c:foreach using List: Must evaluate to a Collection, Map, Array, or null

Question

So I'm trying to loop over a List<MyClass> for display in the view of my spring webflow application. However I get the error Must evaluate to a Collection, Map, Array, or null.

    <c:forEach items="#{orderedStuff}" var="a">
    #{a.PrettyName}test
    </c:forEach>

I've also tried $ instead of #.

Here is my xml flow definition.

<view-state id="bookToc">
    <on-render>
        <evaluate expression="stuffService.getOrderedStuff(stuff)" result="viewScope.orderedStuff"
            result-type="dataModel" />
    </on-render>
</view-state>

And the function that returns the list of sections.

public List<Stuff> getStuff(Stuff stuff) {
    final List<Stuff> orderedStuff= new ArrayList<Stuff>();

    final List<Stuff> sections = stuff.getStuff();
    PropertyComparator.sort(sections, new MutableSortDefinition("sortOrder", true, true));

    for (Section stuff : stuffs) {
        orderedStuff.add(stuff);
        this.addSubsectionsToOrderedStuff(stuff, orderedStuff);
    }

    return orderedStuff;
}

The thing about it is, this code DOES WORK

<h:dataTable id="stuffList" value="#{orderedStuff}" var="s"
            rendered="#{not empty orderedStuff}">
            <h:column>
                <f:facet name="header">
                    Section Title
                </f:facet>
                #{s.prettyName}
                <h:dataTable value="#{s.chapters}" var="c" rendered="#{not empty s.chapters}">
                    <h:column>
                        <f:facet name="header">
                        Chapter Title
                        </f:facet>
                    #{c.title}
                    </h:column>
                </h:dataTable>              
            </h:column>
        </h:dataTable>  

Answer 1

I think you would have to call from the scope that you're creating

Try

 <c:forEach items="#{bookTok.orderedStuff}" var="a">

And, why are your lists final?

Answer 2

I guess <c:forEach... needs one of those types. Have you tried converting it to an array, e.g:

// Create an array containing the elements in a list
Stuff[] array = (Stuff[])orderedStuff.toArray(new Stuff[orderedStuff.size()]);

I haven't worked in Java for a while, forgive me if this is way off.