Please make sure you have read the Tag Syntax document and understand how tag attribute syntax works.

Description

Iterator will iterate over a value. An iterable value can be either of: java.util.Collection, java.util.Iterator,

Parameters

Name

Required

Default

Type

Description
status false false Boolean if specified, an instanceof IteratorStatus will be pushed into stack upon each iteration
value false   Object/String the iteratable source to iterate over, else an the object itself will be put into a newly created List
id false   Object/String id for referencing element. For UI and form tags it will be used as HTML id attribute

Examples

The following example retrieves the value of the getDays() method of the current object on the value stack and uses it to iterate over. The <ww:property/> tag prints out the current value of the iterator.

<ww:iterator value="days">
  <p>day is: <ww:property/></p>
</ww:iterator>

The following example uses a Bean tag and places it into the ActionContext. The iterator tag will retrieve that object from the ActionContext and then calls its getDays() method as above. The status attribute is also used to create a IteratorStatus object, which in this example, its odd() method is used to alternate row colours:

<ww:bean name="com.opensymphony.webwork.example.IteratorExample" id="it">
  <ww:param name="day" value="'foo'"/>
  <ww:param name="day" value="'bar'"/>
</ww:bean>
<p/>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1">
<tr>
  <th>Days of the week</th>
</tr>
<p/>
<ww:iterator value="#it.days" status="rowstatus">
  <tr>
    <ww:if test="#rowstatus.odd == true">
      <td style="background: grey"><ww:property/></td>
    </ww:if>
    <ww:else>
      <td><ww:property/></td>
    </ww:else>
  </tr>
</ww:iterator>
</table>

The next example will further demonstrate the use of the status attribute, using a DAO obtained from the action class through OGNL, iterating over groups and their users (in a security context). The last() method indicates if the current object is the last available in the iteration, and if not, we need to seperate the users using a comma: 

<webwork:iterator value="groupDao.groups" status="groupStatus">
		<tr class="<webwork:if test="#groupStatus.odd == true ">odd</webwork:if><webwork:else>even</webwork:else>">
			<td><webwork:property value="name" /></td>
			<td><webwork:property value="description" /></td>
			<td>
				<webwork:iterator value="users" status="userStatus">
					<webwork:property value="fullName" /><webwork:if test="!#userStatus.last">,</webwork:if>
				</webwork:iterator>
			</td>
		</tr>
	</webwork:iterator>

The next example iterates over a an action collection and passes every iterator value to another action. The trick here lies in the use of the '[0]' operator. It takes the current iterator value and passes it on to the edit action. Using the '[0]' operator has the same effect as using >ww:property />. (The latter, however, does not work from inside the param tag). 

<ww:action name="entries" id="entries"/>
		<ww:iterator value="#entries.entries" >
			<ww:property value="name" />
			<ww:property />
			<ww:push value="...">
				<ww:action name="edit" id="edit" >
					<ww:param name="entry" value="[0]" />
				</ww:action>
			</push>
		</ww:iterator>

To simulate a simple loop with iterator tag, the following could be done. It does the loop 5 times.

<ww:iterator status="stat" value="{1,2,3,4,5}" >
   <!-- grab the index (start with 0 ... ) -->
   <ww:property value="#stat.index" />
   
   <!-- grab the top of the stack which should be the -->
   <!-- current iteration value (0, 1, ... 5) -->
   <ww:property value="top" />
</ww:iterator>