diff --git a/web/gui/src/main/java/org/onosproject/ui/impl/AbstractTabularViewMessageHandler.java b/web/gui/src/main/java/org/onosproject/ui/impl/AbstractTabularViewMessageHandler.java
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index 0000000..494ad42
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+++ b/web/gui/src/main/java/org/onosproject/ui/impl/AbstractTabularViewMessageHandler.java
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright 2015 Open Networking Laboratory
+ *
+ * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+ * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package org.onosproject.ui.impl;
+
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.node.ArrayNode;
+import org.onosproject.ui.UiMessageHandler;
+
+import java.util.Set;
+
+/**
+ * Base message handler for tabular views.
+ */
+public abstract class AbstractTabularViewMessageHandler extends UiMessageHandler {
+
+    /**
+     * Creates a new tabular view message handler.
+     *
+     * @param messageTypes set of message types
+     */
+    protected AbstractTabularViewMessageHandler(Set<String> messageTypes) {
+        super(messageTypes);
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Produces JSON from the specified array of rows.
+     *
+     * @param rows table rows
+     * @return JSON array
+     */
+    protected ArrayNode generateArrayNode(TableRow[] rows) {
+        ArrayNode array = mapper.createArrayNode();
+        for (TableRow r : rows) {
+            array.add(r.toJsonNode());
+        }
+        return array;
+    }
+
+    // TODO: possibly convert this into just a toolbox class
+    // TODO: extract and generalize other table constructs
+}