Question

I want to create simple html select tags with some populated values(for now what I type, later from database). Here is my controller :

@Controller
public class HomeController {

    @RequestMapping("/test")

    public String home(){
        return "index";
    }

    @ModelAttribute("items")
    public ArrayList<String> getList(){
        ArrayList<String> itemList = new ArrayList<String>();
        itemList.add("one");
        itemList.add("two");
        itemList.add("three");
        return itemList;
    }

}

In my index part here is HTML code that is relevant :

<div class="form-row">
   <label for="items">Items:</label>
   <span class="input"><form:select path="items" items="${items}" itemLabel="name" /></span>
</div>

This produces(this is rendered into html) :

<div class="form-row">

   <label for="items">Items:</label>

   <span class="input"><form:select path="items" items="[one, two, three]" itemLabel="name" /></span>

</div>

And I had something else in mind like this(what I expected to produce) :

<div class="form-row">

       <label for="items">Items:</label>

       <span class="input"><select name="name">
       <option>one</option>
       <option>two</option>
       <option>three</option>
       </select></span>

    </div>

I could alter my getList() method by adding <option> before and </option> before each item in arrayList, I’m sure there is a pretier way to do this that is why I’m asking here, please bare in mind that I’m only starting to learn spring MVC. thank you

QUESTION UPDATE :

When I edit this according to skaffman suggestion, added this :

<%@ taglib uri="http://www.springframework.org/tags/form" prefix="form" %>

after

<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/fmt" prefix="fmt" %>

and it caused this exception :

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: An exception occurred processing JSP page /WEB-INF/views/index.jsp at line 39

36:     Date of birth: <input type="text" size="10" />
37:     <div class="form-row">
38:    <label for="items">Items:</label>
39:    <span class="input"><form:select path="items" items="${items}" itemLabel="name" /></span>
40: </div>
41:   </fieldset>
42:  


Stacktrace:
    org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.handleJspException(JspServletWrapper.java:498)
    org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:411)
    org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:322)
    org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:249)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceView.renderMergedOutputModel(InternalResourceView.java:238)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractView.render(AbstractView.java:250)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.render(DispatcherServlet.java:1063)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:801)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:719)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:644)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:549)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:617)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)
    org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.NormalRewrittenUrl.doRewrite(NormalRewrittenUrl.java:195)
    org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.RuleChain.handleRewrite(RuleChain.java:159)
    org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.RuleChain.doRules(RuleChain.java:141)
    org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.UrlRewriter.processRequest(UrlRewriter.java:90)
    org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.UrlRewriteFilter.doFilter(UrlRewriteFilter.java:417)
    org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter.doFilterInternal(CharacterEncodingFilter.java:88)
    org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:76)
    org.jboss.web.tomcat.filters.ReplyHeaderFilter.doFilter(ReplyHeaderFilter.java:96)
root cause

org.springframework.beans.NotReadablePropertyException: Invalid property 'name' of bean class [java.lang.String]: Bean property 'name' is not readable or has an invalid getter method: Does the return type of the getter match the parameter type of the setter?
    org.springframework.beans.BeanWrapperImpl.getPropertyValue(BeanWrapperImpl.java:702)
    org.springframework.beans.BeanWrapperImpl.getPropertyValue(BeanWrapperImpl.java:694)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.OptionWriter.doRenderFromCollection(OptionWriter.java:210)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.OptionWriter.renderFromCollection(OptionWriter.java:180)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.OptionWriter.writeOptions(OptionWriter.java:133)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.SelectTag.writeTagContent(SelectTag.java:216)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.form.AbstractFormTag.doStartTagInternal(AbstractFormTag.java:102)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.tags.RequestContextAwareTag.doStartTag(RequestContextAwareTag.java:79)
    org.apache.jsp.WEB_002dINF.views.index_jsp._jspx_meth_form_005fselect_005f0(index_jsp.java:206)
    org.apache.jsp.WEB_002dINF.views.index_jsp._jspService(index_jsp.java:109)
    org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:70)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)
    org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:369)
    org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:322)
    org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:249)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceView.renderMergedOutputModel(InternalResourceView.java:238)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractView.render(AbstractView.java:250)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.render(DispatcherServlet.java:1063)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:801)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:719)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:644)
    org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:549)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:617)
    javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)
    org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.NormalRewrittenUrl.doRewrite(NormalRewrittenUrl.java:195)
    org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.RuleChain.handleRewrite(RuleChain.java:159)
    org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.RuleChain.doRules(RuleChain.java:141)
    org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.UrlRewriter.processRequest(UrlRewriter.java:90)
    org.tuckey.web.filters.urlrewrite.UrlRewriteFilter.doFilter(UrlRewriteFilter.java:417)
    org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter.doFilterInternal(CharacterEncodingFilter.java:88)
    org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:76)
    org.jboss.web.tomcat.filters.ReplyHeaderFilter.doFilter(ReplyHeaderFilter.java:96)

Answer 1

This is your error:

Invalid property ‘name’ of bean class [java.lang.String]: Bean property ‘name’ is not readable or has an invalid getter method: Does the return type of the getter match the parameter type of the setter?

You’re getting this because you’ve told the tag to use the name property of each item in the list, when generating the <option> labels. But your list consists of Strings, which have no name property.

Just remove that from the tag, and you’ll be fine, i.e.:

<form:select path="items" items="${items}" />