<form:select> and Java enum

[duffymo]

Any guidance on the best way to use a Java enum as the items in a Spring <form:select> tag?

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[duffymo]

Just had a thought: using enums for select boxes means I need some custom data binders for my validator, don't I?

[Lachezar]

Any guidance on the best way to use a Java enum as the items in a Spring <form:select> tag?

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Our approach is creating custom tag library that extends the Option and Options tags.

Although we use Struts tag libraries I believe the approach would be valid for Spring Tags too.

It is however a good candidate for an extension to the framework itself.

P.S. For binding you must provide a custom java.beans.PropertyEditor implementation (extends PropertyEditorSupport and override setAsText() and getAsText()) and register it.
Check the o.s.w.bind.support.WebBindingInitializer and o.s.w.bind.support.ConfigurableWebBindingInitializ er.

[Marc TSG]

I registered a custom property editor with the controller managing the form. To populate the options, I had to write a method to return an array of String representations of the enum. It's an imperfect solution but probably easier than extending the tag.

[riwang]

Providing a converter (kind of like a PropertyEditor) is how I did it in Spring WebFlow. However, this uses the Enum name as the <option> value. I am yet to figure out how to support I18N in case the Enum name needs to be localized for different locale. Any good idea on I18N with Enum binding?

[tony_murphy]

Nicer handling of Java 5 enums by the Spring MVC form taglib

https://fisheye.springsource.org/cha...ptionsTag.java