JSF: data not showing when editing twice

Question

I have a dataTable with a list of items and a checkbox for selecting an item to edit. Ticking an item and clicking the edit button pops up a component which has fields and update and cancel buttons. Here's what happens.

1. Dialog appears
2. I empty all fields and click UPDATE, required messages appear since all fields are empty, data is not saved
3. Click CANCEL, dialog disappears
4. Click and edit the same item again
5. Some fields are not showing. I checked the datatable and database, data for the item still exists. Just not showing on the edit dialog the 2nd time around.

I noticed that the fields not showing are only those that have NULL attributes. NOT NULL fields are fine. I wonder if this has something to do with sessions. (Using Primefaces for all components)

Code for the edit dialog

<p:dialog header="#{bundle.Edit}" modal="true" widgetVar="editDialog" resizable="false">
        <h:form id="edit-form">
          <p:messages id="edit-error" autoUpdate="true" closable="true"/>
          <h:outputLabel value="#{bundle.Name}" for="name" /><span class="required">＊</span>
          <p:inputText id="name" value="#{controller.selected.name}" required="true" requiredMessage="#{bundle.Name}&nbsp;#{bundle.FieldIsRequired}" maxlength="45"/>
          <h:outputLabel value="#{bundle.Input}" for="input" /><span class="required">＊</span>
          <h:selectOneRadio id="input" value="#{controller.selected.input}" required="true" requiredMessage="#{bundle.Input}&nbsp;#{bundle.FieldIsRequired}">
            <f:selectItem itemLabel="◯ " itemValue="0" />  
            <f:selectItem itemLabel="☓ " itemValue="1" />  
          </h:selectOneRadio>
          <h:outputLabel value="#{bundle.IsOption}" for="isOption" /><span class="required">＊</span>
          <h:selectOneRadio id="isOption" value="#{controller.selected.isOption}" required="true" requiredMessage="#{bundle.IsOption}&nbsp;#{bundle.FieldIsRequired}">
            <f:selectItem itemLabel="◯ " itemValue="0" />  
            <f:selectItem itemLabel="☓ " itemValue="1" />   
          </h:selectOneRadio>
          <h:outputLabel value="#{bundle.Remark}" for="remark" />
          <p:inputTextarea id="remark" value="#{controller.selected.remark}"/>

          <p:commandButton action="#{controller.update()}" 
                           value="#{bundle.Save}" 
                           actionListener="#{controller.prepareList()}" 
                           oncomplete="handleEditDialog(xhr, status, args)" 
                           update=":form:datatable :edit-form:edit-error"
                           />
          <p:commandButton value="#{bundle.Cancel}" 
                           onclick="editDialog.hide(); reset();" 
                           type="button"/>
        </h:form>
      </p:dialog>

Code for the update function

public String update() {
    RequestContext context = RequestContext.getCurrentInstance();
    try {
      current.setUpdateDate(new Date());
      Map<String, Object> param = JsfUtil.getExternal().getSessionMap();
      int createUser = (Integer) param.get("LOGIN_ID");
      Account account = accountFacade.find(createUser);
      current.setUpdateUser(account);
      getFacade().edit(current);
      search();
      prepareList();
      JsfUtil.addSuccessMessage(ResourceBundle.getBundle(JsfUtil.getSessionBundle()).getString("Updated"));
      updateOk = true;
      current = null;
      context.addCallbackParam("updated", true);
      return "";
    } catch (Exception e) {
      if (e.getCause().getCause().getMessage().contains("uk_")) {
        JsfUtil.addErrorMessage("edit-form:edit-error",JsfUtil.getResourceString("Duplicate"));
        context.addCallbackParam("updated", false);
      } else {
        JsfUtil.addErrorMessage(e, ResourceBundle.getBundle(JsfUtil.getSessionBundle()).getString("PersistenceErrorOccured"));
        context.addCallbackParam("updated", false);
      }
      return null;
    }
  }

Answer 1

Based on what you are describing I think the following scenario is happening. When you see the form and you delete all fields and you hit save, the components that have no validators are actually overwriting some of the previous property values of your bean. That's why when you reload it for a second edit, you'll notice that all the components that have a validator attached (e.g required = true) are appearing but those with no validators are blank. In reality, you are actually doing a partial update. What you actually need to do is mark all fields as required to avoid that problem.

Answer 2

My teammate just found out a fix for this one. There is a function on the controller generated by NetBeans called prepareList().

public String prepareList() {
    recreateModel();
    return "";
  }

private void recreateModel() {
    items = null;
  }

Basically we added this on catch block of the update() function. It is called after every unsuccessful update and recreates the model. The bug existed because the field retained its state of not having a value after an unsuccessful update.