How to save list of text from visualforce to controller?

Question

I am trying to populate a list of answers. I have a list of questions and an empty array of answers that I pass to a visualforce page. The code in my visualforce page is:

<apex:variable var="index" value="{!-1}"/>

            <apex:repeat value="{!sow.Questions}" var="q">


                <apex:outputtext style="font-size:16px" value="{!q}"/><br/>
                <apex:variable value="{!index+1}" var="index"/> <!--increment--> 

                <td><apex:inputTextarea style="width: 400px; height: 100px" value="{!sow.Answers[index]}" id="ans" /></td><br/><br/><br/>

            </apex:repeat>

The problem I am having is that when I save this, it will only save at the final index. I think because it runs asynchronously, that the controller will only see answers[2] but I may be wrong. Is there a better way to do this? Thank you

Answer 1

apex:variable doesn't always work well in these situations. Ideally, you should make an index list manually:

public Integer[] getIndexes() {
  Integer size = answers.size();
  Integer[] results = new Integer[size];
  for(Integer index = 0; index < size; index++) {
    results[index] = index;
  }
  return results;
}

Which you then use in your iterator:

<apex:repeat value="{!sow.indexes}" var="index">
  ... {!sow.questions[index]} ... {!sow.answers[index]} ...
</apex:repeat>

This eliminates the need for the apex:variable, which can be tricky to use correctly in some situations.