How to use PrimeFaces SelectOneMenu ItemLabel & ItemValue with Lists?

Question

As far as im aware the correct way to display information in a SelectOneMenu is by having a list of objects and using it's properties like so:

<p:selectOneMenu id="player" value="">  
    <f:selectItem itemLabel="Select" itemValue="" />  
    <f:selectItems value="#{players}"
       var="player"
       itemLabel="#{player.name}"
       itemValue="#{player.id}"/> 
</p:selectOneMenu> 

but what if I dont have a list of players, what if I have something like this? I'd like to get it to work like this:

//PlayerManager
public List<String> getPlayerNames() {
    String[] names = new String[] {"player1", "player2"};
    return Arrays.asList(names);
}

public List<String> getPlayerIds() {
   String[] ids = new String[] {"1", "2"};
   return Arrays.asList(ids);
}

<p:selectOneMenu id="player" value="">  
    <f:selectItem itemLabel="Select" itemValue="" />  
    <f:selectItems value="#{playerManager.playerNames}"
       var="player"
       itemLabel="#{playerManager.playerNames}"
       itemValue="#{playerManager.playerIds}"/> 
</p:selectOneMenu> 

Solution

Use <c:forEach> to generate <f:selectItem> components. You can use its varStatus attribute to get the current iteration index, so that you can get an item of the other list by index.

<c:forEach items="#{playerManager.playerIds}" var="playerId" varStatus="loop">
    <f:selectItem itemValue="#{playerId}" itemLabel="#{playerManager.playerNames[loop.index]}" />
</c:forEach>

Note that when the #{playerManager} is view scoped, this construct would then recreate the bean on every postback. See also JSTL in JSF2 Facelets... makes sense?

Comments

[Jonathan]

Thanks! Is there a way to use this solution and allow the setting of a default value? <p:selectOneMenu id="player" value="2">

[BalusC]

Set it in the property behind the value attribute: value="#{playerManager.selectedPlayerId}". No, it can't be a static string, it must be writable. Otherwise, use JavaScript to set it via its widget variable during page load.