Pass array data from javascript in browser to spring mvc controller using ajax

Question

I would like to pass an array from javascript in web browser to a Spring MVC controller using AJAX

In javascript, I have

var a = [];
a[0] = 1;
a[1] =         


        

Answer 1

You can do this from the JavaScript side:

$.ajax({
    type : "POST",
    url : "/myurl",
    data : {
        myArray: a //notice that "myArray" matches the value for @RequestParam
                   //on the Java side
    },
    success : function(response) {
       // do something ... 
    },
    error : function(e) {
       alert('Error: ' + e);
    }
}); 

Then on the Java side (in Spring 3), assuming that this method is mapped by /myurl:

public String controllerMethod(@RequestParam(value="myArray[]") Integer[] myArray){
    ....
}

I believe the following will also work:

public String controllerMethod(@RequestParam(value="myArray[]") List myArray){
    ....
}

Spring is smart enough to figure out how to do the binding.

For multiple arrays, you might want to just have a command object:

public class MyData {
    private List firstArray;
    private List secondArray;
    private List thirdArray;

    ...
    ...
}

Then on the JavaScript side:

$.ajax({
    type : "POST",
    url : "/myurl",
    data : {            
        myData: {
           "firstArray": firstArray,
           "secondArray": secondArray,
           "thirdArray": thirdArray
        }            
    },
    success : function(response) {
       // do something ... 
    },
    error : function(e) {
       alert('Error: ' + e);
    }
}); 

On the Java side, you can bind using @ModelAttribute:

public String controllerMethod(@ModelAttribute(value="myData") MyData myData) throws ParseException {
    ....
}

EDIT

Changed the @RequestParam annotation to use myArray[] instead of just myArray, since this change appears to have been made in Spring after this answer was first posted.