Form bean with int property and netui:select tag

Question

Hi,
I've recently started using WebLogic 8.1 for a client project. There's
been a bit of a learning curve, but I've been able to find most of my
answers in the docs or on the dev2dev site. This one, though, I've been
unable to manage.
I have a database table, call it foo. In it I have columns for id
(numeric) and name (string). I created a database control to read that
data:
select id, name
from foo
I then want to use this data to populate a select list in a form, which
is going to be used to submit new records for another table. For the data:
id     name
1     Foo
2     Bar
3     Bletch
I want to generate a select list (this is the output HTML, not the netui
tags):
<select name="foo">
<option value="1">Foo</option>
<option value="2">Bar</option>
<option value="3">Bletch</option>
</select>
My first question is what the best way to do this is. I was able to get
this working by creating a database control, which returns an array of a
custom Foo class. I then pass that array into a utility method which
converts it into a Map, and pass that map to the netui:select tag in the
optionDataSource attribute. This works, but it seems rather roundabout,
so I'm wondering if there's a better way to do it, without needing the
conversion utility method in the middle. I tried playing around with
the control, I tried using different netui tags (I thought I could do it
with a repeater and netui:selectOption tags, but that didn't work), and
nothing else worked.
The second problem arose when I was tying the result to a Form Bean. I
created a bean with all the data that I was reading from the form, and
at first, I just made everything in the form bean be a String. For this
select, though, the values are ids, so I thought I'd just make them be
ints in the form bean instead. However, when I did that, WL decided
that it wanted to add in a default option with a value of 0:
<select name="foo">
<option value="1">Foo</option>
<option value="2">Bar</option>
<option value="3">Bletch</option>
<option value="0" selected>0</option>
</select>
I've tried to find a way to get rid of that 0, and I can't. Is there a
way to prevent it from sticking in a default value like that? Or do I
have to just leave it as a String in the form bean to get it to work the
way I want?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Joe Robins                    Tel: [phone]
Thaumaturgix, Inc.               Fax: [phone]
19 W. 44th St., Suite 810          Email: [email protected]
New York, NY 10036               http://www.tgix.com
thau'ma-tur-gy, n. the working of miracles.

Answer 1

wrt your 2nd problem, in the jpf, for the form bean, are you declaring your id
like this:
private int id;
if so, try declaring it w/ a valid value, like:
private int id = 1;
-tanya
Joe Robins <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
I've recently started using WebLogic 8.1 for a client project. There's
been a bit of a learning curve, but I've been able to find most of my
answers in the docs or on the dev2dev site. This one, though, I've been
unable to manage.
I have a database table, call it foo. In it I have columns for id
(numeric) and name (string). I created a database control to read that
data:
select id, name
from foo
I then want to use this data to populate a select list in a form, which
is going to be used to submit new records for another table. For the
data:
id     name
1     Foo
2     Bar
3     Bletch
I want to generate a select list (this is the output HTML, not the netui
tags):
<select name="foo">
<option value="1">Foo</option>
<option value="2">Bar</option>
<option value="3">Bletch</option>
</select>
My first question is what the best way to do this is. I was able to
get
this working by creating a database control, which returns an array of
a
custom Foo class. I then pass that array into a utility method which
converts it into a Map, and pass that map to the netui:select tag in
the
optionDataSource attribute. This works, but it seems rather roundabout,
so I'm wondering if there's a better way to do it, without needing the
conversion utility method in the middle. I tried playing around with
the control, I tried using different netui tags (I thought I could do
it
with a repeater and netui:selectOption tags, but that didn't work), and
nothing else worked.
The second problem arose when I was tying the result to a Form Bean.
I
created a bean with all the data that I was reading from the form, and
at first, I just made everything in the form bean be a String. For this
select, though, the values are ids, so I thought I'd just make them be
ints in the form bean instead. However, when I did that, WL decided
that it wanted to add in a default option with a value of 0:
<select name="foo">
<option value="1">Foo</option>
<option value="2">Bar</option>
<option value="3">Bletch</option>
<option value="0" selected>0</option>
</select>
I've tried to find a way to get rid of that 0, and I can't. Is there
a
way to prevent it from sticking in a default value like that? Or do
I
have to just leave it as a String in the form bean to get it to work
the
way I want?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Joe Robins                    Tel: [phone]
Thaumaturgix, Inc.               Fax: [phone]
19 W. 44th St., Suite 810          Email: [email protected]
New York, NY 10036               http://www.tgix.com
thau'ma-tur-gy, n. the working of miracles.