I have a value which is stored as an enum that I want to display in a Primefaces datatable with a different value displayed per locale.
This is what I currently have in the data table:
<p:dataTable id="DtSources" var="source" value="#{sourceView.sources}" selection="#{sourceView.selectedSource}" selectionMode="single" scrollable="true" resizableColumns="true" rowKey="#{source.id}">
<f:facet name="header">Sources</f:facet>
<p:column headerText="Type">
<h:outputText value="#{source.type}" /> <!-- This is what I'm trying to fix -->
</p:column>
</p:dataTable>
The problem is the value in #{source.type}. It should display as "Collection" or "Examples" in English and something like "Menge" or "Beispiele" in German and it currently just shows an ugly string representation of the enum like COLLECTION or EXAMPLES.
There has to be a nice way to do this, but I haven't figured it out yet. Also, I don't want to add the logic to the model for obvious reasons.
Hello guys I'm trying to create a data table where people can set a value between 1 and 10 for each row:
<p:dataTable id="coteTable" value="#{editEvaluationView.evaluation.listCote}" var="cote">
<p:column colspan="10">
<p:inputText id="cote_#{cote.critere.code.trim()}"
value="#{cote.valeur}" />
<p:slider minValue="1" maxValue="10"
for="cote_#{cote.critere.code.trim()}" />
</p:column>
<p:column>
<p:inputText id="commmentaire" value="#{cote.observations}" />
</p:column>
</p:dataTable>
But it doesn't recognize the id (cote_CRT001 is the first cote_#{cote.critere.code.trim()} value):
javax.servlet.ServletException: Cannot find component for expression "cote_CRT001" referenced from "formEditEval:coteTable:0:j_idt120".
I really don't know what to try anymore. Does anybody have an idea why it's not working?
A dataTable is a naming container, so components within it will be prepended with the dataTable's id. Also, each iteration of data presented in the table (each row) will have effect of the generated ids. So there is no need for you to try to create unique ids. If you simply use cote of the inputText's id. Since a form is also a naming container, it will be generated as formId:coteTable:0:cote in the first row, formId:coteTable:1:cote in the second row, etc. In your slider you can simply use for="cote" because you are referencing a component in the same naming container.
So, simply write:
<p:dataTable id="coteTable" value="#{editEvaluationView.evaluation.listCote}" var="cote">
<p:column colspan="10">
<p:inputText id="cote" value="#{cote.valeur}" />
<p:slider minValue="1" maxValue="10" for="cote" />
</p:column>
...
</p:dataTable>
See also
How to find out client ID of component for ajax update/render? Cannot find component with expression "foo" referenced from "bar"
The following code is inspired from PrimeFaces DataGrid + DataTable Tutorials and put into a <p:tab> of a <p:tabView> residing in a <p:layoutUnit> of a <p:layout>. Here is the inner part of the code (starting from p:tab component); the outer part is trivial.
<p:tabView id="tabs">
<p:tab id="search" title="Search">
<h:form id="insTable">
<p:dataTable id="table" var="lndInstrument" value="#{instrumentBean.instruments}">
<p:column>
<p:commandLink id="select" update="insTable:display" oncomplete="dlg.show()">
<f:setPropertyActionListener value="#{lndInstrument}"
target="#{instrumentBean.selectedInstrument}" />
<h:outputText value="#{lndInstrument.name}" />
</p:commandLink>
</p:column>
</p:dataTable>
<p:dialog id="dlg" modal="true" widgetVar="dlg">
<h:panelGrid id="display">
<h:outputText value="Name:" />
<h:outputText value="#{instrumentBean.selectedInstrument.name}" />
</h:panelGrid>
</p:dialog>
</h:form>
</p:tab>
</p:tabView>
When I click the <p:commandLink>, the code stops working and gives the message:
Cannot find component with expression "insTable:display" referenced from "tabs:insTable:select".
When I try the same using <f:ajax>, then it fails with a different message basically telling the same:
<f:ajax> contains an unknown id "insTable:display" cannot locate it in the context of the component "tabs:insTable:select"
When it happens during another Ajax postback and the JSF project stage is set to Development, then it fails with a JavaScript alert with the message:
malformedXML: During update: insTable:display not found
How is this caused and how can I solve it?
Look in HTML output for actual client ID
You need to look in the generated HTML output to find out the right client ID. Open the page in browser, do a rightclick and View Source. Locate the HTML representation of the JSF component of interest and take its id as client ID. You can use it in an absolute or relative way depending on the current naming container. See following chapter.
Note: if it happens to contain iteration index like :0:, :1:, etc (because it's inside an iterating component), then you need to realize that updating a specific iteration round is not always supported. See bottom of answer for more detail on that.
Memorize NamingContainer components and always give them a fixed ID
If a component which you'd like to reference by ajax process/execute/update/render is inside the same NamingContainer parent, then just reference its own ID.
<h:form id="form">
<p:commandLink update="result"> <!-- OK! -->
<h:panelGroup id="result" />
</h:form>
If it's not inside the same NamingContainer, then you need to reference it using an absolute client ID. An absolute client ID starts with the NamingContainer separator character, which is by default :.
<h:form id="form">
<p:commandLink update="result"> <!-- FAIL! -->
</h:form>
<h:panelGroup id="result" />
<h:form id="form">
<p:commandLink update=":result"> <!-- OK! -->
</h:form>
<h:panelGroup id="result" />
<h:form id="form">
<p:commandLink update=":result"> <!-- FAIL! -->
</h:form>
<h:form id="otherform">
<h:panelGroup id="result" />
</h:form>
<h:form id="form">
<p:commandLink update=":otherform:result"> <!-- OK! -->
</h:form>
<h:form id="otherform">
<h:panelGroup id="result" />
</h:form>
NamingContainer components are for example <h:form>, <h:dataTable>, <p:tabView>, <cc:implementation> (thus, all composite components), etc. You recognize them easily by looking at the generated HTML output, their ID will be prepended to the generated client ID of all child components. Note that when they don't have a fixed ID, then JSF will use an autogenerated ID in j_idXXX format. You should absolutely avoid that by giving them a fixed ID. The OmniFaces NoAutoGeneratedIdViewHandler may be helpful in this during development.
If you know to find the javadoc of the UIComponent in question, then you can also just check in there whether it implements the NamingContainer interface or not. For example, the HtmlForm (the UIComponent behind <h:form> tag) shows it implements NamingContainer, but the HtmlPanelGroup (the UIComponent behind <h:panelGroup> tag) does not show it, so it does not implement NamingContainer. Here is the javadoc of all standard components and here is the javadoc of PrimeFaces.
Solving your problem
So in your case of:
<p:tabView id="tabs"><!-- This is a NamingContainer -->
<p:tab id="search"><!-- This is NOT a NamingContainer -->
<h:form id="insTable"><!-- This is a NamingContainer -->
<p:dialog id="dlg"><!-- This is NOT a NamingContainer -->
<h:panelGrid id="display">
The generated HTML output of <h:panelGrid id="display"> looks like this:
<table id="tabs:insTable:display">
You need to take exactly that id as client ID and then prefix with : for usage in update:
<p:commandLink update=":tabs:insTable:display">
Referencing outside include/tagfile/composite
If this command link is inside an include/tagfile, and the target is outside it, and thus you don't necessarily know the ID of the naming container parent of the current naming container, then you can dynamically reference it via UIComponent#getNamingContainer() like so:
<p:commandLink update=":#{component.namingContainer.parent.namingContainer.clientId}:display">
Or, if this command link is inside a composite component and the target is outside it:
<p:commandLink update=":#{cc.parent.namingContainer.clientId}:display">
Or, if both the command link and target are inside same composite component:
<p:commandLink update=":#{cc.clientId}:display">
See also Get id of parent naming container in template for in render / update attribute
How does it work under the covers
This all is specified as "search expression" in the UIComponent#findComponent() javadoc:
A search expression consists of either an identifier (which is matched exactly against the id property of a UIComponent, or a series of such identifiers linked by the UINamingContainer#getSeparatorChar character value. The search algorithm should operates as follows, though alternate alogrithms may be used as long as the end result is the same:
Identify the UIComponent that will be the base for searching, by stopping as soon as one of the following conditions is met:
If the search expression begins with the the separator character (called an "absolute" search expression), the base will be the root UIComponent of the component tree. The leading separator character will be stripped off, and the remainder of the search expression will be treated as a "relative" search expression as described below.
Otherwise, if this UIComponent is a NamingContainer it will serve as the basis.
Otherwise, search up the parents of this component. If a NamingContainer is encountered, it will be the base.
Otherwise (if no NamingContainer is encountered) the root UIComponent will be the base.
The search expression (possibly modified in the previous step) is now a "relative" search expression that will be used to locate the component (if any) that has an id that matches, within the scope of the base component. The match is performed as follows:
If the search expression is a simple identifier, this value is compared to the id property, and then recursively through the facets and children of the base UIComponent (except that if a descendant NamingContainer is found, its own facets and children are not searched).
If the search expression includes more than one identifier separated by the separator character, the first identifier is used to locate a NamingContainer by the rules in the previous bullet point. Then, the findComponent() method of this NamingContainer will be called, passing the remainder of the search expression.
Note that PrimeFaces also adheres the JSF spec, but RichFaces uses "some additional exceptions".
"reRender" uses UIComponent.findComponent() algorithm (with some additional exceptions) to find the component in the component tree.
Those additional exceptions are nowhere in detail described, but it's known that relative component IDs (i.e. those not starting with :) are not only searched in the context of the closest parent NamingContainer, but also in all other NamingContainer components in the same view (which is a relatively expensive job by the way).
Never use prependId="false"
If this all still doesn't work, then verify if you aren't using <h:form prependId="false">. This will fail during processing the ajax submit and render. See also this related question: UIForm with prependId="false" breaks <f:ajax render>.
Referencing specific iteration round of iterating components
It was for long time not possible to reference a specific iterated item in iterating components like <ui:repeat> and <h:dataTable> like so:
<h:form id="form">
<ui:repeat id="list" value="#{['one','two','three']}" var="item">
<h:outputText id="item" value="#{item}" /><br/>
</ui:repeat>
<h:commandButton value="Update second item">
<f:ajax render=":form:list:1:item" />
</h:commandButton>
</h:form>
However, since Mojarra 2.2.5 the <f:ajax> started to support it (it simply stopped validating it; thus you would never face the in the question mentioned exception anymore; another enhancement fix is planned for that later).
This only doesn't work yet in current MyFaces 2.2.7 and PrimeFaces 5.2 versions. The support might come in the future versions. In the meanwhile, your best bet is to update the iterating component itself, or a parent in case it doesn't render HTML, like <ui:repeat>.
When using PrimeFaces, consider Search Expressions or Selectors
PrimeFaces Search Expressions allows you to reference components via JSF component tree search expressions. JSF has several builtin:
#this: current component
#form: parent UIForm
#all: entire document
#none: nothing
PrimeFaces has enhanced this with new keywords and composite expression support:
#parent: parent component
#namingcontainer: parent UINamingContainer
#widgetVar(name): component as identified by given widgetVar
You can also mix those keywords in composite expressions such as #form:#parent, #this:#parent:#parent, etc.
PrimeFaces Selectors (PFS) as in #(.someclass) allows you to reference components via jQuery CSS selector syntax. E.g. referencing components having all a common style class in the HTML output. This is particularly helpful in case you need to reference "a lot of" components. This only prerequires that the target components have all a client ID in the HTML output (fixed or autogenerated, doesn't matter). See also How do PrimeFaces Selectors as in update="#(.myClass)" work?
first of all: as far as i know placing dialog inside a tabview is a bad practice... you better take it out...
and now to your question:
sorry, took me some time to get what exactly you wanted to implement,
did at my web app myself just now, and it works
as I sayed before place the p:dialog out side the `p:tabView ,
leave the p:dialog as you initially suggested :
<p:dialog modal="true" widgetVar="dlg">
<h:panelGrid id="display">
<h:outputText value="Name:" />
<h:outputText value="#{instrumentBean.selectedInstrument.name}" />
</h:panelGrid>
</p:dialog>
and the p:commandlink should look like this (all i did is to change the update attribute)
<p:commandLink update="display" oncomplete="dlg.show()">
<f:setPropertyActionListener value="#{lndInstrument}"
target="#{instrumentBean.selectedInstrument}" />
<h:outputText value="#{lndInstrument.name}" />
</p:commandLink>
the same works in my web app, and if it does not work for you , then i guess there is something wrong in your java bean code...
It's because the tab is a naming container aswell... your update should be update="Search:insTable:display" What you can do aswell is just place your dialog outside the form and still inside the tab then it would be: update="Search:display"
Please note that from PrimeFaces 10 and up, you are able to use observer and 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
I know this already has a great answer by BalusC but here is a little trick I use to get the container to tell me the correct clientId.
Remove the update on your component that is not working
Put a temporary component with a bogus update within the component you were trying to update
hit the page, the servlet exception error will tell you the correct client Id you need to reference.
Remove bogus component and put correct clientId in the original update
Here is code example as my words may not describe it best.
<p:tabView id="tabs">
<p:tab id="search" title="Search">
<h:form id="insTable">
<p:dataTable id="table" var="lndInstrument" value="#{instrumentBean.instruments}">
<p:column>
<p:commandLink id="select"
Remove the failing update within this component
oncomplete="dlg.show()">
<f:setPropertyActionListener value="#{lndInstrument}"
target="#{instrumentBean.selectedInstrument}" />
<h:outputText value="#{lndInstrument.name}" />
</p:commandLink>
</p:column>
</p:dataTable>
<p:dialog id="dlg" modal="true" widgetVar="dlg">
<h:panelGrid id="display">
Add a component within the component of the id you are trying to update using an update that will fail
<p:commandButton id="BogusButton" update="BogusUpdate"></p:commandButton>
<h:outputText value="Name:" />
<h:outputText value="#{instrumentBean.selectedInstrument.name}" />
</h:panelGrid>
</p:dialog>
</h:form>
</p:tab>
</p:tabView>
Hit this page and view the error.
The error is:
javax.servlet.ServletException: Cannot find component for expression "BogusUpdate" referenced from
tabs:insTable: BogusButton
So the correct clientId to use would then be the bold plus the id of the target container (display in this case)
tabs:insTable:display
Try change update="insTable:display" to update="display". I believe you cannot prefix the id with the form ID like that.
I have a hierarchical model that is displayed in nested tables for edition:
root (root bean)
+- property1 (property of root)
+- children (collection of child beans)
+- property2 (property of child)
+- subchildren (collection of subchild beans)
+- property3 (property of subchild)
I am running a custom-made validation on my whole model that is adding FacesMessages to the FacesContexton the following paths:
root
root:property1
root:children:0
root:children:0:property2
root:children:0:subchildren:0
root:children:0:subchildren:0:property3
...
root:children:4:subchildren:3:property3
FacesMessages can be bound at every level (root bean, properties, and beans in collections).
The managed bean myBean is holding the root bean of my model which is being edited.
To edit this model, I am using something like this (simplified to the extreme to exhibit the problem I have):
<h:form id="root">
<h:messages for="root">
<h:inputText value="#{myBean.root.property1}" id="property1" />
<h:messages for="property1">
<h:dataTable value="#{myBean.root.children}" var="child" id="children">
<f:facet name="header">children</f:facet>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">*</f:facet>
<h:messages for="children" />
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">property2</f:facet>
<h:inputText value="#{child.property2}" id="property2" />
<h:messages for="property2">
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">subchildren</f:facet>
<h:dataTable value="#{child.subchildren}" var="subchild" id="subchildren">
...
</h:dataTable>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
</h:form>
For simplicity, the first column of the table (*) is used to display validation messages of the current row bean (thus, at the bean level like root:children:0, not on its properties).
When using the standard html taglib (h:dataTable), everything is working, I can see validation messages at every level.
But when I try to use a primefaces table (p:dataTable/p:column/p:messages) instead of (h:dataTable/h:column/h:messages), I can't see validation messages on beans that are in collections:
root:children:0 (not shown)
root:children:0:subchildren:0 (not shown)
Messages linked to properties of those beans are well displayed:
root:children:0:property2 (shown)
root:children:0:subchildren:0:property3 (shown)
If I rewrite my markup with ui:repeat instead of h:dataTable, everything works too so I think the problem is in primefaces.
Maybe I am pushing things a bit too far and got everything working with ui:repeat and h:dataTable by luck but I would like to make it work with primefaces too as I want to use p:rowExpansion.
Is there something I can do to make it work or is it a bug in primefaces?
Thanks for reading my question summoning incantation for the BalusC JSF god up to here! :-)
I am using slightly modified Dynamic Columns from PrimeFaces Showcase: Dynamic columns. Now my task is to add column header grouping as here PrimeFaces Showcase: Group. I am trying to start incrementaly, but even this small code doesn't work (no header are shown):
<p:dataTable id="resultTable" var="result" value="#{myBean.searchResults}">
<p:columnGroup type="header">
<p:row>
<ui:repeat value="#{myBean.columns}" var="column" >
<p:column headerText="#{column.header}" />
</ui:repeat>
</p:row>
</p:columnGroup>
<p:columns value="#{myBean.columns}" var="column" columnIndexVar="colIndex">
<h:outputText value="#{result[column.property]}"/>
</p:columns>
</p:dataTable>
PrimeFaces version 3.4.1
Grouping dynamic columns is at least supported in a newer PF version. But only all columns under the same group. But there must be additional code. Check the showcase link you point to
(Ps, will remove this answer later on, since I interpreted the question wrong