JSTL eq condition

[Aman Singh]

Hello,

I have a dropdown which is being populated from an arraylist using JSTL.
There is an onchange event on this dropdown, which submits the form to the
server and returns the results.
Everything works fine, except for:
* When the page refreshs after onchange even triggers form submission, There
drop down value isnt restored. It basically defaults to the top one.

For example, if the dropdown has three options: AAA, BBB, CCC
and I pick BBB (which will submit the form with value BBB), Now on the refreshed page
I should see BBB as the dropdown value, where as its showing me AAA.

Below line of code will work fine, if I have the value hardcoded.

    

 <option value="<c:out value='AAA'/>" ><c:if test="${transaction eq 'AAA'}"> selected='selected'</c:if>  ><c:out value='AAA'/></option>
   

How do I achieve the same when dropdown is populated with a for loop.

   
  <c:forEach var="application" items="${applications}">
     <option value="<c:out value='${application}'/>" ><c:if test="${transaction eq '${application}'}"> selected='selected'</c:if>  ><c:out value='${application}'/></option>
  </c:forEach>
 

this condition is causing the trouble for me

   
 <c:if test="${transaction eq '${application}'}">
 

[Bear Bibeault]

Your syntax is whacked. You don't nest an EL expression inside another.

[Aman Singh]

whats the fix to make this work Bear?

[Bear Bibeault]

Fix your syntax. You never need to nest ${} inside another ${}.

It's not a "fetch operator" -- it encloses the entire EL expression.

[Aman Singh]

I am sorry bear, I am confused here. if I take out ${application} from

<c:if test="${transaction eq '${application}'}">

then how would I do the comparison?

[Bear Bibeault]

${transaction eq application}

What was all that extra punctuation about?

[Aman Singh]

I apologize for the trouble. I am still a newbie

Thanks for the syntax, it isnt throwing any erros, but problem still persists

[Paul Clapham]

So you think that A should equal B, but in your code, A doesn't equal B? Then the next step would be to look at A and B and see for yourself why they are different.

[Aman Singh]

Hi Paul,

Thats not the problem. Lets say, if I picked CCC from the dropdown, so this will trigger the form to submit, which in turn returns some data back on the page. After this refresh, I want the same CCC value to be highlighted in the dropdown.

[Bear Bibeault]

That's his point.

If selected appears, the option will be selected. Did you check the HTML being sent to the browser? Is the attribute in the right place? If not, why not?

Start learning to debug.

[Aman Singh]

I apologize Paul. I didnt get, what you meant earlier.

Bear, I am trying to debug. I just checked the HTML, it is being passed perfectly.

One thing I didnt mention before.

There is one option which is hardcorded in the HTML.

<option value="YYYY" ><c:if test="${transaction eq 'YYY'}"> selected='selected'</c:if> >YYY</option>

and this is the one its always defaulting too.

[Bear Bibeault]

If you have more than one selected option on a dropdown, the HTML is invalid.

There can be only one.

[Aman Singh]

Thanks Bear.

HTML is flawed then. None of the option is showing selected.

Now the question, why? I have the exact same condition on another page and it works fine, only difference, dropdown in hardcoded there and in this case if generated from a loop.

[Bear Bibeault]

If the HTML is invalid, you cannot predict the outcome.

I'd fix the other location too or it's likely to stop working at the least opportune time.