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'm trying to change an JSF 1.1 page to conditionally hide parts of the page. The page is built using intermixed raw HTML and tags. Specifically I have the following:
<table>
<tr>
<td>Foo</td>
<td><h:inputText ... /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Bar</td>
<td><h:inputText ... /></td>
</tr>
<!-- more stuff, including <h:dataTable>
</table>
I would like to wrap this in a tag that conditionally hides this entire table, but I cannot seem to figure it out. Here's what I've tried:
Wrap the markup in a <h:panelGroup rendered="...">. While this correct shows/hides the markup, all raw the HTML is stripped from the generated HTML.
Wrap the markup in a <f:verbatim>. This does not work as the verbatim tag does not have a rendered attribute in JSF 1.1
Wrap the whole thing in a <h:panelGroup rendered="..."><f:verbatim> combo. This has the same effect as the first attempt.
I've also tried <f:view> and <f:subview> to no avail.
I know that it is possible to include JSTL tags in a JSF page and use <c:if> but I would like to avoid this situation. Any ideas?
NOTE: I realize that it is (by some at least) considered bad practice to mix HTML and JSF, however this page was created by someone else, I just have to modify it (its a somewhat large page and the HTML above is just a small snippet from it)..
Either replace <table> by <h:panelGrid>.
<h:panelGrid columns="2">
<h:outputText value="Foo" />
<h:inputText ... />
<h:outputText value="Bar" />
<h:inputText ... />
<!-- more stuff, including <h:dataTable>
</h:panelGrid>
Or make use of CSS display:none/block:
<table style="display: ${some condition ? 'none' : 'block'};">
Or just upgrade to JSF 1.2. Technically, a JSF 1.1 web application can easily be upgraded to JSF 1.2 without any code changes. It's only a matter of updating the JARs and changing the faces-config.xml root declaration to replace the JSF 1.1 DTD by a JSF 1.2 XSD. JSF 1.2 comes with an improved view handler which kills the <f:verbatim> nightmare (i.e. it is not needed anymore). It also comes with many, many bugfixes and performance enhancements you'd be very thankful for.
Unrelated to the concrete problem, as to your statement that mixing HTML and JSF is a bad practice, this isn't necessarily true. At least not since JSF 1.2 anymore. On JSF 1.0/1.1 you'd need to use <f:verbatim> which is in turn indeed a pain to develop/maintain. This caused the wrong myth that mixing JSF/HTML is "bad". See also What are the main disadvantages of Java Server Faces 2.0? for a bit of history on that.
I have this piece of code:
<c:if test="#{utils.getCounterOfCharOccurence(hideTypes, ';') != 0}">
<ui:repeat value="#{document.instanceList}" var="instance">
<c:set var="columnRendered" value="true"></c:set>
<c:forEach items="${hideTypes.split(';')}"
var="hideType">
<h:outputText value="#{hideType eq instance.documentInstanceType.mimeType}"/>
<c:if test="#{hideType eq instance.documentInstanceType.mimeType}">
<c:set var="columnRendered" value="false"></c:set>
<h:outputText value="#{columnRendered}|"/>
</c:if>
</c:forEach>
<a:outputPanel rendered="#{columnRendered == 'true'}">
<up:mimeTypeIcon type="#{instance.documentInstanceType.mimeType}"
icon="#{instance.documentInstanceType.iconPath}"
key="#{instance.instanceKey}" referenced="false"/>
</a:outputPanel>
</ui:repeat>
</c:if>
As you see, i render that outputPanel only when columnRendered is true.
Well, there are situations when this (used only for tests to approve what it should do):
<h:outputText value="#{hideType eq instance.documentInstanceType.mimeType}"/>
is true so it should enter in c:if and switch columnRendered to false. But it doesn't, so columnRendered is true forever...
Do you know why?
JSF and JSTL doesn't run in sync as you'd expect from the coding. JSTL runs during build time of the view (when the JSF component tree is to be populated) and JSF runs during render time of the view component tree (when HTML output is to be generated). You can visualize it as follows: JSTL runs first from top to bottom and then hands over the result to JSF which in turn runs from top to bottom again.
In your particular case, the object instance is never present in JSTL.
Instead of c:forEach, you should use ui:repeat and instead of c:if you should use JSF component's rendered attribute. I'd like to give a rewrite of the code, but the usage of hideTypes is a mess. Rather convert it to a List<String> in the model and it'll be much easier to do with pure JSF. Here's a kickoff example assuming that hideTypes is a List<String>:
<h:panelGroup rendered="#{not empty hideTypes}">
<ui:repeat value="#{document.instanceList}" var="instance">
<a:outputPanel rendered="#{!hideTypes.contains(instance.documentInstanceType.mimeType)}">
<up:mimeTypeIcon type="#{instance.documentInstanceType.mimeType}"
icon="#{instance.documentInstanceType.iconPath}"
key="#{instance.instanceKey}" referenced="false"/>
</a:outputPanel>
</ui:repeat>
<h:panelGroup>
EDIT
Cant seem to get rendered to work correctly with update attributes. Here is my codes
<ui:define name="left">
<h:form>
<p:commandLink value="Hey"
actionListener="#{bean.setRenderComment}"
update="comment"/>
</h:form>
</ui:define>
<ui:define name="right">
<h:panelGroup id="comment" rendered="#{bean.renderComment}">
hello
</h:panelGroup>
</ui:define>
renderComment is a boolean attributes inside bean. setRenderComment basically toggle the state of renderComment like this
this.renderComment = !this.renderComment;
Right, every time I click on the link Hey, I need to refresh to either render hello on or off. How can I fix it, so that I dont need to refresh
I am not using Primefaces but Richfaces on my projects. So I am not really aware on how the refresh process is done by Primefaces. However, I have an idea that can be tested easily.
Your problem may be due to the fact that the component to re-render (i.e. update) is not found on the HTML page. If your rendered attribute is equals to false, then the <SPAN> with comment id is not integrated in the HTML page generated. Thus, when the Ajax request is received on the client side, the Ajax engine is not able to refresh this <SPAN> as it is not found.
So what you can do is to always render your panelGroup and move your rendered attribute to a nested <h:outputText> that contains the Hello message.
Here is what I am suggesting:
<h:panelGroup id="comment">
<h:outputText value="Hello" rendered="#{bean.renderComment}"/>
</h:panelGroup>
This way, the panelGroup will always be refreshed after the Ajax call, and it will contain the Hello message or not, regarding the value of the renderComment attribute of your bean.
Since the component with the ID comment isn't one of the form's (an UINamingContainer component) children, you need to prefix the ID with : to instruct JSF to scan from the "upper level".
This should do:
<p:commandLink value="Hey"
actionListener="#{bean.setRenderComment}"
update=":comment" />
The c:if test always fails for me and it never gets inside the loop. I am using the following namespaces
xmlns:fn="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/functions"
xmlns:c="http://java.sun.com/jstl/core"
The string ('array') to be split is "Tom and Jerry are GAP1 friends"
<s:decorate template="/layout/display-text.xhtml">
<c:set var="array" value="#{_mybean.value}"/>
<c:set var="space" value="#{fn:split(array, ' ')}"/>
<c:set var="len" value="#{fn:length(space)}"/>
<h:outputText value="total length = #{len}"/><br/>
<c:forEach begin="0" end="5" var="index">
<h:outputText value="index = #{index}, value = #{space[index]}"/><br/>
<c:set var="val" value="#{space[index]}"/>
<c:if test="#{fn:startsWith(val, 'GAP')}">
<h:outputText value="Found keyword parameter GAP" /><br/>
</c:if>
</c:forEach>
</s:decorate>
The JSTL core URI is invalid. As per the JSTL TLD it should be (note the extra /jsp):
xmlns:c="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core"
That said, mixing JSF with JSTL is never been a good idea. It won't always give results as you'd expect because they doesn't run in sync as you would expect from the coding. It's more that JSP/JSTL runs from top to bottom first and then hands over the produced result to JSF to process further from top to bottom again. That would cause some specific constructs to fail. Better use pure JSF components/attributes instead.
Instead of c:forEach, rather use Seam's a4j:repeat or Facelets' ui:repeat and instead of c:if make use of the rendered attribute of the JSF component which has to be toggled to show/hide. Instead of all that JSTL c:set, write appropriate code logic in managed bean constructor or action method or getter.
The JSTL functions (fn) taglib is however still highly valuable in JSF. You can keep using it.