[stringtemplate-interest] Presenting relationships between two lists

[Robert Rowland]

Hi All,

Before I go on too much further can I just say that I'm not after
reopening the old argument about conditionals . . . I can understand
quite clearly why they are a "bad thing".

However I've got a problem here that with other template systems I
would have used conditionals, and can't seem to get my head round how
to get this to work with StringTemplate.

I have two lists of objects, with a one to one relationship between
the items in the lists.  Lets say they are reports and users.  I want
to produce a list of reports and against each report is a list of all
the users.  For each report one of those users is marked as selected.

So here goes:

$reports:{r|
    $r.reportName$
    $users:{u|$u.userName$ $if(u.userName==r.userName)$Yes Selected!$endif$
    }$
}$

Obviously the $if(u.userName==r.userName)$ doesn't work in
StringTemplate, but I can't for the life of me work out how to get the
same behaviour without the conditional.

Hopefully I'm making sense . .

Cheers Rob.

p.s. in case your wondering, and in case it makes things clearer, what
I'm actually trying to achieve is HTML select boxes, so . . .

$reports:{r|
    $r.reportName$
    <select name="$r.id$>
    $users:{u|<option
value="$r.id$-$u.id$">$if(u.userName==r.userName)$
selected$endif$>$u.userName$</option>
    }$
    </select>
}$

Which may produce something like the following . . .

My Report 1
<select name="r1">
<option value="r1-u1" selected>Rob</option>
<option value="r1-u2">Fred</option>
<option value="r1-u3">George</option>
</select>

My Report2
<select name="r2">
<option value="r2-u1">Rob</option>
<option value="r2-u2">Fred</option>
<option value="r2-u3" selected>George</option>
</select>