Using spring controller to provide list to html and make a drop down menu

Question

I've created a controller to pass a list of pojo objects to the html. This seems to be working as when I refer to the list the IDE finds it. However, when I refer to a field within an element of the list it cannot find it and, instead of returning the value, it returns a literal text.

@GetMapping (value = "/searchforgames.html")
public String getsearchforgames(Model model) throws IOException {
    List<Game> games = gamesService.getGames();
    model.addAttribute("games", games);
    return "searchforgames";
}

html within the searchforgames html

    <div class="formformat">
        <br><br>
        <form>
            <label for="name">Name:</label><br>
            <select id="name" name="name">
                <th:block th:each="game : ${games}">
                    <option value=${game.firstName}>${game.firstName}</option>
                </th:block>
            </select><br><br>
            <label for="date">Date from:</label><br>
            <input type="text" id="date" name="date"><br><br>
            <label for="allresults">All entries</label><br>
            <input type="checkbox" id="allresults" name="allresults"><br><br>
            <input type="submit">
        </form>
    </div>

The Game class is a simple pojo with firstName, lastName, slName, sfName and date, zero argument constructor, constructor with all variables and getter/setters for each variable.

If anyone can point the error I'm doing I would be very grateful.

Answer 1

Use th:text to display the value for each of the options. Update value to th:value as well.

<option th:value="${game.firstName}" th:text="${game.firstName}"></option>

Using ${...} does no do much on its own, you will have to use something like th: to have thymeleaf to process the code it is referring to.