Creating Array using JSTL or EL

Question

I\'m working on a web application using Java and its frameworks(Spring 3.1.1). And I\'m trying to avoid using scriptlets as much as possible, however I can\'t find a way oth

Answer 1

If you're already on EL 3.0 (Tomcat 8+, WildFly 8+, GlassFish 4+, Payara 4+, TomEE 7+, etc), which supports new operations on collection objects, you can use ${[...]} syntax to construct a list, and ${{...}} syntax to construct a set.

If you're not on EL 3.0 yet, use the ${fn:split()} function trick on a single string which separates the individual characters by a common separator, such as comma.

I do however agree that you're better off using normal Java code for this. Given that it's apparently static data, just create this listener class:

@WebListener
public class ApplicationData implements ServletContextListener {

    private static final String[] ALPHABET = { "A", "B", "C", ..., "Z" };

    @Override
    public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
        event.getServletContext().setAttribute("alphabet", ALPHABET);
    }

    @Override
    public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
        // NOOP.
    }

}

It'll transparently auto-register itself on webapp's startup and put the desired data in application scope.