Dropdown box - from Spring MVC model / context to form using freemarker

Question

This should be very basic but I can\'t find anything about it in the web, just bits and pieces that I don\'t seem able to fit together..

We\'re using Spring MVC with

Answer 1

According to the docs for formSingleSelect:

@param options a map (value=label) of all the available options

I think your best bet is to provide a map with the values as keys and labels as map values. Otherwise freemarker will probably try to do that wrapping for you and you have less control.

I have just validated: if you supply your own map everything is just fine.

<spring.formSingleSelect "target.property" referenceToYourMapProvidedInController ""/>

Answer 2

After much rephrasing and rethinking I finally discovered the solution:

First

I need to have a bean hold my choice obviously

Second

The options need to be initialized as a String list and provided by Spring MVC to the page:

public ModelAndView get() {

    // ...
    ModelAndView mav = new ModelAndView();
    List<String> options = Arrays.asList(getOptionsFromDatabaseAndConvertToStringList());
    mav.addObject("options",options );
    mav.setViewName("someview");

    return mav;
}

Third

options now need to be bound in the freemarker template and can then be accessed like any other freemarker variable (i.e. NO quotation marks):

<@spring.bind "options" />

<form action="whatever" method="POST">
    <@spring.formSingleSelect "targetBean.choice", options, " " />
    <input type="submit" value="submit"/>
</form>