Spring MVC: <form:select> option won't stay selected - spring-mvc

Question

I have a simple form for adding a new teacher. I'm using Spring <form:select> in my view to show a list of teacher's titles, but when I select an option without entering teacher's first and/or last name, since I'm doing validation of all three fields, when the page loads after submit, previously selected option gets lost and "Select title" text appears again.
This is controller:
#RequestMapping(value="/add", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String postAddTeacher(#RequestParam(value = "title") Integer titleId,
#Validated(Teacher.TeacherChecks.class) #ModelAttribute("teacherAttribute") Teacher teacher,
BindingResult result,
Model model) {
logger.debug("Received request to add new teacher");
if (result.hasErrors()) {
if (titleId != null) {
model.addAttribute("titleList", titleService.getAll());
Title title = titleService.get(titleId);
teacher.setTitle(title);
model.addAttribute("teacher", teacher);
return "addTeacher";
}
else {
model.addAttribute("titleList", titleService.getAll());
return "addTeacher";
}
}
else {
teacherService.add(titleId, teacher);
return "success/addTeacherSuccess";
}
}
This is view:
<c:url var="saveUrl" value="/essays/main/teacher/add" />
<form:form modelAttribute="teacherAttribute" method="POST" action="${saveUrl}">
<form:errors path="*" cssClass="errorblock" element="div" />
<form:label path="title"></form:label>
<form:select path="title" id="titleSelect">
<form:option value="" label="Select title" />
<form:options items="${titleList}" itemValue="titleId" itemLabel="titleDescription" />
</form:select>
<form:errors path="title" cssClass="error"/>
<form:label path="firstName">First name:</form:label>
<form:input path="firstName"/>
<form:errors path="firstName" cssClass="error"/>
<form:label path="lastName">Last name:</form:label>
<form:input path="lastName"/>
<form:errors path="lastName" cssClass="error"/>
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form:form>
Just in case this is Teacher bean:
#Id
#GeneratedValue(strategy = IDENTITY)
#Column(name = "TEACHER_ID", unique = true, nullable = false)
private Integer teacherId;
#NotNull(message = "Teacher's first name is null!", groups = TeacherChecks.class)
#NotBlank(message = "Please enter teacher's first name!", groups = TeacherChecks.class)
#Column(name = "FIRST_NAME", nullable = false, length = 50)
private String firstName;
#NotNull(message = "Teacher's last name is null!", groups = TeacherChecks.class)
#NotBlank(message = "Please enter teacher's last name!", groups = TeacherChecks.class)
#Column(name = "LAST_NAME", nullable = false, length = 50)
private String lastName;
#NotNull(message = "Please choose title!", groups = TeacherChecks.class)
#Valid
#ManyToOne(cascade = {CascadeType.PERSIST, CascadeType.MERGE}, fetch=FetchType.EAGER)
#JoinColumn(name = "TITLE_FK", nullable = false)
private Title title;
#ManyToMany(mappedBy = "teachers")
private Set<Activity> activities;
public Teacher() {
}
// getters & setters
I would like to keep my selected option after page reloads. I though it will happen automatically, like when I enter a value into a text field, it stays there even after the page reloads. Can someone please help me with this? Is there a way to do that from the controller, or it has to be done in the view, and how?
Update:
I added value="${teacherAttribute.title}" to <form:select>, as #willOEM suggested, but it still doesn't work. Now it looks like this:
<form:select path="title" id="titleSelect" value="${teacherAttribute.title}">
<form:option value="" label="Select title" />
<form:options items="${titleList}" itemValue="titleId" itemLabel="titleDescription" />
</form:select>

Answer 1

Your model includes an attribute title that refers to a Title class. This is not the same title you are referring to in your form, which is actually a titleId. Since the titleId is not part of the modelAttribute, it should be excluded from the <form:xxx> tags. You are going to need to use a plain-old <select> tag to pass the selected titleId back to the controller for processing. Unfortunately with a <select> tag, you can't just set the value attribute with JSTL, so you have to conditionally set the seelcted attribute of the option, based on the titleId value (if it is set). If titleList is a simple list of Title objects, you can create your <select> tag this way:
<select id="titleInput" name="titleId">
<option value=""></option>
<c:forEach items="${titleList}" var="title">
<c:when test="${title.titleId== titleId}">
<option value="${title.titleId}" selected>${title.titleName}</option>
</c:when>
<c:otherwise>
<option value="${title.titleId}" >${title.titleName}</option>
</c:otherwise>
</c:forEach>
</select>
In your controller, the #RequestParam annotation will pull the titleId out of the submitted data. Since it is not part of the modelAttribute, you need to make sure this gets added as a model attribute:
...
if (result.hasErrors()) {
if (titleId != null) {
model.addAttribute("titleId", titleId); // <--This line added
model.addAttribute("titleList", titleService.getAll());
Title title = titleService.get(titleId);
teacher.setTitle(title);
model.addAttribute("teacher", teacher);
return "addTeacher";
}
else {
model.addAttribute("titleList", titleService.getAll());
return "addTeacher";
}
}
...
Hopefully we got it this time.