Pagination & sorting in jsp’s with the displaytag taglib & spring
I hate writing pagination code. Infact I hate it so much, I try not to paginate my lists at all. ( I know, i know, very bad on my part) 
. Writing pagination code totally destroys the code reuse in an application, developers generally just copy paste the very same pagination code all over the place over and over again. Not to mention decorating such pagination displays is a pain in the ass as well. So while searching for a more concrete solution to my problem I stumbled upon displaytag.
Display tag is by far the most comprehensive pagination solution that I have ever come across. Not only is the library extremely stable, it’s rich of features and customizations. I haven’t yet run across a scenario where display tag didn’t fulfill my needs. And you don’t need to do anything extra to get it working in your webapp. I’m going to develop a small example which will show a list of 20 user’s.
Because of my love for spring, i’ll use a Spring controller to pass data onto my jsp. You don’t really NEED to use spring with displaytag per se since displaytag can pick up the list to display from anywhere, session, context, page and you can set this list anywhere as well.
My controller first :
package com.codercorp.displaytag;
//imports
@Controller
@RequestMapping("/displaytag.html")
public class DisplaytagController {
private static List<User> userList;
static {
userList = new ArrayList<User>(20);
userList.add(new User(1, "Gaurav Arora", "gaurav@myemail.com", "+91-98119-09880"));
userList.add(new User(2, "Bernard Shaw", "bernard@myemail.com", "+91-92119-09880"));
userList.add(new User(3, "Aurora Aurealis", "aurora@myemail.com", "+91-93119-09880"));
userList.add(new User(4, "James Lock", "james@myemail.com", "+91-98114-09880"));
userList.add(new User(5, "Karl love", "karl@myemail.com", "+91-98169-09880"));
userList.add(new User(6, "George jungle", "george@myemail.com", "+91-98819-09880"));
userList.add(new User(7, "Switch blade", "switch@myemail.com", "+91-98118-09880"));
userList.add(new User(8, "Gold flake", "gold@myemail.com", "+91-98119-09380"));
userList.add(new User(9, "Susan Anthony", "susan@myemail.com", "+91-98113-09880"));
userList.add(new User(10, "Arm Guard", "armg@myemail.com", "+91-98119-02880"));
userList.add(new User(11, "Raju Gentleman", "raju@myemail.com", "+91-98319-09880"));
userList.add(new User(12, "Rajat Ghandhi", "rajat@myemail.com", "+91-98519-09880"));
userList.add(new User(13, "Niketa Shyam", "niketa@myemail.com", "+91-98719-09880"));
userList.add(new User(14, "G. Mahesh", "mahesh@myemail.com", "+91-98118-09880"));
userList.add(new User(15, "Yogvinder Singh", "yogi@myemail.com", "+91-99119-09880"));
userList.add(new User(16, "Eklavya", "eklavya@myemail.com", "+91-98119-00880"));
userList.add(new User(17, "Asus shyam", "asus@myemail.com", "+91-98119-09680"));
userList.add(new User(18, "Jack donneley", "jack@myemail.com", "+91-98119-01880"));
userList.add(new User(19, "Donald McDonald", "donald@myemail.com", "+91-98119-03880"));
userList.add(new User(20, "Azure Aloha", "azure@myemail.com", "+91-98119-09890"));
}
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
public String showPage(HttpServletRequest request, HttpSession session) {
Map paramMap = WebUtils.getParametersStartingWith(request, "d-");
if (paramMap.size() == 0) {
WebUtils.setSessionAttribute(request, "userList", userList);
}
return "displaytag";
}
}
The static part populates the userList with dummy User objects. Line #36 is used to decide if the list should be set in the session or not. displaytag sends it’s pagination and sorting data using parameters that start with “d-”. If any such params exist in our request we ignore setting the list in the session because it is already set. However, on a new request, when no params are set, the list is put into the session again which is ideal for us.
Now the display:
<%@ taglib prefix="c" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"%> <%@ taglib prefix="display" uri="http://displaytag.sf.net"%> <body> <head> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/screen.css" type="text/css" /> </head> <display:table uid="user" name="sessionScope.userList" defaultsort="1" defaultorder="ascending" pagesize="10"> <display:column property="id" sortable="true" title="Employee ID" maxLength="25" /> <display:column property="name" sortable="true" title="Real Name" maxLength="25" /> <display:column property="emailAddress" sortable="true" title="Email Address" maxLength="25" /> <display:column property="phone" sortable="true" title="Phone" maxLength="25" /> <display:setProperty name="basic.empty.showtable" value="true" /> <display:setProperty name="paging.banner.group_size" value="10" /> <display:setProperty name="paging.banner.item_name" value="user" /> <display:setProperty name="paging.banner.item_names" value="users" /> <display:setProperty name="paging.banner.onepage" value="<span class="pagelinks"> </span>" /> </display:table> </body>
Running your webapp and navigating to displaytag.html should now display your table like this :
Try sorting your list based on the name of the person. You will notice that only the entries that are on the page in view and sorted, not the entire list. This is not ideal since the entire list should be sorted. A lot of people run into this problem of only one page sorting with displaytag. To make this work you need to add a file with the name displaytag.properties to your classpath. displaytag will automagically pick up settings specified in this file. My displaytag.properties looks something like this :
sort.amount = list basic.empty.showtable = true paging.banner.placement = top
The sort.amount tells displaytag to sort the entire list and not just the current page when sorting lists. The basic.empty.showtable settings tells display tag to show a table even if it contains no data. paging.banner.placement tells displaytag to always place the pagination banner on top of the table display.
Remember, it doesn’t matter where your list of users comes from, displaytag picks it up from the session and shows it. You don’t need spring or anything else for displaytag to work. I used spring because I just find it really easy to make examples using it.
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This article was helpful to me doing pagination and sorting in display tag.Thanks
Hi All,
Please some one can mail me this code. I need to submit my work and need pagination ASAP. Please help me in sending this full code sample.
My job depends on this work
Please send me mail to this :prasanth_2955@hotmail.com
Thanks alot and thanks to display tags
very informative article written, so easy to implement.
Please send me code of how to display list using spring on ummujust_4u@yahoo.co.in
Just to inform that you forgot to include property “requestURI” with empty string.
To be like this
Rgds
<display:table uid=”user” name=”sessionScope.userList” defaultsort=”1″
# defaultorder=”ascending” pagesize=”10″ requestURI=”" >
Unbelievable how well-written and ifrnomaitve this was.
<!–
–>
Hey hi aries it seem you managed to run that example….can you email me the source code please i need it as soon as possible and its very very important for me…….thanks in advacne for that.
Please send this code to me aswell
Hi, When i use the Display Tag with spring.
The Sort is not working exactly for Interger, Strings columns.
The Sorting is happening on the Basis of STRING.(Means The interger sort is not perfect.)
The Fload Values are are also not getting sorted properly.
Can you please help in this issue.
Thanks In advance.
Your quick response is highly appreciated.
Prawyn.
Aries,
It looks you have some kind of Working code with you.
Could you please, e mail me the Snippet.
prn.141@gmail.com
regards,
Prawyn.
hi thanks.
iam searching for how to dispaly table when no data is found,
finally i got it
thanks
please send me the code
How to display the sorting images in a table like up arrow and down arrow images
we are facing a problem with Display Tag that is if we sort any column sequence no column also automatically sorting even i put sortable=”false” also. we are generating the sequence number by looping a local variable with the list size. How can we freez the row number from sorting?
Hi,
I am using the display tag library to display records in a table. My records are being shown in Multiple pages, when I click on the Next link or any page link, it is again going to database to fetch results, but I dont want to make a database call everytime user clicks on the Next Page.
My code is –
list
Also, I am setting the list in Session object using below code in my Action class -
Object oResult = SummaryDataManager.getInstance().getSummaryReport(
“MDHANOTI”, priceList, searchType, prodName);
final ArrayList arrReportData = (ArrayList) (((SummaryResult) oResult).getmObject());
final String headerID = ((SummaryResult) oResult).getmHeaderId();
session.removeAttribute(“arrReportData”);
session.setAttribute(“arrReportData”, arrReportData);
request.setAttribute(“headerId”, headerID);
Can someone please help me how can I achieve this.
Thanks,
Manish
did you get solution for this problem?
I am sorry, somehow the table tag got messed up. Here is the Tag ….
I would appreciate your response on this.
~ Manish
“”"”‘ “”"”"”
this example is good .plz mail me full example.
i need urgent.
I am getting familiar with displaytag but now i am facing problem as displaytag contains no attibutes of events(displaytag doesn’t support javascript)
I want to perform deletion on data in display tag when i click that row , how?
I want to use color to a single column based on retrieved value by display tag. can anyone help on this.
You can use java script by accessing the value from the generated table and apply css on particular table’s cell based on your business logic.
How we can add hyperlinks to the table, so that while clicking on the any row, the selected row properties can be fetched from the table?
Please provide suggestions on this…
You have to add the HTML link in the decorator class.
Ex: public class XXXDecorator extends TableDecorator{
private String studentId;
public String getStudentId(){
StuData stuData = (StuData)getCurrentRowObject();
return "stuData.getStuNo()";
}
}
please guys,..tell me ,.how can i write this to tag
<html:hidden value="” property=”hide”/>
You need to first include Stuts tag library in your JSP page, then only you can use this tag
hi … somebody help me with the code please… i’m using spring 3
my email is maxesp123@yahoo.com
best regards.
hi … somebody help me with the code about pagination in displaytag please… i’m using spring 3
my email is maxesp123@yahoo.com
best regards.
whether example shown here is maintained in session or each time database call happens?
Please I appreciate if someone can send me the source code of this pagination example.
my email : majidnakit@yahoo.com
Thanks lot.
Kamal
hi,
is it possible to define dynamically pagesize, for e.g pagesize=20 but when user click on checkbox show all records, to modify pagesize value?
Hi,
My display table showing data on ajax call. If I used your code , when i click on next for pagination it is refreshing whole page. what should I do. I m using Spring MVC pattern.
Can u please help me?
@Akshata, try filtering out displaytag pagination url which startswith “-d”, see here for more details 10 displaytag examples
If we have less than a page display tag shows like
8 items found, displaying all items.1
but 1 at the end looks Odd. I got requirement to remove that 1.
If any body wants to remove that 1 use the below tag and give pagelinks in single coats.
U may get error by below statement :
<display:setProperty name="paging.banner.onepage" value=" ” />
Correct way:
<display:setProperty name="paging.banner.onepage" value=" ” />
Hi ,
We r facing an issue in our project the display tag while pagination is appended with some extra values due to which the pagination is not working properly . can u pls let me know how link on the pagination is formed
Can I have below .css file to get the actual screen and images?
Could u mail me the source code of this plz?????????