JSpinner and finding which item was selected...

Question

With a JComboBox, I can load up my list with an array and use "getSelectedIndex()" to grab the index number of the item the user selects.
With a JSpinner (SpinnerListModel), I can load up my list with an array but there doesn't appear to be any way to retrieve an index number. Am I missing something? The best thing I can come up with is to use "getValue()" and search my array for that value and then I'd have the correct index. Seems the long way around to me.
I have other elements in the array I need to get to based on the users selection.
-Duane

Answer 1

If you're creating your own object class to use in the list of possible values, you could make the array index be an instance variable in this class. I just had to do something like this recently. As in:
class MySpinnerValue
  public int index;
  public String name;
  //  ... other useful stuff
  public String toString()
    return name;
// ... and somewhere we create the list, like ...
MySpinnerValue[] list=new MySpinnerValue[10];
for (int x=0;x<10;++x)
  MySpinnerValue v=new MySpinnerValue();
  v.index=x;
  list[x]=v;
}Then when you retrieve a value you just check index to see where it is in the array.
Clumsy, yes, because it relies on setting an index value equal to the array subscript, which is redundant data in a sense. (Ah, there were advantages to pointers in C, you could just say "pEntry-entry[0]" to get the index ...)