what is the best way to hold and retreive lists of data in a jsp

i think u can have hashMap with document title (assuming its always unique) as key and category~document path as value. Use "~" to seperate the category and document path,

something like this,

 "go blue" ,  "Blue~\main\blue\docs"
 "how to" ,  "Blue~\main\blue\docs"
"find me" ,  "Blue~\main\blue\docs\team"

"go Red" ,  "Red~\main\Red\docs"
 "where to" ,  "Red~\main\Red\docs\team3"
"how its done" ,  "Red~\main\Red\docs\team"

"go Green" ,  "Green~\main\Green\docs"
"Why Me" ,  "Green~\main\Green\docs\team2"
 "goin far" ,  "Green~\main\Greendocs\team"


once u have the above format in a map iterate for the keys and for each key get the value of category  and document path by spliting using the "~" symbol.

-Murali*

Murali thank you for responding.
Let me clarify my request,  I  want to be able  to run a method like getCategory("Blue") and have that method return all the blue titles and coresponding paths.

few more questions for my clarification,

1. category,titles,path are hardcoded values?
2. In what u have stored these values at present?

1. yes they would all be hard coded values.
2. I do not have the values stored yet, I was going to store them as arrays but I could figure out a way to return the data based on category.

have a single map to hold all the values, and use the below method to get a map of titles and path.

<%
        Map map = new HashMap();

        map .put( "Blue~go blue" ,  "\main\blue\docs");
        map .put( "Blue~how to" ,  "\main\blue\docs");
        map .put("Blue~find me" ,  "\main\blue\docs\team");

        map .put( "Red~go Red" ,  "\main\Red\docs");
        map.put "Red~where to" ,  "\main\Red\docs\team3");
        map.put("Red~how its done" ,  "\main\Red\docs\team");

       map .put( "Green~go Green" ,  "\main\Green\docs");
       map.put("Green~Why Me" ,  "\main\Green\docs\team2");
       map.put( "Green~goin far" ,  "\main\Greendocs\team");
%>


<%!
         public Map getCategory(String color){
 
        Map resultMap= new HashMap();

          Iterator it = map .entrySet().iterator();
         while (it.hasNext()) {
              Map.Entry pairs = (Map.Entry)it.next();
              String[] key = pairs.getKey().split("~");
              if(key != null && key.length>1 && key[0].equals(color)){
                      resultMap.put(key[1],pairs.getValue());
              }                            
       }

        return resultMap;
        }
%>

thank you Murali,
I will try to implement this.

Hello I tried to implement this but I could not find a way to iterate through the hashmap in a way that would out put both title and path

you mean you couldn't iterate the resultMap as per my code above?
can u post wht u tried?

ok  please disregard my last post.  I was having difficulty retrieving key value. For a test I am going to try the following code now. I will let you know if it works

<%
HashMap objHashMap =getCategory("Blue");
for (Iterator it = objHashMap.keySet().iterator(); it.hasNext();) {
            String name = (String) it.next();
%>
            <td><%=name%></td>
           
<%
          for(String path : (String)objHashMap.get(name)) {
         
%>
                <td><%=path%></td>
<%
            }
           
        }
%>

I don't think you need a method or a map. Please try the following code.

<%
  String[][] blue = {{"go blue","/main/blue/docs"},
                          {"how to","/main/blue/docs"},
                          {"find me","/main/blue/docs/team"}};
  String[][] red = {{"go Red","/main/Red/docs"},
                         {"where to","/main/Red/docs/team3"},
                         {"how its done","/main/Red/docs/team"}};
  String[][] green = {{"go Green","/main/Green/docs"},
                           {"Why Me","/main/Green/docs/team2"},
                           {"goin far","/main/Green/docs/team"}};
 
for(int i = 0; i < blue.length; i++){
        out.print("<a href='" + blue[i][1] + "'>" + blue[i][0] + "</a><br/>");
}
%>

Select allOpen in new window

ok so with that code how would I display the correct string array if the parameter coming in is "red"
String Type = getParameter(request, "type");

to clarify, I have to change which array is displayed based on type parameter that is passed in the jsp.  what I am looking for is a way to do this with out a bunch of if statements

sorry I  accepted the wrong answer, will  contact an admin to fix

I think you should split the points.

thanks for all your help