Set instance variables of ManagedBean from database after login - jsf

Question

I am starting to learn JSF and I am not sure if this is the right approach, but what I want to do is allow a user to login and validate from a database and then have a welcome message with the user's first name e.g. Welcome Bob. The database will have all the user info and login will consist of only the email and password.
Currently I have a ManagedBean with all the getters and setters plus a validation method, which calls a method in the DAO.
#Named(value = "custBean")
#SessionScoped
public class CustomerManagedBean implements Serializable {
/**
* Creates a new instance of CustomerManagedBean
*/
public CustomerManagedBean() {
}
private int custId;
private String firstname;
private String lastname;
private String email;
private String password;
private String address;
private String city;
private String state;
private int zip;
public int getCustId() {
return custId;
}
public void setCustid(int custId) {
this.custId = custId;
}
// More getters/setters here, not shown
public String validateEmailPassword() {
boolean valid = LoginDAO.validate(email, password);
if (valid) {
HttpSession session = (HttpSession) FacesContext.getCurrentInstance()
.getExternalContext().getSession(false);
session.setAttribute("email", email);
session.setAttribute("firstname", firstname); // I can't set this because user did not input this on login so how do I set it from database?
session.setAttribute("lastname", lastname); // and this
session.setAttribute("address", address); // and this
session.setAttribute("state", state); // and this
session.setAttribute("zip", zip); // and this
return "index";
} else {
FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().addMessage(
null,
new FacesMessage(FacesMessage.SEVERITY_WARN,
"Incorrect Email and Password",
"Please enter correct Email and Password"));
return "login";
}
}
Login.xhtml is very simple
<h:form>
<h3>Login</h3>
<h:outputText value="Username" />
<h:inputText id="username" value="#{custBean.email}"></h:inputText>
<h:message for="username"></h:message>
<br></br>
<h:outputText value="Password" />
<h:inputSecret id="password" value="#{custBean.password}"></h:inputSecret>
<h:message for="password"></h:message>
<br></br>
<h:commandButton action="#{custBean.validateEmailPassword}" value="Login"></h:commandButton>
</h:form>
Am I correct in that the bean gets initialized in the login.xhtml by user input on #{custBean.email} and #{custBean.password}? So can I set that bean's other variables after a database call? I hope I am making sense, but what I am able to do is after I login, I'm able to have #{custBean.email} displayed. It's just the firstname and the others I'm not able to show.
Here's my validate method in my DAO.
public static boolean validate(String email, String password) {
Connection con = null;
PreparedStatement ps = null;
try {
con = DataConnect.getConnection();
ps = con.prepareStatement("SELECT * FROM customer WHERE email = ? AND password = ?");
ps.setString(1, email);
ps.setString(2, password);
ResultSet rs = ps.executeQuery();
if (rs.next()) {
return true;
}
} catch (SQLException ex) {
System.out.println("Login error -->" + ex.getMessage());
return false;
} finally {
DataConnect.close(con);
}
return false;
}
UPDATE
I added an Customer entity from database and a CustomerController along with a generic AbstractFacade and CustomerFacade generated by Netbeans. My CustomerController is below. Is this a better way to interact with the DB?
#Named(value = "customerController")
#SessionScoped
public class CustomerController implements Serializable {
#EJB
CustomerFacade custFacade;
#Inject
CustomerManagedBean custBean;
public CustomerController() {
}
public String validateCustomer() {
Customer c = new Customer();
c = custFacade.getValidUser(custBean);
if (c != null) {
custBean.setEmail(c.getEmail());
custBean.setFirstname(c.getFirstname());
custBean.setLastname(c.getLastname());
custBean.setAddress(c.getAddress());
custBean.setCity(c.getCity());
custBean.setState(c.getState());
custBean.setZip(c.getZip());
}
}

Answer 1

The basic idea is, that you hold your model within your java class and link the model's values to your XHTML page via EL expressions.
So you can either get variables in your model filled from input elements of your page after submit or set them in your backend code and display them, both by having the value attribure reference your models member (which will go via getter/setter).
Your model gets initialized depending on the context you choose. As you went with SessionScope, it will be initialized on first usage and last as long as your HTTP session will last. In the meantime, you can for example read input after submitting your login data, query a database, fill your other members accordingly and display more data on this or another page, so in other words you have several roundtrips between your browser and your backend bean.
In your backing bean you don't have to fill any session attributes, you just fill your own model members after e.g. a database call and your index view (which I assume holds output elements for the data) will display the newly set model data when referred by EL expressions (just like you did with your input elements values).