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How to catch a table in POST and use it as an array

so basically to lay this out I have
AffidavitController - Controller
Affidavit.jsp - GET view page
summary.jsp - POST view page
so basically I have a form that a user fills out and then they hit the submit button and it posts it.
This method is then called in the controller
#RequestMapping(value = "/affidavit", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String post(AffidavitDetailDto affidavitDetail, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response, Model model) {
now within this method I catch the information that was passed over in the response object.
an example of this is I have a name field on the GET view page and the name of this field is 'custName'
so I catch it like so
String contactName = request.getParameter("custName");
model.addAttribute("contactName", contactName);
and then I can display it on my POST view page
<p>Name: ${contactName}</p>
but now I am trying to figure out how I can do the same with a table and treat it like an array
the following is how it is added on the GET view page
<table id="certEmail" name="certEmail">
<tr>
<td>${user.email}</td>
</tr>
</table>
the following is what I have attempted
String[] certEmail = request.getParameterValues("certEmail");
model.addAttribute("certEmail", certEmail);
and this is what I have on the view page to display it
<div id="Emails">
<c:forEach items="${certEmail}" var="email">
<p>${email}</p>
</c:forEach>
</div>
this does not currently work. I know I am probably just doing it wrong so can someone please at least point me in right direction. I just haven't figured out a good google query yet to get an answer.

Table is not a form element (https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_form_elements.asp). Only form element values on form are submitted to server. So instead of
<table id="certEmail" name="certEmail">
<tr>
<td>${user.email}</td>
</tr>
</table>
You should have something like
<table id="certEmail">
<tr>
<td>
<input type="text" name="certEmail" value="${user.email}" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
if you want your data to be editable, or
<table id="certEmail">
<tr>
<td>
${user.email}
<input type="hidden" name="certEmail" value="${user.email}" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
if you want it to be hidden and just resent to the server.
While I should denote that second variant generally should be avoided. I would recommend you to pass the user id and use it in back-end to load user and read his email.
Please learn how to use HTML forms: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/HTML/Forms/Your_first_HTML_form

JSP with a HTML table and need to update the table

I have a JSP with a table and inside the cells, I have buttons. My requirement is to fetch the cell contents from with in the same jsp for a period of some ms. Essentially the cell contents mean the button name and its value. Then I need to pass these values to another function to process. My jsp snippet is:
<div> <table id="rooms" border="50" width="50%" cellspacing="20" cellpadding="10" style="float:center">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><input type="submit" value="abc" name="room" /></td>
<td><input type="submit" value="def" name="room" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><input type="submit" value="ghi" name="room" /></td>
<td><input type="submit" value="jkl" name="room" /></td>
</tr></tbody>
<%
response.setIntHeader("Refresh", 5);
String[] room = request.getParameterValues("room");
try{
System.out.println(room[0]);
}
catch(Exception e){
System.out.println("Error");
}
%>
I am getting Error because of null value. I can do this in javascript but I want only JSP code. Other forums I have seen jquery and ajax but still I prefer if there is a JSP only way.
I need help as to where I am doing this wrong. Any pointers?

How to edit fields of a table?

I have a table to show a long list of items, I am wondering how I can edit the fields and submit the form to update them?
<form name="edit" method="POST" action="edit">
<table border="4">
<tbody>
<c:forEach items="${basket.items}" var="item">
<tr>
<td>
<input name="item.id" value="${item.id}"/>
</td>
<td>
<input label="Price" value="${item.product.price}"/>
<br/>
</td>
</tr>
</c:forEach>
</tbody>
</table>
this is a new one
<input id="edit" type="submit" name="edit" value="Edit"/>
</form>

You are using Struts2, with JSTL and EL instead of Struts Tags and OGNL... is there a particular reason that forces you to drop most of the framework mechanics ?
That said, your inputs aren't valid (no type specified) and the "this is a new one" sentence in the HTML seems to indicate the willing to insert a new row, instead of editing the existing entres. Your description and your code seem to ask two different things... to insert a new one, just make a call to another method of the action (or another action) called "add" instead of "edit", sending one single element and adding it to the collection. No need to use AJAX here...
If instead, the question is really:
how I can edit the fields and submit the form to update them ?
this is the way:
<s:form method="POST" action="edit">
<table border="4">
<tbody>
<s:iterator value="basket.items" var="item" status="ctr">
<tr>
<td>
<s:textfield name="item[%{#ctr.index}].id" />
</td>
<td>
<s:textfield name="item[%{#ctr.index}].product.price" />
</td>
</tr>
</s:iterator>
</tbody>
</table>
<s:submit value="Edit"/>
</form>

I would suggest you make an AJAX call using jquery to update the new one. And then in the success handler you can append the new line to the existing table. Before doing that you need to give your table proper ids so that its easier to use JQUERY.
var newLine = document.createElement("tr");
var cellName = document.createElement("td");
$(cellName).text("itemId");
$(newLine).append(cellName);
// similarly create other td's
$("#modelTable").append(newLine);// replace modelTable by the id of your table

Spring MVC - Submit an Object from JSP

I have a JSP that presents a list of customers (ArrayList searchResults). I want to be able to pick one of those, and submit it to a Spring MVC controller. However, it appears that I cannot pass the selected object, only a property of it, such as customerId. I really need to pass the entire object.
Is there a standard way to do this in Spring 3.x?
<c:forEach items="${searchResults}" var="searchResult">
<tr>
<td><c:out value="${searchResult.customerId}" /></td>
<td><c:out value="${searchResult.firstName}" /></td>
<td><c:out value="${searchResult.lastName}" /></td>
<td>
<form method="POST" ACTION="./customercare">
<input type="SUBMIT" value="Select This Customer"/>
<input type="hidden" name ="searchResult" value="${searchResult}"/>
</form>
</td>
</tr>
</c:forEach>

You can use Spring's form taglib instead of plain <form> to post back to a Spring MVC Controller and then it will Bind the values back to the model you specify.
<form:form method="post" action="addContact.html">
<table>
<tr>
<td><form:label path="firstname">First Name</form:label></td>
<td><form:input path="firstname" /></td>
</tr>
...
#RequestMapping(value = "/addContact", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public String addContact(#ModelAttribute("contact")
Contact contact, BindingResult result) {
See this Post: http://viralpatel.net/blogs/spring-3-mvc-handling-forms/

You might want to consider giving id to each and nested tags to differentiate between row that you want to POST
<c:forEach items="${searchResults}" var="searchResult">
<tr>
....
<form:form id="${searchResults.key}-form" method="POST" ACTION="./customercare">
<form:input id="${searchResults.key}-btn" type="SUBMIT" value="Select This Customer"/>
<form:input id="${searchResults.key}-hidden" type="hidden" name ="${searchResults.key}" value="searchResult['${searchResults.key}']"/>
</form:form>
</tr>
On the backend side you will have to write the controller as suggested by #PatBurke

You could have 1 form per customer with a lot of hidden inputs in. When that customer is selected you can POST that form. Spring can then bind all the hidden inputs to your customer object.
(Generally, I would just send the id only and load the customer info, as an entity, from a Database. However, I assume you must have a good reason for not wanting to do this)

Sending form parameters from JSP to Struts action class

I am implementing a search functionality in a website I am building, which involves searching by the md5 hash of the name of the file submitted and searching by the notes associated with each submitted file. So, I should detect as to which button is pressed "Search by MD5" or "Search by Notes". This is the code I have:
JSP code for the form:
<form id="search" name="search" action = "search.do"
method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<table align = "center">
<tr>
<th colspan="4" bgcolor="#004276"><font color="white">
Search for Sample
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><input name="md5" type="text" value="${form.md5}"/></td>
<td><input name="md5search" type="submit" value="Search by MD5"/>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><input name="notes" type="text" value="${form.notes}"/></td>
<td><input name="notessearch" type="submit" value="Search by Notes"/>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
search.do is mapped to SearchResultsAction.java. Code in Java action class (SearchResultsAction) which handles the request is:
if(request.getParameter("md5search").toString().equals("Search by MD5")){
searchSubmissionsList = submissionsDAO.searchSubmissionsByMD5(form.getMD5());
}
if(request.getParameter("notessearch").toString().equals("Search by Notes")){
searchSubmissionsList = submissionsDAO.searchSubmissionByNotes(form.getNotes());
}
But the problem I am facing here is that, request.getParameter("md5search") and request.getParameter("notessearch") return null for some reason. I have been working on this for a while and have not been able to figure it out. The weird thing is that it once worked for me sometime back when I was working on another project. Am I missing something here?

It's null because you used multipart/form-data form encoding instead of (default) application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Basically, you have to (let Struts) extract the text fields from the multipart form data body the same way as you (or Struts) extracted the uploaded file. Or, as there is actually no <input type="file"> field in your form at all, just remove the enctype attribute altogether.
See also
Does form with enctype="multipart/form-data" cause problems accessing a hidden field