Outputing certain elements from a returned database returned List

Question

I am querying a database to return a list of values based on an input string; and these list of values are displayed in a searchbox for the user. The issue is, my returned lists are being displayed as objects instead of a list of names. Attached are snippets of code to illustrate my point

my retrieve method

public List<EmployeeDetails> getEmployeeByName(String employeeName) {

    List<EmployeeDetails> list=new ArrayList<EmployeeDetails>();
    Connection c=null;
    String sql=("SELECT * FROM  employee_table WHERE UPPER(employeeName) LIKE ? ORDER BY employeeName");

    try{
        c = ConnectionHelper.getConnection();
        PreparedStatement ps=c.prepareStatement(sql);
        ps.setString(1, "%" + employeeName.toUpperCase() + "%");
        ResultSet rs=ps.executeQuery();
        while(rs.next()){


            list.add(new EmployeeDetails  (rs.getInt("employeeid"),
                    rs.getString("employeeName"),
                    rs.getString("employeeAddress"),
                    rs.getString("employeeAge"), 
                    rs.getString("nationality"), 
                    rs.getString("salaryRate")));



        }



    }catch (SQLException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        try {
            throw new Exception(e);
        } catch (Exception e1) {

            e1.printStackTrace();
        }
    } finally {
        ConnectionHelper.close(c);
    }

    return **list**;




}

i intend the searchbox be populated with only the names of the returned objects, not the raw encapsulated object. How do i go about this? Any help/pointers would be highly appreciated

Answer 1

The result of this method must be getting used somewhere. Wherever that is, you need to do something like this:

class EmployeeDAO
{
    // Your method doing data access
    public List<EmployeeDetail> getEmployeeByName(String employeeName) {
        ...
        return list;
    }
}

class EmployeeController
{
    public void searchByName( String employeeName )
    {
        List<EmployeeDetail> employeeDetails = employeeDao.getEmployeeByName( employeeName );

        Map<String, EmployeeDetail> searchResults = new HashMap<String, EmployeeDetail>();
        // Use employeeNames in the search box
        for( EmployeeDetail employeeDetail : employeeDetails )
        {
            searchResults.put( employeeDetail.getEmployeeName(), employeeDetail );
        }

        // I don't know how to return objects for Flex/BlazeDS, so this is more Spring MVC style
        view.put( "searchResults", searchResults );
    }   
}

Two other suggestions:

1. Rename EmployeeDetails class to EmployeeDetail (singular). That way, collections of EmployeeDetail objects can use names like employeeDetails (plural).
2. Rename your method to getEmployeesByName since you don't guarantee there's only one employee returned.