Attempt to render model into Springboot application with Thymeleaf and Parse

Question

I've been following this guide http://www.thymeleaf.org/doc/articles/springmvcaccessdata.html to learn how to render data models into a Springboot application with Thymeleaf. I have a function that retrieves a list of objects from my Parse-Server and renders them as model attributes:

@RequestMapping(value = "/requests", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public String findRequestsByCurrentUser(Model model) {

        ParseUser currentUser = ParseUser.getCurrentUser();
        log.info(String.valueOf(currentUser.getObjectId()));

        findRequestsByCurrentUser(model, currentUser);

        return "requests";
    }    

private void findRequestsByCurrentUser(Model model, ParseUser currentUser) {
            ParseQuery<ParseObject> requestsQuery = ParseQuery.getQuery("Request");
            requestsQuery.whereContains("author", currentUser.getObjectId());
            requestsQuery.findInBackground(new FindCallback<ParseObject>() {
                @Override
                public void done(List<ParseObject> requestList, ParseException e) {
                    if (e == null) {
                        model.addAttribute("requests", requestList);
                    }
                }
            });
        }

Here is a debug of the model that I send to my view:

For some reason I can render currentRole just fine. But I can't render any of the individual attributes from the requests part of the mode. Should I use request.data.requestStatus or request.requestStatus? Even ${request} alone won't render the whole object. I've tried a few different ways. None seem to work. Here is my HTML:

                <center>
                    <table class="table table-striped">
                        <tr>
                            <td><b>Requested By</b></td>
                            <td><b>Reason</b></td>
                            <td><b>Requested Date</b></td>
                            <td><b>Status</b></td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr th:each="request : ${requests}">
                            <div th:switch="${request.data.requestStatus}">
                                <div th:case="Approved">
                                    <td th:text="${request.author.objectId" class="initial-name">Employee Initials
                                    </td>
                                    <td th:text="${request.requestText}">Request Description</td>
                                    <td th:text="${request.dateRequested}">Request Date</td>
                                    <td th:switch="${request.requestStatus}">
                                    <span class="red" th:case="Pending"
                                          th:text="Pending">Status</span>
                                        <span class="green" th:case="Approved"
                                              th:text="Approved">Status</span>
                                        <span class="red" th:case="Rejected"
                                              th:text="Rejected">Status</span>
                                    </td>
                                </div>
                            </div>
                        </tr>
                    </table>
                </center>

In my HTML, I iterate over the request objects provided in requestList and then retrieve their attributes.

Is Thymeleaf sensitive in such a way that if I have one typo anywhere in my HTML none of the objects will render? What else could be going wrong? Do I need to cast my ParseObject to a Java Object? Do I need to pass an ArrayList as opposed to a List?

The problem seems to be in the rendering of the list itself. I removed all the attributes from the HTML and just provided static text for the list. It should have rendered 15 rows of static text but it simply doesn't render anything... I wonder what it could be.

Answer 1

I think you could access to your data without the need to create a pojo. You need to access it as a Hashmap

<td th:text="${request.data.get('requestText')}">Request Description</td>

Answer 2

This seems to be the answer. It allows me to render my ParseObjects into Thymeleaf. As mentioned above, I needed to query with .find() because otherwise the DOM is rendered before the objects do and so they do not appear:

@RequestMapping(value = "/requests", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public String findRequestsByCurrentUser(Model model) {

        ParseUsercurrentUser = ParseUser.getCurrentUser();
        log.info(String.valueOf(currentUser.getObjectId()));

        findRequestsByCurrentUser(model, currentUser);

        return "requests";
    }


    private void findRequestsByCurrentUser(Model model, ParseUsercurrentUser) {
        ParseQuery<ParseObject> requestsQuery = ParseQuery.getQuery(ParseConstantsUtil.CLASS_REQUEST);
        requestsQuery.whereContains(ParseConstantsUtil.REQUEST_AUTHOR, currentUser.getObjectId());
        try {
            List<ParseObject> requestsArrayList = requestsQuery.find();
            model.addAttribute("requests", requestsArrayList);
            log.info(String.valueOf(requestsArrayList));
            log.info(String.valueOf(requestsArrayList.size()));
        } catch (ParseException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

Warning: Unfortunately, since ParseObject on its own does not supply accessor methods for each of my custom fields, i.e. if for example, my ParseObject has a field called "requestText" (database column), I won't be able to render it in Thymeleaf using ${request.requestText}. Instead I have to make a local data model (POJO that extends ParseObject), create the accessor for it, i.e. request.getRequestText() returning the string requestText and then pass the POJO objects to my data model...

If I find a solution I will post in my next question: Cannot render Object with Thymeleaf: Property or field cannot be found on object of type 'org.parse4j.ParseObject' - maybe not public?