How to retain checkbox value during pagination in struts

[Matheus Goncalves]

Hi there, I'm stuck for 2 days trying to load a checkbox value, from the Action Form.

I need to delete all the selected items from an ArrayList<Person>, so I iterate this list, and put a checkbox before each item.
But when I click the button to delete the selected items, the Action Form reads the ArrayList, but the checkbox field is still empty. I'm clueless and I appreciate any help.

Here is the code:

The Checkbox:

 <td class="subrow_vcenter" align="center"> 
                            <html:checkbox name="person" property="deletecheck" indexed="true" value="true" />                            
                        </td> 

The full code:

<%@ include file="/WEB-INF/jsp/common/taglibs.jsp" %>
<%@page import="com.smlink.busobj.*"%>

<logic:empty name="validateUserListForm" property="personlist">
        whoops, no list of person object in validateUserListForm
</logic:empty>
   
<html:form action="ValidateUserList" name="validateUserListForm" type="com.smlink.struts.ValidateUserListForm">
    <div>
        <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
            <tr><td><span class="breadcrumb"><html:link forward="home"><bean:message key="home"/></html:link> › </span></td></tr>
        </table>
        <p><span class="pagetitle"><bean:message key="user.val.pagetitle"/></span><br>
        <html:errors />
    </div>
    <logic:notEqual name="Person" property="isUserAdmin" value="true">
        <bean:message key="user.val.notauthorized"/>
    </logic:notEqual>
    <logic:equal name="Person" property="isUserAdmin" value="true">
        <logic:notPresent name="users">
            <bean:message key="user.val.err.nouser"/>
        </logic:notPresent>
        <logic:present name="users">
            <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1" class="boxrule">
                <tr>
                    <th class="subrow2">Delete?</th> 
                    <th class="subrow2"><bean:message key="user.val.action"/></th>
                    <th class="subrow2"><bean:message key="user.val.days"/></th>
                    <th class="subrow2"><bean:message key="user.val.name"/></th>
                    <th class="subrow2"><bean:message key="user.val.type"/></th>
                    <th class="subrow2"><bean:message key="user.val.email"/></th>
                    <th class="subrow2"><bean:message key="user.val.phone"/></th>
                </tr>
                <logic:iterate id="person" name="validateUserListForm" property="personlist"> 
                    <tr>
                        <td class="subrow_vcenter" align="center"> 
                            <html:checkbox name="person" property="deletecheck" indexed="true" value="true" />                            
                        </td> 
                        <td class="subrow_vcenter"><span class="gosublink">
                                <a href="<bean:write name='ContextPath'/>/ValidateUser.do?&userid=<bean:write name='person' property='userid'/>">
                             <bean:message key="user.val.process"/> </a></span>
                        </td>
                        <td class="subrow" align="right"><bean:write name="person" property="daysInserted" formatKey="format.double1"/></td>
                        <td class="subrow"><bean:write name="person" property="firstName" /> 
                        <bean:write name="person" property="lastName" /> </td>
                        <td class="subrow"><bean:write name="person" property="personType" /> </td>
                        <td class="subrow"><bean:write name="person" property="email" /><br>
                        <bean:write name="person" property="insertDate" /> </td>
                        <td class="subrow"><bean:write name="person" property="phone" /> </td>
                    </tr>
                </logic:iterate>
            </table>
            <br>
            <html:submit property="delete" styleClass="gosubmit"><bean:message key="user.val.delete"/></html:submit>
        </logic:present>
    </logic:equal>
</html:form>

That's the verification I'm trying to do:

                for(Iterator i = personlist.iterator(); i.hasNext() ;)   
               {  
                    Person newPerson = (Person) i.next();   
                    checkState = newPerson.getDeletecheck();
                    if(checkState)
                    {
                      procedureReturn = DataAccessManager.deletePerson(newPerson.getPersonid().toString(),sessionPerson.getPersonid().toString()) ;
                      if(procedureReturn == 0) deletedcounter++;
                      else errorscounter++;
                      
                    }
                    
               }  

Here is the ValidateUserListAction :

import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.net.URI;
import javax.servlet.ServletContext;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpSession;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import javax.mail.MessagingException;
import org.apache.commons.validator.GenericValidator;
import org.apache.struts.action.Action;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForward;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMapping;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionError;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionErrors;

import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMessage;

/** Builds a list of unvalidated users.
 * @author
 */
public class ValidateUserListAction extends Action {

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

        HttpSession session = request.getSession(false);
        Person sessionPerson = (Person)session.getAttribute("Person");
        String    delete          = null;
        String target = new String("success");
        ValidateUserListForm validateUserListForm = (ValidateUserListForm)form; 
        ServletContext context = servlet.getServletContext();
        ActionErrors errors = new ActionErrors();
        ArrayList users = new ArrayList();
        ArrayList<Person> personlist = null;
        
        if ( form == null ) Logger.sysOut("-->ValidateUserListAction: Form is null!");
        if ( form != null ) {
           delete           = validateUserListForm.getDelete();
           personlist        = validateUserListForm.getPersonlist();
           
        }      
        
        if ( delete != null ) { // delete button has been pressed
                delete=null;
                Integer deletedcounter = 0;
                Integer errorscounter = 0;
                Integer procedureReturn = -1;
                boolean checkState;
                Integer itemIndex = 0;
               //ArrayList ctxuserlist = (ArrayList)context.getAttribute("personlist");
                for(Iterator i = personlist.iterator(); i.hasNext() ;)   
               {  
                    Person newPerson = (Person) i.next();   
                    checkState = newPerson.getDeletecheck();
                    if(checkState) //for some reason, it is always = false, even when it's checked.
                    {
                      procedureReturn = DataAccessManager.deletePerson(newPerson.getPersonid().toString(),sessionPerson.getPersonid().toString()) ;
                      if(procedureReturn == 0) deletedcounter++;
                      else errorscounter++;
                      
                    }
                    
               }  
                if (deletedcounter > 0)//ZERO = USER DELETED
                   errors.add(ActionErrors.GLOBAL_ERROR,new ActionError("user.val.info.multipledeleted", deletedcounter.toString()));
                if(errorscounter > 0)  
                   errors.add(ActionErrors.GLOBAL_ERROR, new ActionError("user.val.err.multipledelete", errorscounter.toString()));
                if(deletedcounter == 0 && errorscounter == 0 )
                   errors.add(ActionErrors.GLOBAL_ERROR,new ActionError("user.val.info.noselected.deleted"));
                    
                 users = DataAccessManager.getUnvalidatedUsers();
                 request.setAttribute("users", users);
                 //ctxuserlist = users;
                 personlist = users;
                 context.setAttribute("personlist",personlist);
                 validateUserListForm.setPersonlist(personlist);
        }
        else
        {
            users = DataAccessManager.getUnvalidatedUsers();
            if (personlist == null || personlist.isEmpty())
                personlist = users;
             
            request.setAttribute("users", users);
            
            context.setAttribute("personlist",personlist);
            validateUserListForm.setPersonlist(personlist);
        }
        
        
        return (mapping.findForward(target));
    }
}

The class Person is huge, but it has:

private boolean      deletecheck         = false; //used when there is checkboxes for each person
...
public final boolean      getDeletecheck()         { return deletecheck; }
...
public final void setDeletecheck        (boolean deletecheck)         { this.deletecheck        = deletecheck; }

Here is the ValidateUserListForm :

import java.lang.reflect.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpSession;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.servlet.ServletContext;
import com.xxx.busobj.Person;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionForm;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionMapping;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionError;
import org.apache.struts.action.ActionErrors;

import com.xxx.util.*;

public class ValidateUserListForm extends ActionForm {

private String  proceed = null;
private String  personID = "";
private String  delete   = null;
private ArrayList<Person> personlist        = new ArrayList();

    public String getProceed             () { return (proceed); }
    public String getPersoid             () { return (personID); } 
    public String getDelete              () { return (delete); } 
    public ArrayList getPersonlist       () { return personlist; }
    
     
    public void setPersonlist(ArrayList personlist) {  this.personlist = personlist; }  
    public void setProceed(String proceed)          {  this.proceed = proceed; }
    public void setDelete(String delete)            {  this.delete = delete; } 
    	
    public void reset(ActionMapping mapping, HttpServletRequest request) {
        
        
    }

    
}

And that's the code for struts-config.xml

 <form-bean name="validateUserListForm"           type="com.xxx.struts.ValidateUserListForm"/>

<forward name="validateuserlist"         path="/ValidateUserList.do"            />

<action path="/ValidateUserList"   
            type="com.xxx.struts.ValidateUserListAction"
            name="validateUserListForm" validate="false"
            input="/WEB-INF/jsp/validateUserList.jsp"
            parameter="ctltyp=acl;ctllst=terman;ctlreq=login" >
            <forward name="success" path="/WEB-INF/jsp/validateUserList.jsp"/>
            <forward name="failure" path="/WEB-INF/jsp/home.jsp"/>
        </action>

What I am missing?
Thanks!

[Pablo Abbate]

It has been a lot of time since I worked with the UI. But I remember a few things ...

If you wan't to hold the state of the checkboxes, when you paginate, you need to submit the values. (form)
Another way to do it, is an ajax method while you select an individual checkbox
If you unselect a check, the value doesn't go to the server, so I remember I needed to add a hidden tag with value=false.

Hope it helps.