I did this sort of manually. It might help.
Give that editable column a name and put a text box in the column.
<table>
<tr><td><input type="text" name="editable"/></td</td>
<tr><td><input type="text" name="editable"/></td</td>
<tr><td><input type="text" name="editable"/></td</td>
</table>
when you submit the form and do httpRequest.getParameter("editable")
in your servlet, you should get an array/list of values in text boxes in the order it is displayed.
You then could do the previous search that was done to display the data and compare it with the above list.
String[] editedList = httpRequest.getParameter("editable");
Object[] originalList = dao.getList(...);
List<Object> editedItems = new arrayList<Object>();
for(int i=0; i < originalList; i++){
if(editedList[i].equalsoriginalList[0].getProp()){
//No changes have been made
}else{
//Changes have been made.
editedItems.add(originalList[i]);
}
}
With this you'll end up with list of edited objects editedItems