      Name:  
<html:text  property="departments['${beanInMap.deptName}'].deptName" />
<br>
<br>
</c:forEach> 

I've tried all kinds of other combos also and still stumped.

Thanks for the help so far.


Rick Reumann wrote:

Ok this has me stumped...

the down and dirty:

formBean has HashMap called fooMap

fooMap has keys that bring back beans of type BarBean

BarBean has properties someCode , someDescrip 

Now I want to iterate over this map and create the properties based on
the properties in BarBean and be able to update this form which will
then update the underlying BarBeans in the map.
(Ignore the part that I know that's a hassle about the reset method and
making sure Map exist there).
<c:forEach var="beanInMap" items="${formBean.fooMap}">

   someCode:     <html-el:text property="????????"/><br>
   someDescrip:  <html-el:text property="????????"/><br>
   <br>
 
</c:forEach>

the text will display fine in the form with:

someCode: <html-el:text name=beanInMap" property="beanInMap.deptCode" />

but when the form submits all the bean property values are null ( in the
reset if it matters for testing i'm just creating a few maps with empty
BarBeans in the map).
I'm stumped.. any help much appreciated.






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Jason Lea
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