SelectOneMenu & f:selectItems ordering

Question

I have some strange action occuring when I assign a hashmap to the f:selectItems in my selectOneMenu. I can get the menu to work correctly for the option selected by the user, though the map isn't output in the order I would like.
My backing bean has simple code like
Map  map = new HashMap();
map.put("a", "a");
map.put("b", "b");
map.put("c", "c");
transferObject.setMap(map);Now I would expect the JSP code below to output the options in the order a,b,c but this isn't the case, it outputs them in a mixed up order.
JSP code
<h:selectOneMenu id="num_id" value="#{TransferObject.area}"       immediate="true" onchange="submit()"
valueChangeListener="#{ActionBean.changeFunctionalArea}">
         <f:selectItems id="select_option" value="#{TransferObject.map}"/>
</h:selectOneMenu>Any help on why the order isn't the same as the order the elements are added is much appreciated.
Thanks
Michael.

Answer 1

JavaDoc states:
Value binding expression pointing at a List or array of SelectItem instances containing the information for these options.
Map should not be used.
See this recent thread:
http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=726161&tstart=30
Hope this helps,
CowKing