Foreach loop in a jsp page - Ending and Continuing a List

I just wanted to know how can I end a list of items in a particular column and continue the remaining items in a separate column. For instance: In the first column, there are rows having the value of "item1", "item2", "item3" and in the second column as a continuation, there are values "item4", "item5", "item6".

Actually, I want to have 4 columns having 5 items for each continuously. How can I apply this on the code below using a foreach loop in a jsp page?

<table>
    <c:forEach items="${itemList}" var="item"> 
        <tr>
            <td><input type ="submit" class="Items btnColor" 
                       value="${item.itemName}" label ="${item.itemId}" />
            </td>
        </tr>
    </c:forEach>
</table>

Please help, thank you very much!

Solution

You can use varStatus variable to determine the index of your loop and using an if condition skip that iteration like:

Suppose your table has 5 columns and you have to skip 3rd column then

<c:set value="2" var="firstIndex" />    // this is the columnIndex which is not required
<c:set value="5" var="splitColumn" />   // thi is the total length of arraylist
    <table>
        <c:forEach items="${itemList}" var="item" varStatus="itemLoop">
           <c:if test="${not (itemLoop.count eq firstIndex)}"> // this condition will skip the third column elements indexes from your arraylist.
             <c:set value="${firstVal+5}" var="firstIndex" /> // this is increment in you arraylist index for all values ocurring at 3rd column
             <c:if test="${(itemLoop.count eq splitColumn)}"> // this condition will create a row element after every 5 elements read from array list.
               <tr>
             </c:if>
                <td><input type ="submit" class="Items btnColor" 
                           value="${item.itemName}" label ="${item.itemId}" />
                </td>
              <c:if test="${(itemLoop.count eq splitColumn)}"> // increment for the no of rows to split after very 5 elements
                <c:set value=${splitColumn+5} var="splitColumn" />
                </tr>
              <c:if/>
          </c:if>
        </c:forEach>
    </table>