Accessing a Map with Struts

[Adam Kreiss]

Can you access individual Map elements in struts JSP tags?

I have a map of employees that need to be displayed on a page. The problem is that these employees cannot be displayed in any order. I have a set order they must be displayed (based on their jobs).

So is there any way (sort of converting the Map to a Collection) that I could access individual elements via the key within the JSP? (Java in the JSP is undesirable as well)

Thanks!

[Ray Stojonic]

Have your employee class implement Comparator to sort on the job field and use a TreeMap, then you can just iterate through the map.

[Merrill Higginson]

First of all, you might consider using a different implementation of the java.util.Map interface. A java.util.LinkedHashMap will retrieve entries in the order they were added just like an ArrayList does. If you want a map that is always in key order, use java.util.TreeMap.

In answer to your question: Yes, you can access maps by keys using Struts tags. example:

HashMap myMap is a property of myForm:

"one", 1
"two", 2
"three", 3

<bean:write name="myForm" property='myMap("one")' />

This expression evaluates to 1.
[ September 01, 2006: Message edited by: Merrill Higginson ]

[Adam Kreiss]

Thanks for the input. And believe me, I would love to go the Comparator or Linked paths but due to the way the data is coming in, I can't guarantee I'll be putting it in the Map in the correct order nor can I order them manually.

Thanks for the sample, thats what I'll be doing.