JSTL (JSP Standard Tag Libraries) make it easier to iterate arrays, list or a set. The c:forEach tag is a core tag in JSTL library and also one of most useful tag. I can be used to create HTML tables, generating XML and many more. Following examples elaborate more how <c:forEach> tag could be used to generate an HTML table and generating an XML.
Example:
student is an object of Student class(see below). A group of students can be represented in a Array or List.
List <Student> students = new ArrayList <Student> (10);
Student s1 = new Student();
students.add(s1);
Student s2 = new Student();
students.add(s2);
...
...
<html>
<head>
<title>c:forEach example </title>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<c:forEach var="student" items="${students}">
<tr>
<td>${student.id}</td>
<td>${student.name}</td>
<td>${student.major}</td>
</tr>
</c:forEach>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Example2:
List lists = new ArrayList();
List <String> list1 = new ArrayList <String> ();
list1.add("A");
list1.add("B");
list1.add("C");
lists.add(list1);
List <String> list2 = new ArrayList <String> ();
list2.add("AA");
list2.add("BB");
list2.add("CC");
lists.add(list2);
...
...
<html>
<head>
<title>c:forEach example </title>
</head>
<body>
<table>
<c:forEach var="list" items="${lists}">
<tr>
<td>${list[0]}</td>
<td>${list[1]}</td>
<td>${list[2]}</td>
</tr>
</c:forEach>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Example 3:
Generating XML from students object:
<%@taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c"%>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rows>
<c:forEach var="student" items="${students}">
<row>
<cell><![CDATA[${student.id}]]> </cell>
<cell><![CDATA[${student.name}]]> </cell>
<cell><![CDATA[${student.major}]]> </cell>
</tr>
</c:forEach>
</rows>
Class Student{
private int id;
private String name;
private String major;
public Student(){
id=0;
name="";
major="";
}
public void setId(int id){
this.id = id;
}
public void setName(String name{
this.name = name;
}
public void setMajor(String major){
this.major = major;
}
public int getId(){
return this.id;
}
public String getName(){
return this.name;
}
public String getMajor(){
return this.major;
}
}
