How can I sort a dynamically generated table

Question

I am dynamically populating the columns in a table every time my page is loaded. (see code below)
This is all working fine, and I am also able to use the built in pagination.
However, I run into problems as soon as I click on a column header to try sort the table.
I assume that because the columns are not defined in the JSP (because they are added dynamically), the sort criteria is referring to non-existant columns once the page reloads.
I get an exception as follows
Exception Details:  org.apache.jasper.JasperException
  #{currentRow.value['categories.category_id']}Can anyone suggest a solution so that I can sort the data for my dynamically generated table?
Cheers,
Ian
//NOTE: I call populateTable(tableRowGroup1,dynamicRowSetDataProvider) in my prerender code.
//tableRowGroup1 is defined as an empty (ie no children) row group in the JSP
private void populateTable(TableRowGroup rowGroup, DataProvider dp) {
    rowGroup.setSourceVar("currentRow");
    try {
        FieldKey[] columnNames = dp.getFieldKeys();    
        for(int i=0; i < columnNames.length; i++) {
            String columnName = columnNames.getFieldId();
info(i+": columnName");
rowGroup.getChildren().add(
createStaticTextColumn(columnName, "#{currentRow.value['"+columnName+"']}")
} catch (Exception ex) {
log("Error Description", ex);
info("Error Description : " + ex);
return;
private TableColumn createStaticTextColumn(String heading, String dataField) {
TableColumn tableColumn = new TableColumn();
tableColumn.setHeaderText(heading);
tableColumn.setSort(dataField);
TextField staticText = new TextField();
ValueBinding vb = getApplication().createValueBinding(dataField);
staticText.setValueBinding("text", vb);
tableColumn.getChildren().add(staticText);
return tableColumn;

Answer 1

I'm also having this problem, and I'm sure many more are too. It seems that no one has a solution, but perhaps that makes it even more value able for a sun dev to figure it out. It's surprising that it's so difficult to make dynamically generated tables with JSC.