getAsObject not called - jsf

Question

What I am trying to do is that I am taking timeMillis property that stores time in millisecond(that I got my using System.currentTimeMillis()) and convert it to equivalent days,hours,mins and seconds after substracting it from the current time. The main problem is that whenever the converter timeConverter
is called only getAsString function is invoked , getAsObject is not invoked.
Here is the part of my xhtml file which causing the converter to not run properly.
<c:forEach var="p" items="#{statusBean.statusList}">
<h:form>
<div class="status">
<h:commandLink action="#{friendBean.gotoFriendProfile(p.email)}">
<img src="../images/profilePicture/#{p.picture}" style="height: 29px; width: 29px; "/>
<h:outputText value="#{p.statusBy}:"/>
</h:commandLink>
<h:outputText value="#{p.statusmsg}"/>
<h:outputText value="#{p.timeMillis}">
<f:converter converterId="timeConverter"/>
</h:outputText>
<br/>
<c:forEach var="q" items="#{statusBean.commentList(p.statusId)}">
<div class="barcomment">
<br/>
<h:commandLink action="#{friendBean.gotoFriendProfile(q.email)}">
<img src="../images/profilePicture/#{q.picture}" style="height: 29px; width: 29px; "/>
<h:outputText value="#{q.commentBy}:"/>
</h:commandLink>
<h:outputText value=" #{q.comment}"/>
</div>
</c:forEach>
<br/>
<div class="comment">
<p:inputText value="#{statusBean.comment.comment}" styleClass="box" />
<p:commandLink value="Views" action="#{statusBean.update(p.statusId)}" ajax="false" styleClass="link"/>
</div>
Here is the timeConverter class that I have written.
package com.converter;
import javax.faces.component.UIComponent;
import javax.faces.context.FacesContext;
import javax.faces.convert.Converter;
public class TimeConverter implements Converter {
#Override
public Object getAsObject(FacesContext arg0, UIComponent arg1, String arg2) {
System.out.println("inside getAsObject");
long time=Integer.parseInt(arg2);
long currentTime=System.currentTimeMillis();
long eclapseTime=time-currentTime;
long secs=eclapseTime/1000;
long days=secs/(60*60*24);
long hours=(secs%(60*60*24))/60*60;
long mins=(secs%(60*60*24)%(60*60))/60;
long secs2=(secs%(60*60*24)%(60*60)%(60));
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
sb.append(days).append("days").append(hours).append("hours").append(mins).append("mins").append(secs2).append("secs");
String object1 = sb.toString();
return object1;
}
#Override
public String getAsString(FacesContext context, UIComponent component,
Object value) {
System.out.println("inside getAsString");
String value1 = value.toString();
return value1;
}
}

Answer 1

Why exactly is that a problem?
You're only using the converter here in an UIOutput component:
<h:outputText value="#{p.timeMillis}">
<f:converter converterId="timeConverter"/>
</h:outputText>
The getAsString() is been called to convert the Object model value to a String which can be embedded in the generated HTML output (you know, you can't put Java objects plainly in a HTML string).
However, you're nowhere using it in an UIInput component like <h:inputText>, so there is no means of a submitted String value which needs to be converted to the desired Object in the model, so the getAsObject() will obviously never be called.
Everything is working as designed. It look like that your concrete problem is that you should actually perform the job which you did in getAsObject() in the getAsString() instead.
I think that it would help if you give the methods a bit more sensible argument names:
#Override
public String getAsString(FacesContext context, UIComponent component, Object modelValue) throws ConverterException {
    // Write code here which converts the model value to display value.
// This method will be used when generating HTML output.
}
#Override
public Object getAsObject(FacesContext context, UIComponent component, String submittedValue) throws ConverterException {
    // Write code here which converts the submitted value to model value.
    // This method will be used when processing submitted input values.
}