Combo box error

Question

I have the following code:
try
Class.forName("sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver");
String sourceURL = "jdbc:odbc:my_Library";
Connection databaseConnection = DriverManager.getConnection(sourceURL);
Statement statement = databaseConnection.createStatement();
     ResultSet authorNames = statement.executeQuery("SELECT distinct Topic FROM tblAvailable_Items order by Topic");
     out.println("<select name = \"Topic" + "\">");
     out.println("<option value = \"" + "\"></option>");
               while(authorNames.next())
                    out.println("<option value=\""+authorNames.getString("Topic")+"\">"+authorNames.getString("Topic"));
     out.println("</select>");
     authorNames.close();
     databaseConnection.close();
catch(ClassNotFoundException cnfe)
out.println(cnfe);
catch(SQLException sqle)
out.println(sqle);
For some reason this prints out a combo box with no entries in it, whereas if I remove the value parts it works fine. I need the value bits though, any ideas?

Answer 1

The getString("") is a static method on ResultSet, that means, you can only call once per each record. Any further calls to getString() on the same column will return a null.
So, the solution is, store the value in a variable and reuse it.
while(authorNames.next())
String topic = authorNames.getString("Topic");
out.println("<option value=\""+ topic +"\">"+topic);
-Srinath