Question

When I click the save button, ‘addCompany’ action is called but when I debug and see the value of instance variable companyName in my backing bean, its showing null. I think I am doing some real silly mistake.

Modal XHTML: Included in form tag of another xhtml.

<ui:composition xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
                    xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
                    xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
                    xmlns:a4j="http://richfaces.org/a4j"
                    xmlns:rich="http://richfaces.org/rich"
                    xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core">

        <rich:modalPanel id="AddDmpCompanyModalId"
                             showWhenRendered="#{companyAdminAction.showAddCompanyModal}"
                             width="500"
                             height="340"
                             autosized="true">

                <f:facet name="header">
                    <h:outputText value="Add Company"/>
                </f:facet>


                <a4j:outputPanel id="addDmpCompanyInputPanel">

                            <label style="font-weight:bold;margin-top:5px">Name: </label>
                            <h:inputText id="companyName"  value="#{companyAdminAction.companyName}"/>

                                <a4j:commandLink id="submit-add-company-name-link"
                                                 immediate="true"
                                                 action="#{companyAdminAction.addCompany()}"
                                                 styleClass="button"
                                                 reRender="AddDmpCompanyModalId,addDmpCompanyInputPanel"
                                                 limitToList="true">
                                    <span class="inner-button">Save</span>
                                </a4j:commandLink>


                </a4j:outputPanel>

            </rich:modalPanel>

    </ui:composition>

Backing Bean (Seam Component)

Name("companyAdminAction")
@Scope(ScopeType.CONVERSATION)
public class CompanyAdmin {

    private String companyName;     

    public String getCompanyName() {
        return companyName;
    }

    public void setCompanyName(String companyName) {
        this.companyName = companyName;
    }

      public void addCompany() {
    // On click of save debugger comes here, but shows the value of          
      //companyName as null 
     }  

}

Answer 1

Yes, the reason is very simple: you’re using immediate=true in your <a4j:commandLink/>. This option makes JSF invoke the addCompany() function BEFORE values are converted and the model updated.

The solution is equally simple: remove the immediate=true attribute from <a4j:commandLink/>.