I'm trying to write a custom servlet (for AJAX/JSON) in which I would like to reference my @ManagedBeans
by name. I'm hoping to map:
http://host/app/myBean/myProperty
to:
@ManagedBean(name="myBean")
public class MyBean {
public String getMyProperty();
}
Is it possible to load a bean by name from a regular servlet? Is there a JSF servlet or helper I could use for it?
I seem to be spoilt by Spring in which all this is too obvious.
In a servlet based artifact, such as @WebServlet
, @WebFilter
and @WebListener
, you can grab a "plain vanilla" JSF @ManagedBean @RequestScoped
by:
Bean bean = (Bean) request.getAttribute("beanName");
and @ManagedBean @SessionScoped
by:
Bean bean = (Bean) request.getSession().getAttribute("beanName");
and @ManagedBean @ApplicationScoped
by:
Bean bean = (Bean) getServletContext().getAttribute("beanName");
Note that this prerequires that the bean is already autocreated by JSF beforehand. Else these will return null
. You'd then need to manually create the bean and use setAttribute("beanName", bean)
.
If you're able to use CDI @Named
instead of the since JSF 2.3 deprecated @ManagedBean
, then it's even more easy, particularly because you don't anymore need to manually create the beans:
@Inject
private Bean bean;
Note that this won't work when you're using @Named @ViewScoped
because the bean can only be identified by JSF view state and that's only available when the FacesServlet
has been invoked. So in a filter which runs before that, accessing an @Inject
ed @ViewScoped
will always throw ContextNotActiveException
.
Only when you're inside @ManagedBean
, then you can use @ManagedProperty
:
@ManagedProperty("#{bean}")
private Bean bean;
Note that this doesn't work inside a @Named
or @WebServlet
or any other artifact. It really works inside @ManagedBean
only.
If you're not inside a @ManagedBean
, but the FacesContext
is readily available (i.e. FacesContext#getCurrentInstance()
doesn't return null
), you can also use Application#evaluateExpressionGet()
:
FacesContext context = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
Bean bean = context.getApplication().evaluateExpressionGet(context, "#{beanName}", Bean.class);
which can be convenienced as follows:
@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
public static <T> T findBean(String beanName) {
FacesContext context = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
return (T) context.getApplication().evaluateExpressionGet(context, "#{" + beanName + "}", Object.class);
}
and can be used as follows:
Bean bean = findBean("bean");