Here is an JSTL code example that shows how to build a select box that remembers the previous selection.

<select name=’days‘>
      <c:forTokens items="7;14;30;60;180; 365" delims=";" var="current">             
          <c:choose>
            <c:when test="${current==param.days}">
                      <OPTION selected>
                 </c:when>            
                 <c:otherwise>
                       <OPTION>
                 </c:otherwise>
             </c:choose>
               <c:out value="${current}" /></option>       
         </c:forTokens>
 </select>

Each iteration checks an option value against a request parameter that contains the value of the selected option element. If they are equal, the HTML option tag is given a selected attribute.

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