CODEWITHSUNDEEP
springspring-mvcfreemarker
user2759013
user2759013

Reputation: 501

Freemarker Checkboxes input in Spring form

I have an HTML form bound to a Spring model to take in user data and add it to a database. This works fine. I have used Spring Freemarker macros for the fields to take input and validate before sending, e.g.

<@spring.formInput path="myForm.username"/>
<@spring.showErrors ", "/>

This also works fine for text input. What is causing me problems is rendering multiple checkboxes with the Spring macro. My original HTML was:

<input name="roleList" type="checkbox" value="1"/>Adminstrator
<input name="roleList" type="checkbox" value="2"/>Developer
<input name="roleList" type="checkbox" value="3"/>Customer

I created a Java Map<String, String> of this information with the keys as "1", "2", "3" in my controller method and added it to the model, then replaced the HTML with this macro in my ftl template:

<@spring.formCheckboxes path="quickForm.roleList" options="${roleMap}" separator="<br>"/>

But I get an error

Expecting a string, date or number here, Expression roleMap is instead a freemarker.template.SimpleHash

Why would it give that message if it requires a Map? (as in the Spring Docs for FreeMarker macros) Can anyone explain how I should be providing the checkbox data?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 7168

Answers (1)

user2759013
user2759013

Reputation: 501

Finally worked this out, so for anyone who's interested: it wasn't as straightforward as just creating a HashMap of values and adding them with model.addAttribute("roleMap", myHash) - I had to create a service class to do this instead: it retrieved my list of roles from a database table and then converted them into a HashMap<String, String>. I then called this in my controller method, added it to my model (called "roleMap" here) and used it within my FreeMarker template without the usual formatting, like this:

<@spring.formCheckboxes path="quickForm.roleList" options=roleMap separator="<br>"/>

Having the data converted in a service method was key for Spring to use it as checkbox options.

Upvotes: 3

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