XForms, Selecting from Model

Motivation

You want to store lists in the model, not in the user interface. This allows a list to be used many places in a form and also enables lists to be read from external files (see the next example).

Execute Sample XForms Application

Load XForms Application

Sample Program

This example shows how to use the XForms itemset element to get data from the selection list directly from the model. Note that itemset is very similar to the group command in syntax: the outer loop tells you where to get your data and the inner loop binds a data element to a form value or item.

xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:xf="http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms">;

Getting Selection List Data From the XForms Model
type="text/css">
body {font-family: Helvetica, Verdanan, sans-serif;}
]]>

id="my-item" xmlns="">

red

id="code-tables" xmlns="">

ItemColorCode

Red
red

Orange
orange

Yellow
yellow

Green
green

Blue
blue

Getting Selection List Data From the XForms Model
ref="ItemColorCode" appearance="full">

nodeset="instance('code-tables')/code-table[code-table-id='ItemColorCode']/item">
ref="label"/>
ref="value"/>

Output: ref="ItemColorCode"/>

Discussion

This is a much more flexible way to manage lists. The instance document may be fetched dynamically from a remote database and the form does not need to be updated when lists change.

Where this page came from

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