Iterating through a list from the session

[Luke Shannon]

I have the code below. The first line (toString) writes all the values that were placed in the array, line two (size) gives the correct size...but the loop writes out nothing. I am not sure what I am doing wrong here. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

<%=session.getAttribute("chapters").toString()%>
<%=((java.util.ArrayList)session.getAttribute("chapters")).size()%>
<c:forEach items="<%=(java.util.ArrayList)session.getAttribute("chapters")%>" var="name">
<c:out value="Iteration..."/>
<c:out value="${name}"/>
</c:forEach>

[Ben Souther]

Don't mix scriptlets with JSTL/EL.
They weren't meant to work together.
(and it's ugly to do so)


Use an EL expression for the items attribute.

<c:forEach items="${chapters}" var="name">
  <c:out value="Iteration..."/>
  <c:out value="${name}"/>
</c:forEach> 

[ April 09, 2008: Message edited by: Ben Souther ]

[Luke Shannon]

Thanks for the reply Ben, my issue is I am not sure how to get the session attribute with EL. Here is what I have now. Still not working like its intended too.

<c:set var="names" value="${sessionScope.chapters}"/> 
<c:forEach items="${names}" var="name">
<c:out value="Iteration..."/>
<c:out value="${name}"/>
</c:forEach>

[ April 09, 2008: Message edited by: Luke Shannon ]

[Ben Souther]

EL searches through all the scope objects to find the attribute.

You're c:set tag doesn't look right.
Read up on the 'scope' attribute in the c:set action.

What version of JSTL are you using?

[Ben Souther]

This is all you should need:

<c:forEach items="${chapters}" var="name">
  <c:out value="Iteration..."/>
  <c:out value="${name}"/>
</c:forEach> 
    

And if you're using JSP 2.0 (JSTL 1.1) you shouldn't need the c:out actions.

<c:forEach items="${chapters}" var="name">
  Iteration... ${name}
</c:forEach> 

[Luke Shannon]

The jar in the lib directory is jstl-1.1.2.jar.

[Luke Shannon]

This has got it Ben, thanks very much.

Another issue was this was being included in another page when the application runs (this is how I was testing), I thought there was a <%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"; prefix="c"%> in the page doing the including, but I just found out there wasn't. Once I added that to my page everything was great.