Eliminate Scriptlets in form radio

Question

I have a web form working great for the past year using Scriptlets and Bean in Tomcat 6.0.20.
Now I would like to eliminate the Scriptlets and use EL instead.
Please advise how I can get the below radio input to work with EL in my JSP. All my attempts are not working.
Bean that worked with the Scriptlet:
public String getCityRadio(String myField)
      String myRadio = "";
      if(getCity() != null)
           if(getCity().equals(myField))
                 myRadio = "checked";
      return myRadio;
}JSP works with Bean and Scriptlets:<jsp:useBean id="cityBean" class="beanPackage.CityBean" scope="request"  />
Boston <input type="radio" name="city" value="Boston" <%= cityBean.getCityRadio("Boston") %>>
<br>
Buffalo <input type="radio" name="city" value="Buffalo" <%= cityBean.getCityRadio("Buffalo") %>>
<br>
Portland <input type="radio" name="city" value="Portland" <%= cityBean.getCityRadio("Portland") %>>My attempt to use EL instead of Scriptlet does not work with any of the below attempts. None of my EL attempts show any checked value or the check shows up only at the last radio button only.
//tried this:
Buffalo <input type="radio" name="city" value="Buffalo" ${cityBean.cityRadio["Buffalo"]}>>
Portland <input type="radio" name="city" value="Portland" ${cityBean.cityRadio["Portland"]}>>
//tried this:
Portland <input type="radio" name="city" value="Portland" ${cityBean.cityRadio[city]}>>
//tried this:
Portland <input type="radio" name="city" value="Portland" ${cityRadio[cityBean.city]}>>
//tried this:
Portland <input type="radio" name="city" value="Portland" ${getCityRadio[cityBean.city]}>>

Answer 1

You have in fact discovered one of the cases where there is no direct mapping between java code and EL : Calling a method that takes parameters.
There is no way to do this in EL. You can't directly call methods that don't follow the getter/setter pattern.
There are a few possible ways around this
1: Put the condiitional logic onto the JSP page:
Boston <input type="radio" name="city" value="Boston" <c:if test="${cityBean.city=='Boston'"}checked</c:if>>
<br>
Buffalo <input type="radio" name="city" value="Buffalo" <c:if test="${cityBean.city=='Buffalo'"}checked</c:if>>
<br>
Portland <input type="radio" name="city" value="Portland" <c:if test="${cityBean.city=='Portland'"}checked</c:if>>Hey, its view logic in any case. Why not?
This is in fact a prime case for a custom tag.
Particularly since you are referencing each value 3 times in each line of code here.
A better approach would be to have
- a list of values {Boston, Buffalo, Portland} - in an attribute called "cityList"
- The currently selected value (eg Buffalo) (currently in cityBean.city)
and then loop over your entire list, checking it against the currently selected value.
<jsp:useBean id="cityBean" class="beanPackage.CityBean" scope="request"  />
<c:forEach var="city" items="${cityList}">
   ${city}<input type="radio" name="city" value="${city}" <c:if test="${cityBean.city==city"}checked</c:if>>
</c:forEach>cheers,
evnafets