Question

I’m trying to figure out why an f:attribute tag’s value isn’t passed when attached to h:inputSecret tag. I’m quite new to jsf, but as far as I know attributes can be attached to any kind of component. Here is the code:

    <h:inputSecret id="passw" value="#{advertAdder.userPass}" 
                   required="true" validator="#{advertAdder.validatePasswords}">
        <f:attribute name="confirmedPass" value="#{advertAdder.passConfirmator.value}"/>
    </h:inputSecret>

    <h:inputSecret id="passwConfirm" required="true" 
                   binding="#{advertAdder.passConfirmator}"/>

and the method that wants to acces this attribute:

public void validatePasswords(FacesContext context, UIComponent component, Object value)
    {
        if (!value.equals(component.getAttributes().get("confirmedPass")))
        {
            FacesMessage mess = new FacesMessage("Password and it's confirmation are not the same!");
            context.addMessage(component.getClientId(context), mess);
            ((UIInput) component).setValid(false);
        }

    }

In above code component.getAttributes() always returns map with only two attributes:
javax.faces.component.VIEW_LOCATION_KEY and com.sun.faces.facelets.MARK_ID.

I’ve added attribute tag to a h:commandButton to check it, and then everything was fine. Am I missing something or it’s not possible to add an attribute to non-action tag?
I’m using Mojarra 2.0.2 and Glassfish 3.0.1.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Input components are processed in the order as they appear in the component tree. The UIInput#getValue() is only available when the component is already been processed. Otherwise you need to use UIInput#getSubmittedValue() instead.

<f:attribute name="confirmedPass" value="#{advertAdder.passConfirmator.submittedValue}"/>

Note that this gives you the unconverted and unvalidated value back. It would make somewhat more sense to put the validator on the confirm password field instead and pass the value of the first password field along. See also JSF Validator compare to Strings for Equality and JSF doesn't support cross-field validation, is there a workaround?

Alternatively, you can also try out the OmniFaces <o:validateEqual> component. You can find a concrete example in this article.

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Unrelated to the concrete problem, it’s unnecessary to bind the component to the bean this way. Replace all occurrences of #{advertAdder.passConfirmator} by #{passConfirmator}. Keep the controller free of properties which are never internally used.