I am trying to get an h:textInput to rerender on change, I have tried it with a4j:ajax and f:ajax.
When using a4j:ajax:
<h:panelGroup id="xyzPG">
<ui:repeat var="var" ... >
...
<h:inputText id="#{idController.getIdXYZ(var.id)}"
value="#{someModel.value}"
size="3"
styleClass="#{errorController.getErrorStateStyleId(idController.getIdXYZ())}">
<a4j:ajax event="change" render="xyzPG" listener="#{listener.doSomeStuff}" />
</h:inputText>
...
</ui:repeat>
</h:panelGroup>
This works the first time, after the panel has updated the first time it stops updating the modell and the listener isn't called either. However the render is triggered causing the old values to be displayed.
Now when I replace a4j:ajax with f:ajax I get the error message that the id xyzPG cannot be found within xyzInput.
<f:ajax event="change" render="#this" listener="#{listener.doSomeStuff}" />
When I try limiting the rerender to the inputText it always updates the model and the listener is called, however the h:inputText is not rerendered.
I have already tried placing another panelGroup around the inputText but that didn't work either.
The reason why we are not using h:dataTable is because we have to produce a Table with the following layout:
----------------------------
| dataSet1 | dataSet 2 |
----------------------------
| dataSet3 | dataSet 4 |
etc...
Hence we are using the offset and step attributes of ui:repeat.
By design, you can't dynamically generate id attributes using a render-time tag like <ui:repeat/>
Compile-time V Render-time tags
For the purposes of view construction and ajax-updates, the ids of components must be available during view construction before a view is rendered. <ui:repeat/> already caters for uniqueness in the ids of it's child components. But if you require control of the ids, you need to use a compile-time tag handler like <c:forEach/>:
<c:forEach items="#{idController.itemsList}" var="theVar">
<h:inputText id="#{idController.getIdXYZ(theVar.id)}" value="#{someModel.value}" size="3" styleClass="#{errorController.getErrorStateStyleId(idController.getIdXYZ())}">
<a4j:ajax event="change" render="xyzPG" listener="#{listener.doSomeStuff}" />
</h:inputText>
<c:forEach/>
It's unlikely that you'll be able to reach xyzPG from within the <ui:repeat/> because the <ui:repeat/> is also a naming container, just like <h:panelGrid/> and so forth. The ajax update works with Richfaces because they've made special provisions for such use cases. <f:ajax/> however will not tolerate it. xyzPG is outside the scope of the <ui:repeat/> so to reach that component, you need to use a qualified naming convention:
<f:ajax event="change" render=":form1:xyzPG" listener="#{listener.doSomeStuff}"/>
This assumes that xyzPG is directly contained within an <h:form id="form1"/>
without seeing your backing bean code , I think you should use
<h:inputText id="#{idController.idXYZ}"
instead of
<h:inputText id="#{idController.getIdXYZ()}"
Related
What exactly are process and update in PrimeFaces p:commandXxx components and execute and render in f:ajax tag?
Which works at the time of validation? What does update attribute do rather than updating value to component from back end? Do process attribute bind value to model? What exactly do #this, #parent, #all and #form in both attributes?
The example below is working fine, but I am a little confused in basic concepts.
<p:commandButton process="#parent"
update="#form"
action="#{bean.submit}"
value="Submit" />
<p:commandXxx process> <p:ajax process> <f:ajax execute>
The process attribute is server side and can only affect UIComponents implementing EditableValueHolder (input fields) or ActionSource (command fields). The process attribute tells JSF, using a space-separated list of client IDs, which components exactly must be processed through the entire JSF lifecycle upon (partial) form submit.
JSF will then apply the request values (finding HTTP request parameter based on component's own client ID and then either setting it as submitted value in case of EditableValueHolder components or queueing a new ActionEvent in case of ActionSource components), perform conversion, validation and updating the model values (EditableValueHolder components only) and finally invoke the queued ActionEvent (ActionSource components only). JSF will skip processing of all other components which are not covered by process attribute. Also, components whose rendered attribute evaluates to false during apply request values phase will also be skipped as part of safeguard against tampered requests.
Note that it's in case of ActionSource components (such as <p:commandButton>) very important that you also include the component itself in the process attribute, particularly if you intend to invoke the action associated with the component. So the below example which intends to process only certain input component(s) when a certain command component is invoked ain't gonna work:
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" />
<p:commandButton process="foo" action="#{bean.action}" />
It would only process the #{bean.foo} and not the #{bean.action}. You'd need to include the command component itself as well:
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" />
<p:commandButton process="#this foo" action="#{bean.action}" />
Or, as you apparently found out, using #parent if they happen to be the only components having a common parent:
<p:panel><!-- Type doesn't matter, as long as it's a common parent. -->
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" />
<p:commandButton process="#parent" action="#{bean.action}" />
</p:panel>
Or, if they both happen to be the only components of the parent UIForm component, then you can also use #form:
<h:form>
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" />
<p:commandButton process="#form" action="#{bean.action}" />
</h:form>
This is sometimes undesirable if the form contains more input components which you'd like to skip in processing, more than often in cases when you'd like to update another input component(s) or some UI section based on the current input component in an ajax listener method. You namely don't want that validation errors on other input components are preventing the ajax listener method from being executed.
Then there's the #all. This has no special effect in process attribute, but only in update attribute. A process="#all" behaves exactly the same as process="#form". HTML doesn't support submitting multiple forms at once anyway.
There's by the way also a #none which may be useful in case you absolutely don't need to process anything, but only want to update some specific parts via update, particularly those sections whose content doesn't depend on submitted values or action listeners.
Noted should be that the process attribute has no influence on the HTTP request payload (the amount of request parameters). Meaning, the default HTML behavior of sending "everything" contained within the HTML representation of the <h:form> will be not be affected. In case you have a large form, and want to reduce the HTTP request payload to only these absolutely necessary in processing, i.e. only these covered by process attribute, then you can set the partialSubmit attribute in PrimeFaces Ajax components as in <p:commandXxx ... partialSubmit="true"> or <p:ajax ... partialSubmit="true">. You can also configure this 'globally' by editing web.xml and add
<context-param>
<param-name>primefaces.SUBMIT</param-name>
<param-value>partial</param-value>
</context-param>
Alternatively, you can also use <o:form> of OmniFaces 3.0+ which defaults to this behavior.
The standard JSF equivalent to the PrimeFaces specific process is execute from <f:ajax execute>. It behaves exactly the same except that it doesn't support a comma-separated string while the PrimeFaces one does (although I personally recommend to just stick to space-separated convention), nor the #parent keyword. Also, it may be useful to know that <p:commandXxx process> defaults to #form while <p:ajax process> and <f:ajax execute> defaults to #this. Finally, it's also useful to know that process supports the so-called "PrimeFaces Selectors", see also How do PrimeFaces Selectors as in update="#(.myClass)" work?
<p:commandXxx update> <p:ajax update> <f:ajax render>
The update attribute is client side and can affect the HTML representation of all UIComponents. The update attribute tells JavaScript (the one responsible for handling the ajax request/response), using a space-separated list of client IDs, which parts in the HTML DOM tree need to be updated as response to the form submit.
JSF will then prepare the right ajax response for that, containing only the requested parts to update. JSF will skip all other components which are not covered by update attribute in the ajax response, hereby keeping the response payload small. Also, components whose rendered attribute evaluates to false during render response phase will be skipped. Note that even though it would return true, JavaScript cannot update it in the HTML DOM tree if it was initially false. You'd need to wrap it or update its parent instead. See also Ajax update/render does not work on a component which has rendered attribute.
Usually, you'd like to update only the components which really need to be "refreshed" in the client side upon (partial) form submit. The example below updates the entire parent form via #form:
<h:form>
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" required="true" />
<p:message id="foo_m" for="foo" />
<p:inputText id="bar" value="#{bean.bar}" required="true" />
<p:message id="bar_m" for="bar" />
<p:commandButton action="#{bean.action}" update="#form" />
</h:form>
(note that process attribute is omitted as that defaults to #form already)
Whilst that may work fine, the update of input and command components is in this particular example unnecessary. Unless you change the model values foo and bar inside action method (which would in turn be unintuitive in UX perspective), there's no point of updating them. The message components are the only which really need to be updated:
<h:form>
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" required="true" />
<p:message id="foo_m" for="foo" />
<p:inputText id="bar" value="#{bean.bar}" required="true" />
<p:message id="bar_m" for="bar" />
<p:commandButton action="#{bean.action}" update="foo_m bar_m" />
</h:form>
However, that gets tedious when you have many of them. That's one of the reasons why PrimeFaces Selectors exist. Those message components have in the generated HTML output a common style class of ui-message, so the following should also do:
<h:form>
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" required="true" />
<p:message id="foo_m" for="foo" />
<p:inputText id="bar" value="#{bean.bar}" required="true" />
<p:message id="bar_m" for="bar" />
<p:commandButton action="#{bean.action}" update="#(.ui-message)" />
</h:form>
(note that you should keep the IDs on message components, otherwise #(...) won't work! Again, see How do PrimeFaces Selectors as in update="#(.myClass)" work? for detail)
The #parent updates only the parent component, which thus covers the current component and all siblings and their children. This is more useful if you have separated the form in sane groups with each its own responsibility. The #this updates, obviously, only the current component. Normally, this is only necessary when you need to change one of the component's own HTML attributes in the action method. E.g.
<p:commandButton action="#{bean.action}" update="#this"
oncomplete="doSomething('#{bean.value}')" />
Imagine that the oncomplete needs to work with the value which is changed in action, then this construct wouldn't have worked if the component isn't updated, for the simple reason that oncomplete is part of generated HTML output (and thus all EL expressions in there are evaluated during render response).
The #all updates the entire document, which should be used with care. Normally, you'd like to use a true GET request for this instead by either a plain link (<a> or <h:link>) or a redirect-after-POST by ?faces-redirect=true or ExternalContext#redirect(). In effects, process="#form" update="#all" has exactly the same effect as a non-ajax (non-partial) submit. In my entire JSF career, the only sensible use case I encountered for #all is to display an error page in its entirety in case an exception occurs during an ajax request. See also What is the correct way to deal with JSF 2.0 exceptions for AJAXified components?
The standard JSF equivalent to the PrimeFaces specific update is render from <f:ajax render>. It behaves exactly the same except that it doesn't support a comma-separated string while the PrimeFaces one does (although I personally recommend to just stick to space-separated convention), nor the #parent keyword. Both update and render defaults to #none (which is, "nothing").
See also:
How to find out client ID of component for ajax update/render? Cannot find component with expression "foo" referenced from "bar"
Execution order of events when pressing PrimeFaces p:commandButton
How to decrease request payload of p:ajax during e.g. p:dataTable pagination
How to show details of current row from p:dataTable in a p:dialog and update after save
How to use <h:form> in JSF page? Single form? Multiple forms? Nested forms?
If you have a hard time remembering the default values (I know I have...) here's a short extract from BalusC's answer:
Component
Submit
Refresh
f:ajax
execute="#this"
render="#none"
p:ajax
process="#this"
update="#none"
p:commandXXX
process="#form"
update="#none"
By process (in the JSF specification it's called execute) you tell JSF to limit the processing to component that are specified every thing else is just ignored.
update indicates which element will be updated when the server respond back to you request.
#all : Every component is processed/rendered.
#this: The requesting component with the execute attribute is processed/rendered.
#form : The form that contains the requesting component is processed/rendered.
#parent: The parent that contains the requesting component is processed/rendered.
With Primefaces you can even use JQuery selectors, check out this blog: http://blog.primefaces.org/?p=1867
JSF 2.0+ keywords
#this Current component.
#all Whole view.
#form Closest ancestor form of current component.
#none No component.
JSF 2.3+ keywords
#child(n) nth child.
#composite Closest composite component ancestor.
#id(id) Used to search components by their id ignoring the component tree structure and naming containers.
#namingcontainer Closest ancestor naming container of current component.
#parent Parent of the current component.
#previous Previous sibling.
#next Next sibling.
#root UIViewRoot instance of the view, can be used to start searching from the root instead the current component.
PrimeFaces specific keywords
#row(n) nth row.
#widgetVar(name) Component with given widgetVar.
And you can even use something called "PrimeFaces Selectors" which allows you to use jQuery Selector API. For example to process all inputs in a element with the CSS class myClass:
process="#(.myClass :input)"
See:
https://primefaces.github.io/primefaces/12_0_0/#/core/searchexpression
PrimeFaces 10+ Observer / Event
This allows you to update components based on a custom event name, set by the #obs(event) keyword. For example:
<p:commandButton update="#obs(myEvent)"/>
<h:panelGroup>
<p:autoUpdate on="myEvent"/>
</h:panelGroup>
See:
https://www.primefaces.org/showcase/ui/ajax/observer.xhtml
These are PrimeFaces features to provide partial view processing and partial rendering. You can control what to execute in lifecycle and what to render with ajax.
When using backing bean properties in expression language
process attribute calls SETTER methods
update attribute calls GETTER methods
primefaces forum
What exactly are process and update in PrimeFaces p:commandXxx components and execute and render in f:ajax tag?
Which works at the time of validation? What does update attribute do rather than updating value to component from back end? Do process attribute bind value to model? What exactly do #this, #parent, #all and #form in both attributes?
The example below is working fine, but I am a little confused in basic concepts.
<p:commandButton process="#parent"
update="#form"
action="#{bean.submit}"
value="Submit" />
<p:commandXxx process> <p:ajax process> <f:ajax execute>
The process attribute is server side and can only affect UIComponents implementing EditableValueHolder (input fields) or ActionSource (command fields). The process attribute tells JSF, using a space-separated list of client IDs, which components exactly must be processed through the entire JSF lifecycle upon (partial) form submit.
JSF will then apply the request values (finding HTTP request parameter based on component's own client ID and then either setting it as submitted value in case of EditableValueHolder components or queueing a new ActionEvent in case of ActionSource components), perform conversion, validation and updating the model values (EditableValueHolder components only) and finally invoke the queued ActionEvent (ActionSource components only). JSF will skip processing of all other components which are not covered by process attribute. Also, components whose rendered attribute evaluates to false during apply request values phase will also be skipped as part of safeguard against tampered requests.
Note that it's in case of ActionSource components (such as <p:commandButton>) very important that you also include the component itself in the process attribute, particularly if you intend to invoke the action associated with the component. So the below example which intends to process only certain input component(s) when a certain command component is invoked ain't gonna work:
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" />
<p:commandButton process="foo" action="#{bean.action}" />
It would only process the #{bean.foo} and not the #{bean.action}. You'd need to include the command component itself as well:
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" />
<p:commandButton process="#this foo" action="#{bean.action}" />
Or, as you apparently found out, using #parent if they happen to be the only components having a common parent:
<p:panel><!-- Type doesn't matter, as long as it's a common parent. -->
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" />
<p:commandButton process="#parent" action="#{bean.action}" />
</p:panel>
Or, if they both happen to be the only components of the parent UIForm component, then you can also use #form:
<h:form>
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" />
<p:commandButton process="#form" action="#{bean.action}" />
</h:form>
This is sometimes undesirable if the form contains more input components which you'd like to skip in processing, more than often in cases when you'd like to update another input component(s) or some UI section based on the current input component in an ajax listener method. You namely don't want that validation errors on other input components are preventing the ajax listener method from being executed.
Then there's the #all. This has no special effect in process attribute, but only in update attribute. A process="#all" behaves exactly the same as process="#form". HTML doesn't support submitting multiple forms at once anyway.
There's by the way also a #none which may be useful in case you absolutely don't need to process anything, but only want to update some specific parts via update, particularly those sections whose content doesn't depend on submitted values or action listeners.
Noted should be that the process attribute has no influence on the HTTP request payload (the amount of request parameters). Meaning, the default HTML behavior of sending "everything" contained within the HTML representation of the <h:form> will be not be affected. In case you have a large form, and want to reduce the HTTP request payload to only these absolutely necessary in processing, i.e. only these covered by process attribute, then you can set the partialSubmit attribute in PrimeFaces Ajax components as in <p:commandXxx ... partialSubmit="true"> or <p:ajax ... partialSubmit="true">. You can also configure this 'globally' by editing web.xml and add
<context-param>
<param-name>primefaces.SUBMIT</param-name>
<param-value>partial</param-value>
</context-param>
Alternatively, you can also use <o:form> of OmniFaces 3.0+ which defaults to this behavior.
The standard JSF equivalent to the PrimeFaces specific process is execute from <f:ajax execute>. It behaves exactly the same except that it doesn't support a comma-separated string while the PrimeFaces one does (although I personally recommend to just stick to space-separated convention), nor the #parent keyword. Also, it may be useful to know that <p:commandXxx process> defaults to #form while <p:ajax process> and <f:ajax execute> defaults to #this. Finally, it's also useful to know that process supports the so-called "PrimeFaces Selectors", see also How do PrimeFaces Selectors as in update="#(.myClass)" work?
<p:commandXxx update> <p:ajax update> <f:ajax render>
The update attribute is client side and can affect the HTML representation of all UIComponents. The update attribute tells JavaScript (the one responsible for handling the ajax request/response), using a space-separated list of client IDs, which parts in the HTML DOM tree need to be updated as response to the form submit.
JSF will then prepare the right ajax response for that, containing only the requested parts to update. JSF will skip all other components which are not covered by update attribute in the ajax response, hereby keeping the response payload small. Also, components whose rendered attribute evaluates to false during render response phase will be skipped. Note that even though it would return true, JavaScript cannot update it in the HTML DOM tree if it was initially false. You'd need to wrap it or update its parent instead. See also Ajax update/render does not work on a component which has rendered attribute.
Usually, you'd like to update only the components which really need to be "refreshed" in the client side upon (partial) form submit. The example below updates the entire parent form via #form:
<h:form>
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" required="true" />
<p:message id="foo_m" for="foo" />
<p:inputText id="bar" value="#{bean.bar}" required="true" />
<p:message id="bar_m" for="bar" />
<p:commandButton action="#{bean.action}" update="#form" />
</h:form>
(note that process attribute is omitted as that defaults to #form already)
Whilst that may work fine, the update of input and command components is in this particular example unnecessary. Unless you change the model values foo and bar inside action method (which would in turn be unintuitive in UX perspective), there's no point of updating them. The message components are the only which really need to be updated:
<h:form>
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" required="true" />
<p:message id="foo_m" for="foo" />
<p:inputText id="bar" value="#{bean.bar}" required="true" />
<p:message id="bar_m" for="bar" />
<p:commandButton action="#{bean.action}" update="foo_m bar_m" />
</h:form>
However, that gets tedious when you have many of them. That's one of the reasons why PrimeFaces Selectors exist. Those message components have in the generated HTML output a common style class of ui-message, so the following should also do:
<h:form>
<p:inputText id="foo" value="#{bean.foo}" required="true" />
<p:message id="foo_m" for="foo" />
<p:inputText id="bar" value="#{bean.bar}" required="true" />
<p:message id="bar_m" for="bar" />
<p:commandButton action="#{bean.action}" update="#(.ui-message)" />
</h:form>
(note that you should keep the IDs on message components, otherwise #(...) won't work! Again, see How do PrimeFaces Selectors as in update="#(.myClass)" work? for detail)
The #parent updates only the parent component, which thus covers the current component and all siblings and their children. This is more useful if you have separated the form in sane groups with each its own responsibility. The #this updates, obviously, only the current component. Normally, this is only necessary when you need to change one of the component's own HTML attributes in the action method. E.g.
<p:commandButton action="#{bean.action}" update="#this"
oncomplete="doSomething('#{bean.value}')" />
Imagine that the oncomplete needs to work with the value which is changed in action, then this construct wouldn't have worked if the component isn't updated, for the simple reason that oncomplete is part of generated HTML output (and thus all EL expressions in there are evaluated during render response).
The #all updates the entire document, which should be used with care. Normally, you'd like to use a true GET request for this instead by either a plain link (<a> or <h:link>) or a redirect-after-POST by ?faces-redirect=true or ExternalContext#redirect(). In effects, process="#form" update="#all" has exactly the same effect as a non-ajax (non-partial) submit. In my entire JSF career, the only sensible use case I encountered for #all is to display an error page in its entirety in case an exception occurs during an ajax request. See also What is the correct way to deal with JSF 2.0 exceptions for AJAXified components?
The standard JSF equivalent to the PrimeFaces specific update is render from <f:ajax render>. It behaves exactly the same except that it doesn't support a comma-separated string while the PrimeFaces one does (although I personally recommend to just stick to space-separated convention), nor the #parent keyword. Both update and render defaults to #none (which is, "nothing").
See also:
How to find out client ID of component for ajax update/render? Cannot find component with expression "foo" referenced from "bar"
Execution order of events when pressing PrimeFaces p:commandButton
How to decrease request payload of p:ajax during e.g. p:dataTable pagination
How to show details of current row from p:dataTable in a p:dialog and update after save
How to use <h:form> in JSF page? Single form? Multiple forms? Nested forms?
If you have a hard time remembering the default values (I know I have...) here's a short extract from BalusC's answer:
Component
Submit
Refresh
f:ajax
execute="#this"
render="#none"
p:ajax
process="#this"
update="#none"
p:commandXXX
process="#form"
update="#none"
By process (in the JSF specification it's called execute) you tell JSF to limit the processing to component that are specified every thing else is just ignored.
update indicates which element will be updated when the server respond back to you request.
#all : Every component is processed/rendered.
#this: The requesting component with the execute attribute is processed/rendered.
#form : The form that contains the requesting component is processed/rendered.
#parent: The parent that contains the requesting component is processed/rendered.
With Primefaces you can even use JQuery selectors, check out this blog: http://blog.primefaces.org/?p=1867
JSF 2.0+ keywords
#this Current component.
#all Whole view.
#form Closest ancestor form of current component.
#none No component.
JSF 2.3+ keywords
#child(n) nth child.
#composite Closest composite component ancestor.
#id(id) Used to search components by their id ignoring the component tree structure and naming containers.
#namingcontainer Closest ancestor naming container of current component.
#parent Parent of the current component.
#previous Previous sibling.
#next Next sibling.
#root UIViewRoot instance of the view, can be used to start searching from the root instead the current component.
PrimeFaces specific keywords
#row(n) nth row.
#widgetVar(name) Component with given widgetVar.
And you can even use something called "PrimeFaces Selectors" which allows you to use jQuery Selector API. For example to process all inputs in a element with the CSS class myClass:
process="#(.myClass :input)"
See:
https://primefaces.github.io/primefaces/12_0_0/#/core/searchexpression
PrimeFaces 10+ Observer / Event
This allows you to update components based on a custom event name, set by the #obs(event) keyword. For example:
<p:commandButton update="#obs(myEvent)"/>
<h:panelGroup>
<p:autoUpdate on="myEvent"/>
</h:panelGroup>
See:
https://www.primefaces.org/showcase/ui/ajax/observer.xhtml
These are PrimeFaces features to provide partial view processing and partial rendering. You can control what to execute in lifecycle and what to render with ajax.
When using backing bean properties in expression language
process attribute calls SETTER methods
update attribute calls GETTER methods
primefaces forum
I have an h:dataTable inside of an h:form, where each row has it's own h:commandButton type="submit" action="#{bean.saveChanges(item)}".
f:inputs are declared as required and they also need to match a pattern.
If every input is in the right format, then it works fine.
Otherwise it needs only one input to be wrong and an updating function on a commandButton corresponding to a completely different item in another row seems not to be called, therefore not updated in the database.
Also only the wrong row's validation message is displayed and the changes are maintained in the view by a (backing Spring view scoped) bean, so the user might actually think, that the initial row was indeed updated in the database too.
Is there a way, how to separate individual rows of the h:dataTable, so that the validation messages of another row does not stop other items from being updated by the method of a (Spring/backing) bean?
Use ajax to process/execute only the current row. You can achieve that by explicitly specifying the client IDs of the input components in <f:ajax execute>.
<h:form>
<h:dataTable ...>
<h:column>
<h:inputText id="foo" ... />
</h:column>
<h:column>
<h:inputText id="bar" ... />
</h:column>
<h:column>
<h:inputText id="baz" ... />
</h:column>
<h:column>
<h:commandButton ...>
<f:ajax execute="foo bar baz #this" ... />
</h:commandButton>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
</h:form>
This won't process the inputs in other rows. Use if necessary <f:ajax render> to update the <h:message(s)> associated with the inputs.
See also:
Understanding PrimeFaces process/update and JSF f:ajax execute/render attributes
The required on the input cause the Process validation to fail and the render response to be invoked.
A simple solution could be You could remove the required from the input and handle the case in you managed bean. Since the action would move on till Phase 5: Invoke application the valid data can be saved. For all invalid rows highlight the row by having a boolean in you data model.
I have the following code in an xhtml page in JSF 2. But when the page loads I get an javascript error that
document.getElementById("country") is null or not an object.
Why is this happening?
<h:form>
<h:panelGrid columns="2">
Selected country locale :
<h:inputText id="country" value="#{country.localeCode}" size="20" />
Select a country {method binding}:
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{country.localeCode}" onchange="submit()"
valueChangeListener="#{country.countryLocaleCodeChanged}">
<f:selectItems value="#{country.countryInMap}" />
</h:selectOneMenu>
<script>
alert("hi");
document.getElementById("country").disabled=true;
</script>
</h:panelGrid>
</h:form>
It's not finding your component. Since your <h:inputText> is inside of an <h:form> the id will have the following pattern
formName:componentName. Since you did not specify an id for <h:form>, JSF will generate one for you. That's why you are seeing j_id1926454887_72d35e53:country where j_id1926454887_72d35e53 is the form id. If you want to deal with simpler id, then you should add an id value to your <h:form>. For example
<h:form id="form">
<h:inputText id="country" value="#{country.localeCode}" size="20" />
</h:form>
The id for <h:inputText> will now be form:country.
Even simpler, you could simply add prependId = "false" to your form
<h:form prependId="false">
and now your id for <h:inputText> will simply be country.
How can I get this id dynamically?
I'm going to modify your code slightly to achieve what you want (I'm thinking that you want to disable the input based on a specific event). Consider this simpler example
<h:form>
<h:inputText id="country" value="#{country.localeCode}" size="20" onclick="disableInputText(this.form)" />
</h:form>
Here I'm attaching a javascript function to an HTML DOM Event handler. In this case, I want the input to be disabled when I click on it (hence onclick). I'm also passing the form as a reference in the function. Then, define your Javascript like this.
<script>
function disableInputText(form) {
form[form.id + ":country"].disabled = true;
}
</script>
We simply grab the input in the javascript with the corresponding id via the object form and set its disabled attribute to true. (You can sort of view the form object as Map).
Also check the link below for more attributes of <h:inputText> and the different handlers you can use (the ones with on as prefix).
inputText Tag Attribute.
Also, check out the answer with the most votes to get a bigger picture on how ids are generated and other ways on how they can be determined.
How can I know the id of a JSF component so I can use in Javascript
It's seems to be a naming issue. the id of the field is not rendered as country.
i found a question that seems relevant. Composite components & ID
want to create textbox on the fly is it possible?
Select Report to run:
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{reportBean.selectReport}">
<f:selectItems value = "#{reportBean.allReports}" />
<f:ajax listener="#{reportBean.getReqID}" render="reqID"> </f:ajax>
</h:selectOneMenu>
Seems like you want to show/hide the <h:inputText> based on the selected value on your <h:selectOneMenu>. Yes, this can be easily achieved with plain JSF.
Note that if you use set the rendered attribute as false the component won't appear in the component tree, so there will be no way it can't be referenced for any call (not even ajax calls). In order to update it, you should wrap the component inside another component like <h:panelGroup> and render the wrapper. Basic example:
<h:form id="frmRep">
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{reportBean.selectReport}">
<f:selectItems value = "#{reportBean.allReports}" />
<!--
assuming your reportBean.getReqID method will change the value of
reportBean.showReqID attribute to render/not render it and works well
-->
<f:ajax listener="#{reportBean.getReqID}" render="pnlRepName" />
</h:selectOneMenu>
<h:panelGroup id="pnlRepName">
<h:inputText id="reqID" rendered="#{reportBean.showReqID}"
value="#{reportBean.reportName}" />
<h:panelGroup>
</h:form>
For this specific requirement instead, I won't recommend using an ajax call since it has to go to the server to only check if the component should or should not be showed to the user. I would opt for a JavaScript solution to handle this just on client side.