Refreshing PrimeFaces form element dataTable (code details provided) - jsf

Question

I have Search form. After clicking on Search button data refreshes, but dataTable columns not (columns get refreshed only on second button click). Apparently I am doing something wrong. Dynamic column code is inspired by PrimeFaces Showcase
myForm.xhtml:
<h:form id="MY_FORM">
#{myBean.initBean()}
...
<h:panelGrid id="main">
<h:panelGrid id="buttons">
<p:commandButton id="submitSearch"
value="#{msg['button.execute']}"
actionListener="#{myBean.submitSearch}"
update="resultPanel"/>
</h:panelGrid>
</h:panelGrid>
<h:panelGrid id="resultPanel" border="0">
<p:dataTable id="resultTable" var="result" value="#{myBean.searchResults}">
<p:columns value="#{myBean.columns}" var="column" columnIndexVar="colIndex">
<f:facet name="header">
<h:outputText value="#{column.header}" />
</f:facet>
<h:outputText value="#{result[column.property]}" />
</p:columns>
</p:dataTable>
</h:panelGrid>
</h:form>
I've called column calculation method createColumns() from myBean.initBean() and myBean.submitSearch() with the same result (I see it works correctly from debugger).
#ManagedBean("myBean")
#Scope(value = "session")
public class MyBean {
private ArrayList<HashMap<String,Object>> searchResults;
private List<ColumnModel> columns;
...
public void initBean() {
...
createColumns(selectedDates);
}
public void submitSearch() {
...
ArrayList<HashMap<String, Object>> results = prpRepository.getSearchResultByParams(searchParams);
createColumns(selectedDates);
}
private void createColumns(ArrayList<String> selectedDates){
columns = new ArrayList<ColumnModel>();
columns.add(new ColumnModel("Name", "NAME"));
columns.add(new ColumnModel("Amount", "AMOUNT"));
for (int i = 0; i < selectedDates.size(); i++) {
columns.add(new ColumnModel(selectedDates.get(i), "DATE" + i));
}
setColumns(columns);
}
public List<ColumnModel> getColumns() {
return columns;
}
public void setColumns(List<ColumnModel> columns) {
this.columns = columns;
}
}
Additional information:
I am using:
Oracle's Implementation of the JSF 2.1 Specification
JavaServer Pages API 2.2
Springframework 3.1.2 (incl. spring-context, spring-web)
Glassfish Javax.annotation 3.1.1

Answer 1

The problem is that columns is calculted only once time in the org.primefaces.component.datatable.DataTabe
public List<UIColumn> getColumns() {
// if(columns == null) {
columns = new ArrayList<UIColumn>();
FacesContext context = getFacesContext();
char separator = UINamingContainer.getSeparatorChar(context);
for(UIComponent child : this.getChildren()) {
if(child instanceof Column) {
columns.add((UIColumn) child);
}
else if(child instanceof Columns) {
Columns uiColumns = (Columns) child;
String uiColumnsClientId = uiColumns.getClientId(context);
uiColumns.updateModel(); /* missed code */
for(int i=0; i < uiColumns.getRowCount(); i++) {
DynamicColumn dynaColumn = new DynamicColumn(i, uiColumns);
dynaColumn.setColumnKey(uiColumnsClientId + separator + i);
columns.add(dynaColumn);
}
}
}
// }
return columns;
}
You could comment it and overwrite the class file,
or find the DataTable object and setColumns to NULL inside the createColumns method

Answer 2

Finally I've worked better with debugger and found an answer. Solution was to put createColumns() method call into columns getter getColumns() as it is called automatically before submitSearch(). My problem was in application lifecycle understanding.