Question

I want to pass some values from database to populate a page with various select menus (around 5).

I can do this using JSTL SQL tag but it’s not good practice.

How can I get this data from a single servlet?
Can I send multiple lists from one servlet?

The select menus are populated from different tables. I want to use RequestDispatcher to forward the lists to the jsp.

Answer 1

You can use separate ArrayList to store the various lists retrieved in the Servlet and then store each list as a request attribute as mentioned by @devsundar. You can retrieve these attributes in your JSP through the request implicit object.

And if you want to just send all the lists in a single request attribute then @KaipaMSarma’s suggestion is good to have a HashMap<String, ArrayList>, so your servlet code might look something like this:

List list1 = getListOneFromDatabase();
List list2 = getListTwoFromDatabase();
List list3 = getListThreeFromDatabase();
// and so on ...

Map<String, List> requestListMap = new HashMap<String, List>();
requestListMap.put("list1", list1);
requestListMap.put("list2", list2);
requestListMap.put("list3", list3);
// and so on ...

request.setAttribute("reqListMap", requestListMap);

Hope this helps.