Archive for October, 2010

Upgrade to RichFaces 3.3.3.Final

Posted by smoreau in Java on 20 Oct 2010

From time to time, it is good to upgrade the application libraries to the latest stable version. Especially the frontend libraries as the browsers are constantly involving and new ones are coming on the market.

This is why I wanted to upgrade the RichFaces library on one of my web application which was still using the version 3.3.0.GA with JSF/MyFaces 1.2.5.
The RichFaces dependency was looking like the following in my pom.xml file:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.richfaces.ui</groupId>
    <artifactId>richfaces-ui</artifactId>
    <version>3.3.0.GA</version>
    <scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>

The upgrade should be straightforward.
But when changing to the version 3.3.3.Final, I got the following error:

2010-10-13 15:56:14.959::WARN:  Error starting handlers
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/ajax4jsf/component/SequenceDataAdaptor
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClassCond(ClassLoader.java:632)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:616)
	at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:141)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:283)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$000(URLClassLoader.java:58)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:197)
	at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppClassLoader.loadClass(WebAppClassLoader.java:366)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppClassLoader.loadClass(WebAppClassLoader.java:337)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClassCond(ClassLoader.java:632)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:616)
	at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:141)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:283)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$000(URLClassLoader.java:58)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:197)
	at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppClassLoader.loadClass(WebAppClassLoader.java:366)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppClassLoader.loadClass(WebAppClassLoader.java:337)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClassCond(ClassLoader.java:632)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:616)
	at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:141)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:283)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$000(URLClassLoader.java:58)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:197)
	at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppClassLoader.loadClass(WebAppClassLoader.java:366)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppClassLoader.loadClass(WebAppClassLoader.java:337)
	at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
	at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:247)
	at org.apache.myfaces.shared_impl.util.ClassUtils.classForName(ClassUtils.java:132)
	at org.apache.myfaces.shared_impl.util.ClassUtils.simpleClassForName(ClassUtils.java:158)
	at org.apache.myfaces.application.ApplicationImpl.addComponent(ApplicationImpl.java:564)
	at org.apache.myfaces.config.FacesConfigurator.configureApplication(FacesConfigurator.java:650)
	at org.apache.myfaces.config.FacesConfigurator.configure(FacesConfigurator.java:277)
	at org.apache.myfaces.webapp.AbstractFacesInitializer.buildConfiguration(AbstractFacesInitializer.java:131)
	at org.apache.myfaces.webapp.Jsp21FacesInitializer.initContainerIntegration(Jsp21FacesInitializer.java:64)
	at org.apache.myfaces.webapp.AbstractFacesInitializer.initFaces(AbstractFacesInitializer.java:83)
	at org.apache.myfaces.webapp.StartupServletContextListener.contextInitialized(StartupServletContextListener.java:72)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandler.startContext(ContextHandler.java:540)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.Context.startContext(Context.java:135)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.startContext(WebAppContext.java:1220)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandler.doStart(ContextHandler.java:510)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.doStart(WebAppContext.java:448)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.plugin.Jetty6PluginWebAppContext.doStart(Jetty6PluginWebAppContext.java:110)
	at org.mortbay.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:40)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerCollection.doStart(HandlerCollection.java:152)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandlerCollection.doStart(ContextHandlerCollection.java:156)
	at org.mortbay.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:40)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerCollection.doStart(HandlerCollection.java:152)
	at org.mortbay.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:40)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerWrapper.doStart(HandlerWrapper.java:117)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.Server.doStart(Server.java:222)
	at org.mortbay.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:40)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.plugin.Jetty6PluginServer.start(Jetty6PluginServer.java:132)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.plugin.AbstractJettyMojo.startJetty(AbstractJettyMojo.java:357)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.plugin.AbstractJettyMojo.execute(AbstractJettyMojo.java:293)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.plugin.AbstractJettyRunMojo.execute(AbstractJettyRunMojo.java:203)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.plugin.Jetty6RunMojo.execute(Jetty6RunMojo.java:182)
	at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultPluginManager.java:451)
	at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:558)
	at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeStandaloneGoal(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:512)
	at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoal(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:482)
	at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoalAndHandleFailures(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:330)
	at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeTaskSegments(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:291)
	at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.execute(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:142)
	at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:336)
	at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:129)
	at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:287)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
	at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:315)
	at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:255)
	at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:430)
	at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:375)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.ajax4jsf.component.SequenceDataAdaptor
	at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:202)
	at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:307)
	at org.codehaus.classworlds.RealmClassLoader.loadClassDirect(RealmClassLoader.java:195)
	at org.codehaus.classworlds.DefaultClassRealm.loadClass(DefaultClassRealm.java:255)
	at org.codehaus.classworlds.DefaultClassRealm.loadClass(DefaultClassRealm.java:274)
	at org.codehaus.classworlds.RealmClassLoader.loadClass(RealmClassLoader.java:214)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:248)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppClassLoader.loadClass(WebAppClassLoader.java:375)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppClassLoader.loadClass(WebAppClassLoader.java:337)
	... 82 more

What happened here? I simply changed the version number and it now does NOT work! 🙁
Looking at the exception, it seems that it cannot find the class org.ajax4jsf.component.SequenceDataAdaptor which is part of the richfaces-impl library. Why not?

Well, in fact, it is quite simple! It appears that from the version 3.3.3 of RichFaces, you now have to specifically add the richfaces-impl dependency to your pom.xml file such as:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.richfaces.ui</groupId>
    <artifactId>richfaces-ui</artifactId>
    <version>3.3.3.Final</version>
    <scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>
		
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.richfaces.framework</groupId>
    <artifactId>richfaces-impl</artifactId>
    <version>3.3.3.Final</version>
    <scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>

Why do we have to manually add this dependency? This is because the new version of RichFaces allows you to use JSF 2.0 instead of JSF 1.2. To do that, simply add the library richfaces-impl-jsf2 instead of richfaces-impl in your pom.xml file.

Please click on the following link for the JBoss manual about this configuration:
http://community.jboss.org/wiki/HowtoaddRichFaces33xtomavenbasedproject

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The selfRendered attribute

Posted by smoreau in Java on 12 Oct 2010

This is an interesting problem related to the RichFaces rich:suggestionbox tag.

Let’s take the following code:

<rich:suggestionbox for="q" minChars="1"
    suggestionAction="#{myBean.mySuggestionAction}" var="result"
    limitToList="true">
    <h:column>
        <h:outputText value="#{result}" />
    </h:column>
</rich:suggestionbox>

If you use the code above as it is, the whole page is going to be processed each time the suggestionAction is called. And because the minChars attribute is set to 1, the action is going to be called each time the user enters a character! 😮
For obvious reason, such as performance issue, this is not ideal.

To avoid this behaviour, you simply need to set the attribute selfRendered to true as shown below:

<rich:suggestionbox for="q" minChars="1"
    suggestionAction="#{myBean.mySuggestionAction}" var="result"
    limitToList="true" selfRendered="true">
    <h:column>
        <h:outputText value="#{result}" />
    </h:column>
</rich:suggestionbox>

Here is the description of the selfRendered attribute from RichFaces documentation:

If “true”, forces active Ajax region render response directly from stored components tree, bypasses page processing. Can be used for increase performance. Also, must be set to ‘true’ inside iteration components, such as dataTable.

Don’t hesitate to add this attribute to increase the performance of your website. 😉

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loadBundle’s behaviour with JSTL tags

Posted by smoreau in Java on 02 Oct 2010

Let’s start with a bit of knowledge.
f:loadBundle is a JSF tag which loads a resource bundle and saves it as a variable in the request scope. The RichFaces a4j:loadBundle tag is a substitution for the f:loadBundle tag and allows to use reference to bundle messages during the Ajax re-rendering.

When I discovered the RichFaces tag, I immediately replaced all the f:loadBundle tags by a4j:loadBundle. Was I right? I thought at first, but then I got a problem. 🙁

The problem was appearing when I started mixing RichFaces and JSF tags.
For example, let’s take the following resource bundle:

active=true

And the following code:

<a4j:loadBundle basename="Messages" var="msg" />
Active is #{msg.active} --
<c:if test="#{msg.active}">
	Hello World!
</c:if>

This displays ‘Active is true --‘.
What is wrong there? The active message is true but the c:if condition failed! 😯

Let’s now try the following:

<a4j:loadBundle basename="Messages" var="msg" />
Active is #{msg.active} --
<c:if test="#{empty msg.active}">
	Hello World!
</c:if>

This displays ‘Active is true -- Hello World!‘.
What does that mean? It seems that JSTL doesn’t get the value of the active message but gets an empty string instead!

In conclusion, if the resource bundle is loading using the RichFaces tag, the messages will be not visible by the JSTL tags.
To fix this problem, you will have to also load the resource bundle using the JSF tag:

<a4j:loadBundle basename="Messages" var="msg" />
<f:loadBundle basename="Messages" var="msg" />
Active is #{msg.active} --
<c:if test="#{msg.active}">
	Hello World!
</c:if>

As expected, this displays ‘Active is true -- Hello World!‘. 🙂

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