Question

What is the best possible way to create a jsp table(key,value) from a properties file.

Right now I am doing this using scriptlets…..

    ResourceBundle statusCodes = ResourceBundle.getBundle("statuscode");    
Enumeration statusKeys = statusCodes.getKeys();


   <%
    while (statusKeys.hasMoreElements()) {
        String key = (String) statusKeys.nextElement();
        String value = statusCodes.getString(key);
%>
<tr>
    <td><%=key%></td>
    <td><%=value%></td>
</tr>

NOTE: Dont worry about syntax this is not complete code.

How can I do this using EL and jstl

Answer 1

You should be using java.util.Properties instead of java.util.ResourceBundle. The ResourceBundle serves an entirely different purpose and it should not be abused to have “an easy way” to load properties since it by default lookups resources from the classpath.

Let a servlet load and prepare it for JSP.

Properties properties = new Properties();
properties.load(Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("/filename.properties"));
request.setAttribute("properties", properties);
request.getRequestDispatcher("/WEB-INF/properties.jsp").forward(request, response);

Because Properties implements java.util.Map, you can just use JSTL <c:forEach> to iterate over it. Every iteration gives a Map.Entry back which in turn has getKey() and getValue() methods.

<table>
    <c:forEach items="${properties}" var="property">
        <tr>
            <td>${property.key}</td>
            <td>${property.value}</td>
        </tr>
    </c:forEach>
</table>

Finally invoke the servlet by its URL to get it to display.

Please note that ResourceBundle doesn’t implement java.util.Map!