The f:selectItem and f:selectItems tags represent components that can be nested inside a component that allows you to select one or multiple items. An f:selectItem tag contains the value, label, and description of a single item. An f:selectItems tag contains the values, labels, and descriptions of the entire list of items. You can use either a set of f:selectItem tags or a single f:selectItems tag within your component tag.

The following example shows the usage of <f:selectItems> tag.

<h:selectManyCheckbox id=”languagecheckbox”

                      layout=”pageDirection”

                      value=”#{student.language}”>

    <f:selectItems value=”#{student.languageItems}”/>

</h:selectManyCheckbox>

This code snippet allows to select multiple check boxes from a list of languages from the Student managed bean.

The f:selectItem tag represents a single item in a list of items. The following example shows the usage of <f:selectItem> tag.

<h:selectOneMenu id=”studentGrade”  value=”#{student.studentGrade}”>

    <f:selectItem itemValue=”A”  itemLabel=”#{grade.A}”/>

    <f:selectItem itemValue=”A+” itemLabel=”#{grade.A+}”/>

    <f:selectItem itemValue=”B”  itemLabel=”#{grade.B}”/>

</h:selectOneMenu>

The itemValue attribute represents the value for the f:selectItem tag. The itemLabel attribute represents the String that appears in the drop-down menu component on the page, represents the value from the managed bean Grade.