JSF2 composite component throws PropertyNotFoundException for action method

Asked 15/8, 2010 at 13:10 Answered 14/9, 2010 at 9:56

I have a composite component:

<composite:interface>
    <composite:attribute name="actionMethod" 
        method-signature="java.lang.String action()" required="true" />
</composite:interface>

<composite:implementation>
    <h:form>
        <h:commandButton id="captureButton" value="#{msgs.capture}" 
            action="#{cc.attrs.actionMethod}" />
    </h:form>
</composite:implementation>

and a page which is calling that composite component:

<ezcomp:captureTitle actionMethod="#{saveDecisionsBean.captureTitle}" />

and a bean which contains the action:

@Named(value="saveDecisionsBean")
@SessionScoped
public class SaveDecisionsBean extends BackingBeanBase {
    ...
    public String captureTitle() {
        ...
    }
}

Now here is my problem. When I try to run this, it says that SaveDecisionsBean doesn't have a property captureTitle. Therefore, I have to add a SaveDecisionsBean#getCaptureTitle() method. When I do this, it runs just fine. Why should I have to define this method? It says in the <composite:attribute /> that it's a method, and it's used as an action.

Here is the exact error message I'm getting:

javax.el.PropertyNotFoundException: /index.xhtml @54,86 
    actionMethod="#{saveDecisionsBean.captureTitle}": 
    The class 'com.example.persistence.SaveDecisionsBean_$$_javassist_209'
    does not have the property 'captureTitle'.

(For SEO reasons: other implementations might show class name WeldClientProxy.)

Tedmund answered 15/8, 2010 at 13:10 Comment(4)

as a comment, you don't have to write @Named(value="saveDecisionsBean") if it's the same name of the class – Mindamindanao 15/8, 2010 at 15:43

It does that by default in NetBeans. – Tedmund 16/8, 2010 at 15:46

As an aside, if the above would have worked, then one could also use <composite:attribute name="actionMethod" targets="captureButton" required="true" />, hence without the method-signature. Same problem though. – Romanticist 7/2, 2012 at 7:6

FYI. The base bug has been fixed. java.net/jira/browse/JAVASERVERFACES-1806 – Innominate 5/6, 2012 at 17:34

I had the same problem and I found out that it was due to that my action method did throw IllegalArgumentException. Meanwhile this has been reported as a bug: Composite action method throws PropertyNotFoundException when method throws any exception.

The tricky part (at least for me) was that my app had been working fine until I moved part of the code into a Composite Component (CC). Before my app would caught the IAE and show a nice error message but when using CC, the JSF validation (or whatever...) catches this first and produce this rather confusing error message.

I verified this by using a modified version of the test code provided by BalusC (See below). The test page shows two input & submit button components. If you enter something in the text field (apart from "panic" (without quotes)), both the CC-version and the "inline" version works (watch the std output). If you enter "panic" in the "inlined" version, you'll notice the IAE as expected, but if you enter the same thing in the upper "CC-version" you'll see the PropertyNotFoundException instead. Seems that JSF gets confused by the IAE and decides that the attribute must be a property and not an action method after all... Not sure if this is a bug or a feature. Is this according to Spec, does anybody know?

So, the conclusion here is that you can't use action methods in CC with beans that throw exceptions. For me, this means that I can't use Composite Components. Sad!

Hope this helps...

/resources/components/test.xhtml

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
      xmlns:cc="http://java.sun.com/jsf/composite">
<cc:interface>
  <cc:attribute name="text"/>
  <cc:attribute name="action" method-signature="java.lang.String action()" required="true" />
</cc:interface>
<cc:implementation>
  <h:form>
    <h:inputText value="#{cc.attrs.text}"/>
    <h:commandButton value="submit" action="#{cc.attrs.action}" />
  </h:form>
</cc:implementation>

/test.xhtml

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
      xmlns:cc="http://java.sun.com/jsf/composite/components">
<h:head>
  <title>Test</title>
</h:head>
<h:body>
  <!-- text and cmd-button as cc -->
  <cc:test text="#{bean.text}" action="#{bean.submit}" />

  <hr/>

  <!-- text and cmd-buuton inline -->
  <h:form id="inline">
    <h:inputText value="#{bean.text}"/>
    <h:commandButton value="submit2" action="#{bean.submit}" />
  </h:form>
</h:body>
</html>

And last the Bean:

@ManagedBean
@RequestScoped
public class Bean {

  private String text;

  public String getText() {
    return text;
  }

  public void setText(String text) {
    this.text = text;
  }

  public String submit() {
        if (text.equalsIgnoreCase("panic")){
          throw new IllegalArgumentException("Panic!");
        }

        System.out.println(text);

        return null;
    }
}

Nelsonnema answered 14/9, 2010 at 9:56 Comment(5)

Of course, you could add a Faces Message instead of throwing IAE: – Nelsonnema 14/9, 2010 at 10:51

FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().addMessage(null, new FacesMessage("Some error...."); But this break the separation of beans (as simple POJOs) and JSF/Faces – Nelsonnema 14/9, 2010 at 10:52

You're entirely right! This is definitely a bug. I'll report this to the JSF boys. – Fleischman 14/9, 2010 at 11:29

Just a note, if you remove the exception and your method throw any RuntimeException JSF will throw PropertyNotFoundException exception – Losse 15/6, 2012 at 13:35

This is such a basic use case you'd think there would be a unit test for it. Almost two years later and I still can't create a composite component that takes a validator. – Expeller 23/6, 2012 at 8:14

Odd, I can't reproduce this with Mojarra 2.0.2. Maybe there's something more into the code which is colliding with one or other? Or you aren't running the code you think you're running?

For the sake of completeness, I'll include the test snippets I used to try to reproduce this problem:

/resources/components/test.xhtml

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
    xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
    xmlns:cc="http://java.sun.com/jsf/composite">
    <cc:interface>
        <cc:attribute name="action" method-signature="java.lang.String action()" required="true" />
    </cc:interface>
    <cc:implementation>
        <h:form>
            <h:commandButton value="submit" action="#{cc.attrs.action}" />
        </h:form> 
    </cc:implementation>
</html>

/test.xhtml

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" 
    xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" 
    xmlns:cc="http://java.sun.com/jsf/composite/components">
    <h:head>
        <title>Test</title>
    </h:head>
    <h:body>
        <cc:test action="#{bean.submit}" />
    </h:body>
</html>

com.example.Bean

package com.example;

import javax.faces.bean.ManagedBean;
import javax.faces.bean.RequestScoped;

@ManagedBean
@RequestScoped
public class Bean {

    public String submit() {
        System.out.println("submit");
        return null;
    }

}

Does the above work for you as well?

Fleischman answered 15/8, 2010 at 20:47 Comment(3)

That works just fine for me, even using CDI. I'll have to look into it further. – Tedmund 16/8, 2010 at 15:41

Maybe a nested form? See also this answer for another hints. – Fleischman 16/8, 2010 at 16:2

There's definitely not a nested form...I do use CDI in the bean (I inject 3 different beans from two different scopes. Also, I use required view parameters. I'm not sure if any of this makes a difference. I don't imagine it would since issues with insantiation or view parameters would throw exceptions well before the point of actually trying to call the action. – Tedmund 16/8, 2010 at 16:17

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