Concatenate strings in JSF/JSP EL and Javascript [duplicate]

Question

I'm having troubles with EL and javascript functions (JSF 1.2, Facelets, Richfaces 3.3.0GA). I have a page that includes another composition:

<ui:include src="/pages/panels/examinationPanel.xhtml">
<ui:param name="prefix" value="new" />

And in my ui:composition I want to append the prefix to every id. For example:

<rich:modalPanel id="#{prefix}_examinationPanel">

That works ok.

But the problem comes when I want to access the components in functions suchs as oncomplete I cannot get it to concatenate the strings properly. For example

oncomplete="#{rich:component('#{prefix}_examinationPanel')}.show();"

I've tried with fn:join as well but it does not execute the function because it complains about errors when it finds "#" character. For example:

 oncomplete="#{rich:component(fn:join(#{prefix},'examinationPanel'))}.show()"

throws

SEVERE: Servlet.service() for servlet Faces Servlet threw exception org.apache.el.parser.ParseException: Encountered "fn:join( #" at line 1, column 33.

Encountered "fn:join( #"

Different errors if I brace it with brackets or with # and brackets.

What am I doing wrong?

And another question, in a conditional command like

oncomplete="#{a}?#{b}:#{c}"

How can I "group" to be able to execute more actions when true or false? Por example something like this:

oncomplete="#{a}?(#{b}#{f}):(#{c}#{d}#{e})"

I've tried with parenthesis but does not parse it properly.

Thanks in advance.

Pongee

I'm using facelets. I edited the post to add that info, which indeed is relevant – Pongee

Answer 1

Assuming you are using Facelets, here's a relatively good solution:

• create functions.taglib.xml in your WEB-INF

• add a context param indicating the location:

  <context-param>
      <param-name>facelets.LIBRARIES</param-name>
      <param-value>
          /WEB-INF/functions.taglib.xml
      </param-value>
  </context-param>
  

• In the xml put the following:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <!DOCTYPE facelet-taglib PUBLIC
    "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Facelet Taglib 1.0//EN"
    "https://facelets.dev.java.net/source/browse/*checkout*/facelets/src/etc/facelet-taglib_1_0.dtd">
  <facelet-taglib xmlns="http://java.sun.com/JSF/Facelet">
      <namespace>http://yournamespace.com/fnc</namespace>
      <function>
          <function-name>concat</function-name>
          <function-class>com.yourpackage.utils.Functions</function-class>
          <function-signature>
              java.lang.String concat(java.lang.String, java.lang.String)
          </function-signature>
      </function>
  </facelet-taglib>
  

• in the page use the following:

  xmlns:fnc="http://yournamespace.com/fnc"
  ....
  oncomplete="#{rich:component(fnc:concat(prefix, '_examinationPanel'))}.show();"
  

• finally, in the Function class define the simple method:

  public static String concat(String string1, String string2) {
     return string1.concat(string2);
  }
  

Nepheline

Thanks for the answer, I'm going to try it right now. One question, the trailing ";" for the param-value is intentional? And the other, isn't this the same as "fn:join" (which does not work) – Pongee

hm, no. I copied it from my configs, so it doesn't seem to do any harm either. – Nepheline

I've tried it and it works. And besides, I've learn a lesson about creating your own namespaces and functions :). Thanks for the fast and complete answer. – Pongee

Answer 2

a simpler solution is to manage the String in the EL like an Object and use the method concat from the class String, something like this:

#{rich:component('constantString'.concat(variable))}.show();

Icefall

Note that this only works in EL 2.2 or JBoss EL (for EL 2.1). OP didn't indicate that he's using Servlet 3.0 nor JBoss Seam. – Gutshall

In that case he should consider adding EL 2.2 support, especially for the ability to pass parameters in function calls. – Pontificate