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I have the following situation that I would like to handle in JSF. My form consists of family information (name/address/phone) and then children information. Since a family can have more then one child, I need to be able to allow the person to click "add more children" and another child "section" will appear.

Here is a simple test case I've thrown together.

Backing Bean. A family has a list of children.

@ViewScoped
@ManagedBean
public class TestBackingBean implements Serializable {
    private Family f = new Family();
    private Child childToRemove;

    public TestBackingBean() {
        f.addChild(new Child());
    }

    public Family getFamily() {
        return f;
    }

    public void setChildToRemove(Child childToRemove) {
        this.childToRemove = childToRemove;
    }

    public TimeZone getTimezone() {
        return TimeZone.getDefault();
    }

    public List<Child> getChildren() {
        return f.getChildrenAsList();
    }

    public Child getChildToRemove() {
        return childToRemove;
    }

    public void addChild() {
        f.addChild(new Child());
    }

    public void removeChild() {
        f.removeChild(childToRemove);
    }

}

Here is the JSF page: 

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
    xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
    xmlns:a4j="http://richfaces.org/a4j"
    xmlns:rich="http://richfaces.org/rich"
    xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html">

<h:head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
    <title><ui:insert name="title" />
    </title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/hcbb/css/main.css" />
</h:head>

<h:body>

    <h:form>

        <h:panelGroup id="parentSection">
            <h:outputLabel value="Parent Name" for="parent_firstName" />
            <h:inputText id="parent_firstName" requiredMessage="Required"
                immediate="true" label="Parent First Name"
                value="#{testBackingBean.family.firstName}">
                <f:validateRequired />
            </h:inputText>
            <rich:message id="parent_firstNameMessage" for="parent_firstName" />
        </h:panelGroup>


        <h:panelGroup id="childrenSection">

            <h:dataTable value="#{testBackingBean.children}" var="child">

                <h:column>
                    <h:panelGrid id="childPanel" columns="3"
                        style="border:1px solid brown; padding: 5px; margin-bottom:5px; width: 600px;">
                        <h:outputText id="childTitle" value="Child"
                            style="font-weight: bold;" />
                        <h:outputText id="spacer" />
                        <a4j:commandButton id="removeBtn"
                            action="#{testBackingBean.removeChild}" immediate="true"
                            value="Remove Child" render="childrenSection"
                            style="float:right;" title="Remove">
                            <f:setPropertyActionListener
                                target="#{testBackingBean.childToRemove}" value="#{child}" />
                        </a4j:commandButton>

                        <h:outputLabel id="child_firstNameLbl" value="First Name" />
                        <h:inputText id="child_firstName" requiredMessage="Required"
                            immediate="true" label="Child First Name"
                            value="#{child.firstName}">
                            <f:validateRequired />
                        </h:inputText>
                        <rich:message id="child_firstNameMessage" for="child_firstName" />

                        <h:outputLabel id="child_lastNameLbl" value="Last Name" />
                        <h:inputText id="child_lastName" requiredMessage="Required"
                            immediate="true" label="Child Last Name"
                            value="#{child.lastName}">
                            <f:validateRequired />
                        </h:inputText>
                        <rich:message id="child_lastNameMessage" for="child_lastName" />

                        <h:outputLabel id="child_dobLbl" value="Birth Date" />
                        <h:inputText id="child_dob" label="Child Birth Date"
                            immediate="true" requiredMessage="Required"
                            value="#{child.dateOfBirth}">
                            <f:convertDateTime id="dobConverter" pattern="MM/dd/yyyy"
                                timeZone="#{testBackingBean.timezone}" />
                            <f:validateRequired />
                        </h:inputText>
                        <rich:message id="child_dobNameMessage" for="child_dob" />
                    </h:panelGrid>
                </h:column>
            </h:dataTable>

            <a4j:commandLink id="addChildBtn" immediate="true"
                render="childrenSection" action="#{testBackingBean.addChild}"
                value="Add Another Child">
            </a4j:commandLink>

        </h:panelGroup>
    </h:form>
</h:body>
</html>

The issue is the saving of the values when adding/removing child sections. If you enter parent name and then child name and date of birth and then click add the fields for the child you just added will disappear? I would have thought that immediate=true on the button and the fields will get them through.

The problem is add a parent first name, enter child info and click the add another child button and the child information you just entered will be erased.

Any suggestions on how I might be able to make this all work. Seems like a fairly simple and somewhat standard use case.

Thanks!

jr.
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1 Answers1

6

It looks fine at the first glance. The problem symptoms boils down that the f.getChildrenAsList() doesn't return a list with the new child while JSF is about to apply request values. Perhaps that method is re-fetching the list from DB again upon submit? Add a breakpoint to investigate its retun value. Or perhaps the view scope failed and caused the bean to be reconstructed? Add a breakpoint to the bean's constructor. It should not be reconstructed when you're submitting the form against the same view.

As to using the immediate attribute, all your usage of them is entirely superfluous. Just remove them. To understand its use better, get yourself through the Debug JSF lifecycle article (true, it's JSF 1.2 targeted, but the principles are the same for JSF2) and then read particularly this summary:

Okay, when should I use the immediate attribute?

If it isn't entirely clear yet, here's a summary, complete with real world use examples when they may be beneficial:

  • If set in UIInput(s) only, the process validations phase will be taken place in apply request values phase instead. Use this to prioritize validation for the UIInput component(s) in question. When validation/conversion fails for any of them, the non-immediate components won't be validated/converted.

  • If set in UICommand only, the apply request values phase until with update model values phases will be skipped for any of the UIInput component(s). Use this to skip the entire processing of the form. E.g. "Cancel" or "Back" button.

  • If set in both UIInput and UICommand components, the apply request values phase until with update model values phases will be skipped for any of the UIInput component(s) which does not have this attribute set. Use this to skip the processing of the entire form expect for certain fields (with immediate). E.g. "Password forgotten" button in a login form with a required but non-immediate password field.

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BalusC
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  • Thanks BalusC. I'll look into that more with the getChildrenAsList. I see your point about the immediate on *everything* – jr. Sep 01 '11 at 19:34
  • I think the problem was that the getChildrenAsList() was returning a new ArrayList() each time. – jr. Sep 03 '11 at 02:53