c:forEach not iterating over object fields

[kri shan]

employee list has List of Employee. Inner forEach loop is not printing the employee first name, employee last name and city in each iteration.

     <c:forEach var="employee" items="${employeeList}">
        <tr>
           <c:forEach var="result" items="${employee}">
          [b]   <td><c:out value="${result}"/></td>[/b]
           </c:forEach>
        </tr>
      </c:forEach>

public class Employee {
     
        private String firstName;
        private String lastName;
        private String city;
     
        public String getFirstName() {
            return firstName;
        }
         
        public String setFirstName(String firstName) {
                this.firstName = firstName;
        } 
     
        public String getLastName() {
            return lastName;
        }
         
        public String setLastName(String lastName) {
                this.lastName = lastName;
        }        
         
        public String getCity() {
            return lastName;
        }
         
        public String setCity(String city) {
                this.city = city;
        } 
     
    }

[Tim Moores]

You're assuming that c:forEach can iterate over JavaBean-style object attributes - not so. Read http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-jstl0318/ to learn what it actually can iterate over.

[kri shan]

Can i access the bean property within forEach ?

    <c:forEach var="employee" items="${employeeList}">
        <tr>
           <c:forEach var="result" items="${employee.children}">
             <td><c:out value="${result.property}"/></td>
           </c:forEach>
        </tr>
      </c:forEach>

[Tim Moores]

What happened when you tried?

[kri shan]

No start tag for  </c:forEach> line 7

[kri shan]

Tried this way too and it prints the employee object (not printing first name, last name and city values ).

     <c:forEach var="object" items="${employeeList}">
        <tr>
          <c:forEach var="field" items="${object['class'].declaredFields}">
            <td><c:out value="${object[field.name]}"/></td>
           </c:forEach>
        </tr>
      </c:forEach>

[Stefan Evans]

There isn't really a nice way to dynamically get all the properties of a bean.  The main issue is getting them in "order".  
How does it know you want first name, then last name?  Or last name then first name?  And should one be bolded but not the other?


Two suggestions:
#1: Specify the properties you want displayed specifically and format them appropriately is often the easiest:

<c:forEach var="employee" items="${employeeList}">
        <tr>
               <td><c:out value="${employee.firstName}"/></td>
               <td><c:out value="${employee.lastName}"/></td>
               <td><c:out value="${employee.city}"/></td>
        </tr>
      </c:forEach>

#2:
Got this answer from reading http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14454769/creating-array-using-jstl-or-el

<c:forEach var="employee" items="${employeeList}">
  <c:set var="properties">firstName,lastName,city</c:set>
  <c:forTokens items="${properties}" delims="," var="prop">
      <td>${employee[prop]}</td>
  </c:forTokens>
</c:forEach>

#3:
Make a custom tag for printing out your object.