JSTL Sets and Lists - checking if item exists in a Set
I have a Java Set in my session and a variable also in the session. I need to be able to tell if that variable exists in the set.
I want to use the contains ( Object ) method that Java has for Lists and Sets to test whether that object exists in the set.
Is that possible to do in JSTL? If so, how? :)
Thanks, Alex
Answer
You could do this using JSTL tags, but the result is not optimal:
<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"%>
<html>
<body>
<jsp:useBean id="numbers" class="java.util.HashSet" scope="request">
<%
numbers.add("one");
numbers.add("two");
numbers.add("three");
%>
</jsp:useBean>
<c:forEach items="${numbers}" var="value">
<c:if test="${value == 'two'}">
<c:set var="found" value="true" scope="request" />
</c:if>
</c:forEach>
${found}
</body>
</html>
A better way would be to use a custom function:
package my.package;
public class Util {
public static boolean contains(Collection<?> coll, Object o) {
if (coll == null) return false;
return coll.contains(o);
}
}
This is defined in a TLD file ROOT/WEB-INF/tag/custom.tld:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<taglib xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-jsptaglibrary_2_1.xsd"
version="2.1">
<tlib-version>1.0</tlib-version>
<short-name>myfn</short-name>
<uri>http://samplefn</uri>
<function>
<name>contains</name>
<function-class>my.package.Util</function-class>
<function-signature>boolean contains(java.util.Collection,
java.lang.Object)</function-signature>
</function>
</taglib>
The function can then be imported into your JSPs:
<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"%>
<%@ taglib prefix="myfn" uri="http://samplefn"%>
<html>
<body>
<jsp:useBean id="numbers" class="java.util.HashSet" scope="request">
<%
numbers.add("one");
numbers.add("two");
numbers.add("three");
%>
</jsp:useBean>
${myfn:contains(numbers, 'one')}
${myfn:contains(numbers, 'zero')}
</body>
</html>
The next version of EL (due in JEE6) should allow the more direct form:
${numbers.contains('two')}