How to populate a form:select and select a default value? - spring

Question

I have an edit user form which has textfields(username, lastname..) and a select of countries. I'm having problems with this select because i don't know the better way to populate it. I've tried populating with jquery with success but i cannot select a default value through commandName.
<form:form method="POST" commandName="user" action="registerUser.html">
<form:errors path="*" cssClass="errorblock" element="div" />
<spring:message code="app.user.username"/><form:input path="username" /><form:errors path="username" cssClass="error" /><br/>
<spring:message code="app.user.firstname"/> <form:input type="text" path="firstName" /> <form:errors path="firstName" cssClass="error"/><br/>
<spring:message code="app.user.password"/> <form:input type="password" path="password" /><form:errors path="password" cssClass="error"/><br/>
<spring:message code="app.user.repassword"/> <form:input type="password" path="confirmPassword" /><form:errors path="confirmPassword" cssClass="error"/><br/>
<spring:message code="app.user.email"/> <form:input type="text" path="email" /><form:errors path="email" cssClass="error"/><br/>
<spring:message code="app.user.country"/> <form:select path="isoCode" items="${countryList}"/><form:errors path="isoCode" cssClass="error"/><br/>
<input type="submit" value="Enviar" />
</form:form>
I've take a look to this tutorial, so i've tried with a map but i don't know how to return the data to be accesible in the jsp because in the tutorial uses a SimpleFormController but i wouldn't like to code a SimpleFormController for each form. This is my controller to return the view of the form and i have another to catch the submit.
#RequestMapping(method=RequestMethod.GET, value="/editUserForm")
public String recordUserRequestHandler(ModelMap model) throws Exception {
model.addAttribute("user", new User());
Map<String, Map<String, String>> referenceData = new HashMap<String, Map<String, String>>();
Map<String, String> country = new LinkedHashMap<String, String>();
country.put("US", "United Stated");
country.put("CHINA", "China");
country.put("SG", "Singapore");
country.put("MY", "Malaysia");
referenceData.put("countryList", country);
return "EditUserForm";
}
is it possible to pass the referenceData to the jsp to be accessed by the form:select?
<spring:message code="app.user.country"/> <form:select path="isoCode" items="${countryList}"/><form:errors path="isoCode" cssClass="error"/><br/>

Answer 1

Also you don't need to use hashmap for selects. Personally I use simple List with beans which holds my select options.
public class ListOption {
private String id;
private String name;
public ListOption(String id, String name) {
this.id = id;
this.name = name;
}
public ListOption() {
}
public String getId() {
return id;
}
public void setId(String id) {
this.id = id;
}
public String getName() {
return name;
}
public void setName(String name) {
this.name = name;
}
}
in your controller
List<ListOption> selectOptions = new List<ListOption>();
// add Your options
selectOptions.add(new ListOption("id","value");
then put isoCode object into your model with desired (selected) value then spring will manage to mark the value as selected.
in your jsp
<form:select path="isoCode" items="${countryList}" itemValue="id" itemLabel="name"/>