Unable to get ModelAttribute member variable in JSP

Question

I have the following class.

class Bar {

   public Bar(String fooVal) {
      this.foo = fooVal;
   }

   private String foo; 

   public String getFoo() {
       return this.foo;
   }

   @Override
   public String toString() {
       return this.foo;
   }

}

The following controller

class Controller {
    @RequestMapping(value = "/foo", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public ModelAndView() {
        return new ModelAndView("barJSP", "barModel", new Bar("testFooVal"));
    }
}

And now I am trying to access in jsp the value of foo.

I have the following two variants of JSP in the barJSP trying to print the foo Vals.

<% System.out.println(pageContext.findAttribute("barModel.foo")); %>

This prints null. However

<% System.out.println(pageContext.findAttribute("barModel")); %>

This prints testFooVal as expected (it actually prints the thing that toString() returns).

My understanding of jsp syntax is that . is used to access members and should work as long as getters are defined for it. Am I missing something?

Answer 1

You can use JSP EL for easily accessing objects:

 ${barModel.foo}

Otherwise, you have to import model class and cast for converting:

<%@ page import="com.example.model.Bar"%>
<% Bar b = (Bar)(pageContext.findAttribute("barModel"));
   out.println(b.getFoo());
%>