Question

Given a class A:

public class A {
    private String foo;

    //getter, setters etc...

}

can one reference the foo property if an A object itself is exposed as property in a managed bean, e.g:

@ManagedBean
public class SomeBean {
    private A a;

    //getter, setters etc...

}

#{someBean.a.foo}

Answer 1

Indeed, it will work. Both for setting and obtaining the value. An input such as:

<h:inputText value="#{someBean.a.foo}" />

will both obtain the value to display it and set the new defined value by doing either

beanInstance.getA().getFoo();

or

beanInstance.getA().setFoo("newValue");

Just take into account that for this to work and avoid getting a NullPointerException, getA() cannot return null, meaning that your a object must be instantiated.