Spring MVC - how to bind HTML checkbox value in a boolean variable

Question

I am very new to spring mvc world. I am trying to send boolean value to from html form checkbox. When a user check the checkbox then it will send true, false otherwise.

<form class="attendanceBook" role="form" method="post" action="/attendances">
    <div class="row">
        <div class="form-group">
            <div class="col-xs-4">
                <label class="control-label">Check Here</label>
            </div>
            <div class="col-xs-4">
                <input type="checkbox" name="i" id="i" value="true" />
            </div>
            <div class="col-xs-4">
                <input type="submit" value="Click"/>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
</form>

After some googilng I have found this so post, where it said standard behaviour is the value is only sent if the checkbox is checked. So what I have understand that is if the checkbox checked then the form will submit with the value of checkbox, otherwise it will not submit. When there is unchecked checkbox the initialization value in data class will be effective.

But in my case every time I am submitting the form it submitting true.

here is my rest controller for the bind html form submit.

@RestController
@RequestMapping("attendances")
class AttendanceRestController {

val logger = getLogger(AttendanceRestController::class.java)

@PostMapping
fun patchAttendance(@RequestBody attendanceJson: AttendanceJson): ResponseEntity<*> {
    logger.info("attendanceJson {}", attendanceJson)

    return responseOK(attendanceJson)
}

}

the data class(I am using kotlin)

 data class AttendanceJson (
    var i: Boolean = false,
    var t: String = ""
 )

So what will be the method to bind boolean data from a form submission with checkbox. I am also using Thymeleaf. Thanks in advance.

Thymeleaf creates a hidden input for each checkbox you generate, which will always submit the initial checkbox value. — connexo
– connexo, Commented Jul 18, 2019 at 13:56

Arun Sudhakaran · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-16 08:34:06Z

3

I'm working in Struts and don't know much about Spring. But I faced a similar situation.

What I did was I binded the checkbox with a boolean property in my From class. So for each checkbox, one boolean variable. And at the time of submitting in front end, I'll call a JS function code is below

function verifyCheckboxes() {

    document.getElementById("researchPaper").value = document.getElementById("researchPaper").checked;

    document.getElementById("researchPaperSeminarProceed").value = document.getElementById("researchPaperSeminarProceed").checked;

    document.getElementById("extraActivities").value = document.getElementById("extraActivities").checked;

    document.getElementById("studentAchivements").value = document.getElementById("studentAchivements").checked;

}

Here you can see I'm just assigning the value of checked property of that Checkbox just before submitting. It will be either true or false.

answered Jan 16, 2017 at 8:34

Arun Sudhakaran

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3 Comments

seal Over a year ago

Thanks for the reply. Yes I can do this with JS. But what about the "Standard Behavior" ?

Arun Sudhakaran Over a year ago

I don't think it would be a problem, this code worked for me.

seal Over a year ago

+1 for your solution . It is nice and clean. But lets see if anyone could answer what is the reason and how can do this only by raw HTML.

er-han · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-16 14:07:13Z

3

You should remove 'value' attribute from the input. If you want the checkbox checked when loading the page, add 'checked' attribute not 'value'. Replace the input line with this:

<input type="checkbox" name="i" id="i" checked="checked"/>

This is the reason why you always get 'true' in code behind.

answered Jan 16, 2017 at 14:07

er-han

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1 Comment

seal Over a year ago

No. This is not the reason. As per your code I have tested. It submitting the on. As this is not a any Boolean value spring not bind the data, rather the initialization value for the variable remain. And if I do not initialize the variable then it throws an exception, it says - on or off will not bind, need true or false.

Paul Verschoor · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-13 12:07:27Z

0

It's a bit of a hack, but if you change the type of the input tag from 'checkbox' to 'text' just before the form is posted, you will receive the value, whether it is checked or unchecked.

If you use jQuery:

$("input:checkbox").each(function(){this.type='text'})

answered May 13, 2018 at 12:07

Paul Verschoor

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