Spring MVC: how can I give the <form:textarea /> tag a default value?

Question

I have a problem with giving the <form:textarea /> tag a default value.
When I created a JSP file as follows:

<form:textarea path="Content" id="my-text-box" />${content}

JSP parser translates the above line to:

<textarea id="my-text-box" name="Content"></textarea>third hello world!

Also, giving the value attribute does not work.

<form:textarea value="${content}" path="Content" id="my-text-box" />

JSP gives me as HTML output:

<textarea id="my-text-box" name="Content" value="third hello world!"></textarea>

You can see the <textarea> tag does not have the value attribute.

How can I pass a default value to <form:textarea> tag?
Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

The Spring form tags are for data binding (e.g. your model attributes are bind to the form via path attribute of the form). If you need to specify defaults, then set the Content attribute of the ModelYouArePassingToView to the desired default value in the controller before it gets to the view.

If your using Spring MVC and @RequestMapping, a really good place for this in your controller would be your @ModelAttribute method. For example:

@ModelAttribute("modelYouArePassingToView")
public ModelYouArePassingToView createDefault() {
   //construct it with default values for "Content" 
   //attribute, and it will show up in textarea after the bindind
   ModelYouArePassingToView myapv = new ModelYouArePassingToView(); 
   myapv.setContent(..); //default value
   return myapv;
}

In your form, make sure to include the modelAttribute tag attribute:

<form:form modelAttribute="modelYouArePassingToView" ...>
  <form:textarea path="content" ..> 

Answer 2

I faced a similar situation. The below code:

<form:textarea path="Content" id="my-text-box">${content}</form:textarea>

Worked out for me.

Answer 3

This works in Spring 4 where the form:textarea tag must be empty:

<form:textarea path="content" value="${Object.content}"/>

Answer 4

You have to use JS along with Spring MVC to make this work. This is what I did:

1. Change your textarea to basic html as below:

    <textarea id="myTextArea" onchange="here();">${content}</textarea>
     OR
    <textarea id="myTextArea" onchange="here();">third hello world!</textarea>
   

2. Add a hidden input field, using spring mvc:

   <form:input type="hidden" id="content" path="Content" value="third hello world!"/>
   

3. Add the following JavaScript:

   <script>
     var text1 = document.getElementById('myTextArea').value;
     function here() {
        text1 = document.getElementById('myTextArea').value;
        document.getElementById("content").value = text1;
     }
   </script>