<s:link>
and <s:button>
Seam is an application framework for Enterprise Java. It is inspired by the following principles:
Seam defines a uniform component model for all business logic in your application. A Seam component may be stateful, with the state associated with any one of several well-defined contexts, including the long-running, persistent, business process context and the conversation context, which is preserved across multiple web requests in a user interaction.
There is no distinction between presentation tier components and business logic components in Seam. You can layer your application according to whatever architecture you devise, rather than being forced to shoehorn your application logic into an unnatural layering scheme forced upon you by whatever combination of stovepipe frameworks you're using today.
Unlike plain Java EE or J2EE components, Seam components may simultaneously access state associated with the web request and state held in transactional resources (without the need to propagate web request state manually via method parameters). You might object that the application layering imposed upon you by the old J2EE platform was a Good Thing. Well, nothing stops you creating an equivalent layered architecture using Seam—the difference is that you get to architect your own application and decide what the layers are and how they work together.
JSF and EJB 3.0 are two of the best new features of Java EE 5. EJB3 is a brand new component model for server side business and persistence logic. Meanwhile, JSF is a great component model for the presentation tier. Unfortunately, neither component model is able to solve all problems in computing by itself. Indeed, JSF and EJB3 work best used together. But the Java EE 5 specification provides no standard way to integrate the two component models. Fortunately, the creators of both models foresaw this situation and provided standard extension points to allow extension and integration with other frameworks.
Seam unifies the component models of JSF and EJB3, eliminating glue code, and letting the developer think about the business problem.
It is possible to write Seam applications where "everything" is an EJB. This may come as a surprise if you're used to thinking of EJBs as coarse-grained, so-called "heavyweight" objects. However, version 3.0 has completely changed the nature of EJB from the point of view of the developer. An EJB is a fine-grained object—nothing more complex than an annotated JavaBean. Seam even encourages you to use session beans as JSF action listeners!
On the other hand, if you prefer not to adopt EJB 3.0 at this time, you don't have to. Virtually any Java class may be a Seam component, and Seam provides all the functionality that you expect from a "lightweight" container, and more, for any component, EJB or otherwise.
Seam supports the best open source JSF-based AJAX solutions: JBoss RichFaces and ICEfaces. These solutions let you add AJAX capability to your user interface without the need to write any JavaScript code.
Alternatively, Seam provides a built-in JavaScript remoting layer that lets you call components asynchronously from client-side JavaScript without the need for an intermediate action layer. You can even subscribe to server-side JMS topics and receive messages via AJAX push.
Neither of these approaches would work well, were it not for Seam's built-in concurrency and state management, which ensures that many concurrent fine-grained, asynchronous AJAX requests are handled safely and efficiently on the server side.
Optionally, Seam provides transparent business process management via jBPM. You won't believe how easy it is to implement complex workflows, collaboration and and task management using jBPM and Seam.
Seam even allows you to define presentation tier pageflow using the same language (jPDL) that jBPM uses for business process definition.
JSF provides an incredibly rich event model for the presentation tier. Seam enhances this model by exposing jBPM's business process related events via exactly the same event handling mechanism, providing a uniform event model for Seam's uniform component model.
We're all used to the concept of declarative transaction management and declarative security from the early days of EJB. EJB 3.0 even introduces declarative persistence context management. These are three examples of a broader problem of managing state that is associated with a particular context, while ensuring that all needed cleanup occurs when the context ends. Seam takes the concept of declarative state management much further and applies it to application state. Traditionally, J2EE applications implement state management manually, by getting and setting servlet session and request attributes. This approach to state management is the source of many bugs and memory leaks when applications fail to clean up session attributes, or when session data associated with different workflows collides in a multi-window application. Seam has the potential to almost entirely eliminate this class of bugs.
Declarative application state management is made possible by the richness of the context model defined by Seam. Seam extends the context model defined by the servlet spec—request, session, application—with two new contexts—conversation and business process—that are more meaningful from the point of view of the business logic.
You'll be amazed at how many things become easier once you start using conversations.
Have you ever suffered pain dealing with lazy association fetching in an ORM solution
like Hibernate or JPA? Seam's conversation-scoped persistence contexts mean you'll
rarely have to see a LazyInitializationException
. Have you ever
had problems with the refresh button? The back button? With duplicate form submission?
With propagating messages across a post-then-redirect? Seam's conversation management
solves these problems without you even needing to really think about them. They're all
symptoms of the broken state management architecture that has been prevalent since the
earliest days of the web.
The notion of Inversion of Control or dependency injection exists in both JSF and EJB3, as well as in numerous so-called "lightweight containers". Most of these containers emphasize injection of components that implement stateless services. Even when injection of stateful components is supported (such as in JSF), it is virtually useless for handling application state because the scope of the stateful component cannot be defined with sufficient flexibility, and because components belonging to wider scopes may not be injected into components belonging to narrower scopes.
Bijection differs from IoC in that it is dynamic, contextual, and bidirectional. You can think of it as a mechanism for aliasing contextual variables (names in the various contexts bound to the current thread) to attributes of the component. Bijection allows auto-assembly of stateful components by the container. It even allows a component to safely and easily manipulate the value of a context variable, just by assigning it to an attribute of the component.
Seam applications let the user freely switch between multiple browser tabs, each associated with a different, safely isolated, conversation. Applications may even take advantage of workspace management, allowing the user to switch between conversations (workspaces) in a single browser tab. Seam provides not only correct multi-window operation, but also multi-window-like operation in a single window!
Traditionally, the Java community has been in a state of deep confusion about precisely what kinds of meta-information counts as configuration. J2EE and popular "lightweight" containers have provided XML-based deployment descriptors both for things which are truly configurable between different deployments of the system, and for any other kinds or declaration which can not easily be expressed in Java. Java 5 annotations changed all this.
EJB 3.0 embraces annotations and "configuration by exception" as the easiest way to provide information to the container in a declarative form. Unfortunately, JSF is still heavily dependent on verbose XML configuration files. Seam extends the annotations provided by EJB 3.0 with a set of annotations for declarative state management and declarative context demarcation. This lets you eliminate the noisy JSF managed bean declarations and reduce the required XML to just that information which truly belongs in XML (the JSF navigation rules).
Seam components, being plain Java classes, are by nature unit testable. But for complex applications, unit testing alone is insufficient. Integration testing has traditionally been a messy and difficult task for Java web applications. Therefore, Seam provides for testability of Seam applications as a core feature of the framework. You can easily write JUnit or TestNG tests that reproduce a whole interaction with a user, exercising all components of the system apart from the view (the JSP or Facelets page). You can run these tests directly inside your IDE, where Seam will automatically deploy EJB components using JBoss Embedded.
We think the latest incarnation of Java EE is great. But we know it's never going to be perfect. Where there are holes in the specifications (for example, limitations in the JSF lifecycle for GET requests), Seam fixes them. And the authors of Seam are working with the JCP expert groups to make sure those fixes make their way back into the next revision of the standards.
Today's web frameworks think too small. They let you get user input off a form and into your Java objects. And then they leave you hanging. A truly complete web application framework should address problems like persistence, concurrency, asynchronicity, state management, security, email, messaging, PDF and chart generation, workflow, wikitext rendering, webservices, caching and more. Once you scratch the surface of Seam, you'll be amazed at how many problems become simpler...
Seam integrates JPA and Hibernate3 for persistence, the EJB Timer Service and Quartz for lightweight asychronicity, jBPM for workflow, JBoss Rules for business rules, Meldware Mail for email, Hibernate Search and Lucene for full text search, JMS for messaging and JBoss Cache for page fragment caching. Seam layers an innovative rule-based security framework over JAAS and JBoss Rules. There's even JSF tag libraries for rendering PDF, outgoing email, charts and wikitext. Seam components may be called synchronously as a Web Service, asynchronously from client-side JavaScript or Google Web Toolkit or, of course, directly from JSF.
Seam works in any Java EE application server, and even works in Tomcat. If your environment supports EJB 3.0, great! If it doesn't, no problem, you can use Seam's built-in transaction management with JPA or Hibernate3 for persistence. Or, you can deploy JBoss Embedded in Tomcat, and get full support for EJB 3.0.
It turns out that the combination of Seam, JSF and EJB3 is the simplest way to write a complex web application in Java. You won't believe how little code is required!
Visit SeamFramework.org to find out how to contribute to Seam!
In this tutorial, we'll assume that you have downloaded JBoss AS 4.2. You should also have a copy of Seam downloaded and extracted to a work directory.
The directory structure of each example in Seam follows this pattern:
Web pages, images and stylesheets may be found in
examples/
registration
/view
Resources such as deployment descriptors and data import scripts may be found in
examples/
registration
/resources
Java source code may be found in
examples/
registration
/src
The Ant build script is
examples/
registration
/build.xml
First, make sure you have Ant correctly installed, with $ANT_HOME
and
$JAVA_HOME
set correctly. Next, make sure you set the location of your JBoss AS
4.2 installation in the build.properties
file in the root folder of your Seam
installation. If you haven't already done so, start JBoss AS now by typing bin/run.sh
or bin/run.bat
in the root directory of your JBoss installation.
Now, build and deploy the example by typing ant deploy
in the
examples/
directory. registration
Try it out by accessing
http://localhost:8080/seam-registration/
with your web browser.
First, make sure you have Ant correctly installed, with $ANT_HOME
and
$JAVA_HOME
set correctly. Next, make sure you set the location of your Tomcat
6.0 installation in the build.properties
file in the root folder of your Seam
installation. You will need to follow the instructions in Section 26.6.1, “Installing Embedded JBoss”
for installing JBoss Embedded on Tomcat 6.0. JBoss Embedded is required to run the Seam demo
applications on Tomcat. (However, it is possible to use Seam on Tomcat without JBoss Embedded.)
Now, build and deploy the example by typing ant tomcat.deploy
in the
examples/
directory.
registration
Finally, start Tomcat.
Try it out by accessing
http://localhost:8080/jboss-seam-registration/
with your web browser.
When you deploy the example to Tomcat, any EJB3 components will run inside the JBoss Embeddable EJB3 container, a complete standalone EJB3 container environment.
The registration example is a fairly trivial application that lets a new user store his username, real name and password in the database. The example isn't intended to show off all of the cool functionality of Seam. However, it demonstrates the use of an EJB3 session bean as a JSF action listener, and basic configuration of Seam.
We'll go slowly, since we realize you might not yet be familiar with EJB 3.0.
The start page displays a very basic form with three input fields. Try filling them in and then submitting the form. This will save a user object in the database.
The example is implemented with two JSP pages, one entity bean and one stateless session bean.
Let's take a look at the code, starting from the "bottom".
We need an EJB entity bean for user data. This class defines persistence and validation declaratively, via annotations. It also needs some extra annotations that define the class as a Seam component.
Example 1.1.
@Entity <co id="registration-entity-annotation"/>@Name("user")
@Scope(SESSION)
@Table(name="users")
public class User implements Serializable
{
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1881413500711441951L;
private String username;
private String password;
private String name;
public User(String name, String password, String username)
{
this.name = name;
this.password = password;
this.username = username;
}
public User() {}
@NotNull @Length(min=5, max=15)
public String getPassword()
{
return password;
}
public void setPassword(String password)
{
this.password = password;
}
@NotNull
public String getName()
{
return name;
}
public void setName(String name)
{
this.name = name;
}
@Id @NotNull @Length(min=5, max=15)
public String getUsername()
{
return username;
}
public void setUsername(String username)
{
this.username = username;
}
}
??? | The EJB3 standard |
![]() | A Seam component needs a component name specified by the
|
![]() | Whenever Seam instantiates a component, it binds the new instance to a context
variable in the component's default context. The default
context is specified using the
|
![]() | The EJB standard |
![]() |
|
![]() | An empty constructor is both required by both the EJB specification and by Seam. |
![]() | The |
![]() | The EJB standard |
The most important things to notice in this example are the @Name
and
@Scope
annotations. These annotations establish that this class is a Seam component.
We'll see below that the properties of our User
class are bound
directly to JSF components and are populated by JSF during the update model values phase. We
don't need any tedious glue code to copy data back and forth between the JSP pages and the
entity bean domain model.
However, entity beans shouldn't do transaction management or database access. So we can't use this component as a JSF action listener. For that we need a session bean.
Most Seam application use session beans as JSF action listeners (you can use JavaBeans instead if you like).
We have exactly one JSF action in our application, and one session bean method attached to it. In
this case, we'll use a stateless session bean, since all the state associated with our action is
held by the User
bean.
This is the only really interesting code in the example!
Example 1.2.
@Stateless@Name("register") public class RegisterAction implements Register { @In
private User user; @Persistenc
eContext private EntityManager em; @Logger
private Log log; public Stri
ng register() { List existing = em.createQuery( "sele
ct username from User where username=#{user.username}") .getResultList(); if (existing.size()==0) { em.persist(user); log.i
nfo("Registered new user #{user.username}"); retur
n "/registered.xhtml"; } else { Faces
Messages.instance().add("User #{user.username} already exists"); return null; } } }
![]() | The EJB standard |
![]() | The
|
![]() | The EJB standard |
![]() | The Seam |
![]() | The action listener method uses the standard EJB3
|
![]() | Notice that Seam lets you use a JSF EL expression inside EJB-QL. Under the
covers, this results in an ordinary JPA |
![]() | The |
![]() | JSF action listener methods return a string-valued outcome that determines what page will be displayed next. A null outcome (or a void action listener method) redisplays the previous page. In plain JSF, it is normal to always use a JSF navigation rule to determine the JSF view id from the outcome. For complex application this indirection is useful and a good practice. However, for very simple examples like this one, Seam lets you use the JSF view id as the outcome, eliminating the requirement for a navigation rule. Note that when you use a view id as an outcome, Seam always performs a browser redirect. |
![]() | Seam provides a number of built-in components to help solve
common problems. The |
Note that we did not explicitly specify a @Scope
this time. Each Seam
component type has a default scope if not explicitly specified. For stateless session beans, the
default scope is the stateless context. Actually, all stateless session
beans belong in the stateless context.
Our session bean action listener performs the business and persistence logic for our mini-application. In more complex applications, we might need to layer the code and refactor persistence logic into a dedicated data access component. That's perfectly trivial to do. But notice that Seam does not force you into any particular strategy for application layering.
Furthermore, notice that our session bean has simultaneous access to context associated with
the web request (the form values in the User
object, for example), and state
held in transactional resources (the EntityManager
object). This is a break
from traditional J2EE architectures. Again, if you are more comfortable with the traditional
J2EE layering, you can certainly implement that in a Seam application. But for many
applications, it's simply not very useful.
Naturally, our session bean needs a local interface.
That's the end of the Java code. Now onto the deployment descriptors.
If you've used many Java frameworks before, you'll be used to having to declare all your component classes in some kind of XML file that gradually grows more and more unmanageable as your project matures. You'll be relieved to know that Seam does not require that application components be accompanied by XML. Most Seam applications require a very small amount of XML that does not grow very much as the project gets bigger.
Nevertheless, it is often useful to be able to provide for some external
configuration of some components (particularly the components built in to
Seam). You have a couple of options here, but the most flexible option is to provide this
configuration in a file called components.xml
, located in the
WEB-INF
directory. We'll use the components.xml
file to tell
Seam how to find our EJB components in JNDI:
Example 1.4.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:core="http://jboss.com/products/seam/core"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation=
"http://jboss.com/products/seam/core http://jboss.com/products/seam/core-2.1.xsd
http://jboss.com/products/seam/components http://jboss.com/products/seam/components-2.1.xsd">
<core:init jndi-pattern="@jndiPattern@"/>
</components>
This code configures a property named jndiPattern
of a built-in Seam component
named org.jboss.seam.core.init
. The funny @
symbols are
there because our Ant build script puts the correct JNDI pattern in when we deploy the application.
The presentation layer for our mini-application will be deployed in a WAR. So we'll need a web deployment descriptor.
Example 1.5.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app version="2.5"
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd">
<!-- Seam -->
<listener>
<listener-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamListener</listener-class>
</listener>
<!-- JSF -->
<listener>
<listener-class>com.sun.faces.config.ConfigureListener</listener-class>
</listener>
<context-param>
<param-name>javax.faces.DEFAULT_SUFFIX</param-name>
<param-value>.xhtml</param-value>
</context-param>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.seam</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<session-config>
<session-timeout>10</session-timeout>
</session-config>
</web-app>
This web.xml
file configures Seam and JSF. The configuration you see here is
pretty much identical in all Seam applications.
Most Seam applications use JSF views as the presentation layer. So usually we'll need
faces-config.xml
. In our case, we are going to use Facelets for
defining our views, so we need to tell JSF to use Facelets as its templating engine.
Example 1.6.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<faces-config version="1.2"
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_1_2.xsd">
<!-- Facelets support -->
<application>
<view-handler>com.sun.facelets.FaceletViewHandler</view-handler>
</application>
</faces-config>
Note that we don't need
any JSF managed bean declarations! Our managed beans are annotated Seam components. In Seam applications,
the faces-config.xml
is used much less often than in plain JSF.
In fact, once you have all the basic descriptors set up, the only XML you need to write as you add new functionality to a Seam application is orchestration: navigation rules or jBPM process definitions. Seam takes the view that process flow and configuration data are the only things that truly belong in XML.
In this simple example, we don't even need a navigation rule, since we decided to embed the view id in our action code.
The ejb-jar.xml
file integrates Seam with EJB3, by attaching the
SeamInterceptor
to all session beans in the archive.
<ejb-jar xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/ejb-jar_3_0.xsd"
version="3.0">
<interceptors>
<interceptor>
<interceptor-class>org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class>
</interceptor>
</interceptors>
<assembly-descriptor>
<interceptor-binding>
<ejb-name>*</ejb-name>
<interceptor-class>org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class>
</interceptor-binding>
</assembly-descriptor>
</ejb-jar>
The persistence.xml
file tells the EJB persistence provider where to find the
datasource, and contains some vendor-specific settings. In this case, enables automatic schema
export at startup time.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<persistence xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_1_0.xsd"
version="1.0">
<persistence-unit name="userDatabase">
<provider>org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence</provider>
<jta-data-source>java:/DefaultDS</jta-data-source>
<properties>
<property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="create-drop"/>
</properties>
</persistence-unit>
</persistence>
The view pages for a Seam application could be implemented using any technology that supports JSF. In this example we use Facelets, because we think it's better than JSP.
Example 1.7.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:s="http://jboss.com/products/seam/taglib"
xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core">
<head>
<title>Register New User</title>
</head>
<body>
<f:view>
<h:form>
<s:validateAll>
<h:panelGrid columns="2">
Username: <h:inputText value="#{user.username}" required="true"/>
Real Name: <h:inputText value="#{user.name}" required="true"/>
Password: <h:inputSecret value="#{user.password}" required="true"/>
</h:panelGrid>
</s:validateAll>
<h:messages/>
<h:commandButton value="Register" action="#{register.register}"/>
</h:form>
</f:view>
</body>
</html>
The only thing here that is specific to Seam is the
<s:validateAll>
tag. This JSF component tells JSF to validate all
the contained input fields against the Hibernate Validator annotations specified on the entity bean.
Example 1.8.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core">
<head>
<title>Successfully Registered New User</title>
</head>
<body>
<f:view>
Welcome, #{user.name}, you are successfully registered as #{user.username}.
</f:view>
</body>
</html>
This is a boring old Facelets page using some embedded EL. There is nothing specific to Seam here.
Finally, since our application is deployed as an EAR, we need a deployment descriptor there, too.
Example 1.9. registration application
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<application xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/application_5.xsd"
version="5">
<display-name>Seam Registration</display-name>
<module>
<web>
<web-uri>jboss-seam-registration.war</web-uri>
<context-root>/seam-registration</context-root>
</web>
</module>
<module>
<ejb>jboss-seam-registration.jar</ejb>
</module>
<module>
<ejb>jboss-seam.jar</ejb>
</module>
<module>
<java>jboss-el.jar</java>
</module>
</application>
This deployment descriptor links modules in the enterprise archive and binds the web application
to the context root /seam-registration
.
We've now seen all the files in the entire application!
When the form is submitted, JSF asks Seam to resolve the variable named user
.
Since there is no value already bound to that name (in any Seam context), Seam instantiates the
user
component, and returns the resulting User
entity bean
instance to JSF after storing it in the Seam session context.
The form input values are now validated against the Hibernate Validator constraints specified on the
User
entity. If the constraints are violated, JSF redisplays the page. Otherwise,
JSF binds the form input values to properties of the User
entity bean.
Next, JSF asks Seam to resolve the variable named register
. Seam finds the
RegisterAction
stateless session bean in the stateless context and returns it.
JSF invokes the register()
action listener method.
Seam intercepts the method call and injects the User
entity from the Seam session
context, before continuing the invocation.
The register()
method checks if a user with the entered username already exists.
If so, an error message is queued with the FacesMessages
component, and a null
outcome is returned, causing a page redisplay. The FacesMessages
component
interpolates the JSF expression embedded in the message string and adds a JSF
FacesMessage
to the view.
If no user with that username exists, the "/registered.xhtml"
outcome triggers a
browser redirect to the registered.xhtml
page. When JSF comes to render the page, it
asks Seam to resolve the variable named user
and uses property values of the returned
User
entity from Seam's session scope.
Clickable lists of database search results are such an important part of any online application that Seam
provides special functionality on top of JSF to make it easier to query data using EJB-QL or HQL and display
it as a clickable list using a JSF <h:dataTable>
. The messages example
demonstrates this functionality.
The message list example has one entity bean, Message
, one session bean,
MessageListBean
and one JSP.
The Message
entity defines the title, text, date and time of a message, and a
flag indicating whether the message has been read:
Example 1.10.
@Entity
@Name("message")
@Scope(EVENT)
public class Message implements Serializable
{
private Long id;
private String title;
private String text;
private boolean read;
private Date datetime;
@Id @GeneratedValue
public Long getId() {
return id;
}
public void setId(Long id) {
this.id = id;
}
@NotNull @Length(max=100)
public String getTitle() {
return title;
}
public void setTitle(String title) {
this.title = title;
}
@NotNull @Lob
public String getText() {
return text;
}
public void setText(String text) {
this.text = text;
}
@NotNull
public boolean isRead() {
return read;
}
public void setRead(boolean read) {
this.read = read;
}
@NotNull
@Basic @Temporal(TemporalType.TIMESTAMP)
public Date getDatetime() {
return datetime;
}
public void setDatetime(Date datetime) {
this.datetime = datetime;
}
}
Just like in the previous example, we have a session bean, MessageManagerBean
,
which defines the action listener methods for the two buttons on our form. One of the buttons
selects a message from the list, and displays that message. The other button deletes a message. So
far, this is not so different to the previous example.
But MessageManagerBean
is also responsible for fetching the list of messages
the first time we navigate to the message list page. There are various ways the user could navigate
to the page, and not all of them are preceded by a JSF action—the user might have
bookmarked the page, for example. So the job of fetching the message list takes place in a Seam
factory method, instead of in an action listener method.
We want to cache the list of messages in memory between server requests, so we will make this a stateful session bean.
Example 1.11.
@Stateful @Scope(SESSION) @Name("messageManager") public class MessageManagerBean implements Serializable, MessageManager { @DataModelprivate List<Message> messageList; @DataModelS
election @Out(requir
ed=false) private Message message; @Persistenc
eContext(type=EXTENDED) private EntityManager em; @Factory("m
essageList") public void findMessages() { messageList = em.createQuery("from Message msg order by msg.datetime desc") .getResultList(); } public void
select() { message.setRead(true); } public void
delete() { messageList.remove(message); em.remove(message); message=null; } @Remove
public void destroy() {} }
![]() | The |
![]() | The |
![]() | The |
![]() | This stateful bean has an EJB3 extended persistence context.
The messages retrieved in the query remain in the managed state as long as the bean
exists, so any subsequent method calls to the stateful bean can update them without
needing to make any explicit call to the |
![]() | The first time we navigate to the JSP page, there will be no value in the
|
![]() | The |
![]() | The |
![]() | All stateful session bean Seam components must have a method
with no parameters marked |
Note that this is a session-scoped Seam component. It is associated with the user login session, and all requests from a login session share the same instance of the component. (In Seam applications, we usually use session-scoped components sparingly.)
All session beans have a business interface, of course.
@Local
public interface MessageManager
{
public void findMessages();
public void select();
public void delete();
public void destroy();
}
From now on, we won't show local interfaces in our code examples.
Let's skip over components.xml
, persistence.xml
,
web.xml
, ejb-jar.xml
, faces-config.xml
and application.xml
since they are much the same as the previous example, and go
straight to the JSP.
The JSP page is a straightforward use of the JSF <h:dataTable>
component. Again, nothing specific to Seam.
Example 1.12.
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" prefix="h" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" prefix="f" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Messages</title>
</head>
<body>
<f:view>
<h:form>
<h2>Message List</h2>
<h:outputText value="No messages to display"
rendered="#{messageList.rowCount==0}"/>
<h:dataTable var="msg" value="#{messageList}"
rendered="#{messageList.rowCount>0}">
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">
<h:outputText value="Read"/>
</f:facet>
<h:selectBooleanCheckbox value="#{msg.read}" disabled="true"/>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">
<h:outputText value="Title"/>
</f:facet>
<h:commandLink value="#{msg.title}" action="#{messageManager.select}"/>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">
<h:outputText value="Date/Time"/>
</f:facet>
<h:outputText value="#{msg.datetime}">
<f:convertDateTime type="both" dateStyle="medium" timeStyle="short"/>
</h:outputText>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<h:commandButton value="Delete" action="#{messageManager.delete}"/>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
<h3><h:outputText value="#{message.title}"/></h3>
<div><h:outputText value="#{message.text}"/></div>
</h:form>
</f:view>
</body>
</html>
The first time we navigate to the messages.jsp
page, whether by a JSF postback
(faces request) or a direct browser GET request (non-faces request), the page will try to resolve the
messageList
context variable. Since this context variable is not initialized,
Seam will call the factory method findMessages()
, which performs a query against the
database and results in a DataModel
being outjected. This
DataModel
provides the row data needed for rendering the
<h:dataTable>
.
When the user clicks the <h:commandLink>
, JSF calls the
select()
action listener. Seam intercepts this call and injects the selected row
data into the message
attribute of the messageManager
component.
The action listener fires, marking the selected Message
as read. At the end of the
call, Seam outjects the selected Message
to the context variable named
message
. Next, the EJB container commits the transaction, and the change to the
Message
is flushed to the database. Finally, the page is re-rendered,
redisplaying the message list, and displaying the selected message below it.
If the user clicks the <h:commandButton>
, JSF calls the
delete()
action listener. Seam intercepts this call and injects the selected row
data into the message
attribute of the messageList
component. The
action listener fires, removing the selected Message
from the list, and also calling
remove()
on the EntityManager
. At the end of the call, Seam
refreshes the messageList
context variable and clears the context variable named
message
. The EJB container commits the transaction, and deletes the
Message
from the database. Finally, the page is re-rendered, redisplaying the
message list.
jBPM provides sophisticated functionality for workflow and task management. To get a small taste of how jBPM integrates with Seam, we'll show you a simple "todo list" application. Since managing lists of tasks is such core functionality for jBPM, there is hardly any Java code at all in this example.
The center of this example is the jBPM process definition. There are also two JSPs and two trivial JavaBeans (There was no reason to use session beans, since they do not access the database, or have any other transactional behavior). Let's start with the process definition:
Example 1.13.
<process-definition name="todo"> <start-state name="start"> <transition to="todo"/> </start-state> <task-node
name="todo"> <task na
me="todo" description="#{todoList.description}"> <assi
gnment actor-id="#{actor.id}"/> </task> <transition to="done"/> </task-node> <end-state
name="done"/> </process-definition>
![]() | The |
![]() | The |
![]() | The |
![]() | Tasks need to be assigned to a user or group of users when they are created. In this
case, the task is assigned to the current user, which we get from a built-in Seam
component named |
![]() | The |
If we view this process definition using the process definition editor provided by JBossIDE, this is what it looks like:
This document defines our business process as a graph of nodes. This is the most trivial possible business process: there is one task to be performed, and when that task is complete, the business process ends.
The first JavaBean handles the login screen login.jsp
. Its job is just to
initialize the jBPM actor id using the actor
component. (In a real application, it
would also need to authenticate the user.)
Example 1.14.
@Name("login")
public class Login {
@In
private Actor actor;
private String user;
public String getUser() {
return user;
}
public void setUser(String user) {
this.user = user;
}
public String login()
{
actor.setId(user);
return "/todo.jsp";
}
}
Here we see the use of @In
to inject the built-in Actor
component.
The JSP itself is trivial:
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" prefix="h"%>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" prefix="f"%>
<html>
<head>
<title>Login</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Login</h1>
<f:view>
<h:form>
<div>
<h:inputText value="#{login.user}"/>
<h:commandButton value="Login" action="#{login.login}"/>
</div>
</h:form>
</f:view>
</body>
</html>
The second JavaBean is responsible for starting business process instances, and ending tasks.
Example 1.15.
@Name("todoList") public class TodoList { private String description; public String getDescription() { return description; } public void setDescription(String description) { this.description = description; } @CreateProc
ess(definition="todo") public void createTodo() {} @StartTask
@EndTask public void done() {} }
![]() | The description property accepts user input form the JSP page, and exposes it to the process definition, allowing the task description to be set. |
![]() | The Seam |
![]() | The Seam |
In a more realistic example, @StartTask
and @EndTask
would not
appear on the same method, because there is usually work to be done using the application in order to
complete the task.
Finally, the meat of the application is in todo.jsp
:
Example 1.16.
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" prefix="h" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" prefix="f" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://jboss.com/products/seam/taglib" prefix="s" %>
<html>
<head>
<title>Todo List</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Todo List</h1>
<f:view>
<h:form id="list">
<div>
<h:outputText value="There are no todo items."
rendered="#{empty taskInstanceList}"/>
<h:dataTable value="#{taskInstanceList}" var="task"
rendered="#{not empty taskInstanceList}">
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">
<h:outputText value="Description"/>
</f:facet>
<h:inputText value="#{task.description}"/>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">
<h:outputText value="Created"/>
</f:facet>
<h:outputText value="#{task.taskMgmtInstance.processInstance.start}">
<f:convertDateTime type="date"/>
</h:outputText>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">
<h:outputText value="Priority"/>
</f:facet>
<h:inputText value="#{task.priority}" style="width: 30"/>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">
<h:outputText value="Due Date"/>
</f:facet>
<h:inputText value="#{task.dueDate}" style="width: 100">
<f:convertDateTime type="date" dateStyle="short"/>
</h:inputText>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<s:button value="Done" action="#{todoList.done}" taskInstance="#{task}"/>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
</div>
<div>
<h:messages/>
</div>
<div>
<h:commandButton value="Update Items" action="update"/>
</div>
</h:form>
<h:form id="new">
<div>
<h:inputText value="#{todoList.description}"/>
<h:commandButton value="Create New Item" action="#{todoList.createTodo}"/>
</div>
</h:form>
</f:view>
</body>
</html>
Let's take this one piece at a time.
The page renders a list of tasks, which it gets from a built-in Seam component named
taskInstanceList
. The list is defined inside a JSF form.
Example 1.17.
<h:form id="list">
<div>
<h:outputText value="There are no todo items." rendered="#{empty taskInstanceList}"/>
<h:dataTable value="#{taskInstanceList}" var="task"
rendered="#{not empty taskInstanceList}">
...
</h:dataTable>
</div>
</h:form>
Each element of the list is an instance of the jBPM class TaskInstance
. The
following code simply displays the interesting properties of each task in the list. For the description,
priority and due date, we use input controls, to allow the user to update these values.
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">
<h:outputText value="Description"/>
</f:facet>
<h:inputText value="#{task.description}"/>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">
<h:outputText value="Created"/>
</f:facet>
<h:outputText value="#{task.taskMgmtInstance.processInstance.start}">
<f:convertDateTime type="date"/>
</h:outputText>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">
<h:outputText value="Priority"/>
</f:facet>
<h:inputText value="#{task.priority}" style="width: 30"/>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">
<h:outputText value="Due Date"/>
</f:facet>
<h:inputText value="#{task.dueDate}" style="width: 100">
<f:convertDateTime type="date" dateStyle="short"/>
</h:inputText>
</h:column>
This button ends the task by calling the action method annotated @StartTask
@EndTask
. It passes the task id to Seam as a request parameter:
<h:column>
<s:button value="Done" action="#{todoList.done}" taskInstance="#{task}"/>
</h:column>
(Note that this is using a Seam <s:button>
JSF control from the
seam-ui.jar
package.)
This button is used to update the properties of the tasks. When the form is submitted, Seam and jBPM will make any changes to the tasks persistent. There is no need for any action listener method:
<h:commandButton value="Update Items" action="update"/>
A second form on the page is used to create new items, by calling the action method annotated
@CreateProcess
.
<h:form id="new">
<div>
<h:inputText value="#{todoList.description}"/>
<h:commandButton value="Create New Item" action="#{todoList.createTodo}"/>
</div>
</h:form>
There are several other files needed for the example, but they are just standard jBPM and Seam configuration and not very interesting.
For Seam applications with relatively freeform (ad hoc) navigation, JSF/Seam navigation rules are a perfectly good way to define the page flow. For applications with a more constrained style of navigation, especially for user interfaces which are more stateful, navigation rules make it difficult to really understand the flow of the system. To understand the flow, you need to piece it together from the view pages, the actions and the navigation rules.
Seam allows you to use a jPDL process definition to define pageflow. The simple number guessing example shows how this is done.
The example is implemented using one JavaBean, three JSP pages and a jPDL pageflow definition. Let's begin with the pageflow:
Example 1.18.
<pageflow-definition xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pageflow" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pageflow http://jboss.com/products/seam/pageflow-2.1.xsd" name="numberGuess"> <start-pagename="displayGuess" view-id="/numberGuess.jspx"> <redirect/> <transit
ion name="guess" to="evaluateGuess"> <acti
on expression="#{numberGuess.guess}"/> </transition> <transition name="giveup" to="giveup"/> </start-page> <decision n
ame="evaluateGuess" expression="#{numberGuess.correctGuess}"> <transition name="true" to="win"/> <transition name="false" to="evaluateRemainingGuesses"/> </decision> <decision name="evaluateRemainingGuesses" expression="#{numberGuess.lastGuess}"> <transition name="true" to="lose"/> <transition name="false" to="displayGuess"/> </decision> <page name="giveup" view-id="/giveup.jspx"> <redirect/> <transition name="yes" to="lose"/> <transition name="no" to="displayGuess"/> </page> <page name="win" view-id="/win.jspx"> <redirect/> <end-conversation/> </page> <page name="lose" view-id="/lose.jspx"> <redirect/> <end-conversation/> </page> </pageflow-definition>
![]() | The |
![]() | The |
![]() | A transition |
![]() | A |
Here is what the pageflow looks like in the JBoss Developer Studio pageflow editor:
Now that we have seen the pageflow, it is very, very easy to understand the rest of the application!
Here is the main page of the application, numberGuess.jspx
:
Example 1.19.
<<?xml version="1.0"?>
<jsp:root xmlns:jsp="http://java.sun.com/JSP/Page"
xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
xmlns:s="http://jboss.com/products/seam/taglib"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
version="2.0">
<jsp:output doctype-root-element="html"
doctype-public="-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
doctype-system="http://www.w3c.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"/>
<jsp:directive.page contentType="text/html"/>
<html>
<head>
<title>Guess a number...</title>
<link href="niceforms.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="niceforms.js" />
</head>
<body>
<h1>Guess a number...</h1>
<f:view>
<h:form styleClass="niceform">
<div>
<h:messages globalOnly="true"/>
<h:outputText value="Higher!"
rendered="#{numberGuess.randomNumber gt numberGuess.currentGuess}"/>
<h:outputText value="Lower!"
rendered="#{numberGuess.randomNumber lt numberGuess.currentGuess}"/>
</div>
<div>
I'm thinking of a number between
<h:outputText value="#{numberGuess.smallest}"/> and
<h:outputText value="#{numberGuess.biggest}"/>. You have
<h:outputText value="#{numberGuess.remainingGuesses}"/> guesses.
</div>
<div>
Your guess:
<h:inputText value="#{numberGuess.currentGuess}" id="inputGuess"
required="true" size="3"
rendered="#{(numberGuess.biggest-numberGuess.smallest) gt 20}">
<f:validateLongRange maximum="#{numberGuess.biggest}"
minimum="#{numberGuess.smallest}"/>
</h:inputText>
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{numberGuess.currentGuess}"
id="selectGuessMenu" required="true"
rendered="#{(numberGuess.biggest-numberGuess.smallest) le 20 and
(numberGuess.biggest-numberGuess.smallest) gt 4}">
<s:selectItems value="#{numberGuess.possibilities}" var="i" label="#{i}"/>
</h:selectOneMenu>
<h:selectOneRadio value="#{numberGuess.currentGuess}" id="selectGuessRadio"
required="true"
rendered="#{(numberGuess.biggest-numberGuess.smallest) le 4}">
<s:selectItems value="#{numberGuess.possibilities}" var="i" label="#{i}"/>
</h:selectOneRadio>
<h:commandButton value="Guess" action="guess"/>
<s:button value="Cheat" view="/confirm.jspx"/>
<s:button value="Give up" action="giveup"/>
</div>
<div>
<h:message for="inputGuess" style="color: red"/>
</div>
</h:form>
</f:view>
</body>
</html>
</jsp:root>
Notice how the command button names the guess
transition instead of calling an
action directly.
The win.jspx
page is predictable:
Example 1.20.
<jsp:root xmlns:jsp="http://java.sun.com/JSP/Page" xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" version="2.0"> <jsp:output doctype-root-element="html" doctype-public="-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" doctype-system="http://www.w3c.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"/> <jsp:directive.page contentType="text/html"/> <html> <head> <title>You won!</title> <link href="niceforms.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <h1>You won!</h1> <f:view> Yes, the answer was <h:outputText value="#{numberGuess.currentGuess}" />. It took you <h:outputText value="#{numberGuess.guessCount}" /> guesses. <h:outputText value="But you cheated, so it doesn't count!" rendered="#{numberGuess.cheat}"/> Would you like to <a href="numberGuess.seam">play again</a>? </f:view> </body> </html> </jsp:root>
As is lose.jspx
(which I can't be bothered copy/pasting). Finally, the JavaBean
Seam component:
Example 1.21.
@Name("numberGuess")
@Scope(ScopeType.CONVERSATION)
public class NumberGuess implements Serializable {
private int randomNumber;
private Integer currentGuess;
private int biggest;
private int smallest;
private int guessCount;
private int maxGuesses;
private boolean cheated;
@Create
public void begin()
{
randomNumber = new Random().nextInt(100);
guessCount = 0;
biggest = 100;
smallest = 1;
}
public void setCurrentGuess(Integer guess)
{
this.currentGuess = guess;
}
public Integer getCurrentGuess()
{
return currentGuess;
}
public void guess()
{
if (currentGuess>randomNumber)
{
biggest = currentGuess - 1;
}
if (currentGuess<randomNumber)
{
smallest = currentGuess + 1;
}
guessCount ++;
}
public boolean isCorrectGuess()
{
return currentGuess==randomNumber;
}
public int getBiggest()
{
return biggest;
}
public int getSmallest()
{
return smallest;
}
public int getGuessCount()
{
return guessCount;
}
public boolean isLastGuess()
{
return guessCount==maxGuesses;
}
public int getRemainingGuesses() {
return maxGuesses-guessCount;
}
public void setMaxGuesses(int maxGuesses) {
this.maxGuesses = maxGuesses;
}
public int getMaxGuesses() {
return maxGuesses;
}
public int getRandomNumber() {
return randomNumber;
}
public void cheated()
{
cheated = true;
}
public boolean isCheat() {
return cheated;
}
public List<Integer> getPossibilities()
{
List<Integer> result = new ArrayList<Integer>();
for(int i=smallest; i<=biggest; i++) result.add(i);
return result;
}
}
![]() | The first time a JSP page asks for a |
The pages.xml
file starts a Seam
conversation (much more about that later), and specifies the
pageflow definition to use for the conversation's page flow.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<pages xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pages"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pages http://jboss.com/products/seam/pages-2.1.xsd">
<page view-id="/numberGuess.jspx">
<begin-conversation join="true" pageflow="numberGuess"/>
</page>
<page view-id="/confirm.jspx">
<begin-conversation nested="true" pageflow="cheat"/>
</page>
</pages>
As you can see, this Seam component is pure business logic! It doesn't need to know anything at all about the user interaction flow. This makes the component potentially more reuseable.
The booking application is a complete hotel room reservation system incorporating the following features:
User registration
Login
Logout
Set password
Hotel search
Hotel selection
Room reservation
Reservation confirmation
Existing reservation list
The booking application uses JSF, EJB 3.0 and Seam, together with Facelets for the view. There is also a port of this application to JSF, Facelets, Seam, JavaBeans and Hibernate3.
One of the things you'll notice if you play with this application for long enough is that it is extremely robust. You can play with back buttons and browser refresh and opening multiple windows and entering nonsensical data as much as you like and you will find it very difficult to make the application crash. You might think that we spent weeks testing and fixing bugs to achive this. Actually, this is not the case. Seam was designed to make it very straightforward to build robust web applications and a lot of robustness that you are probably used to having to code yourself comes naturally and automatically with Seam.
As you browse the sourcecode of the example application, and learn how the application works, observe how the declarative state management and integrated validation has been used to achieve this robustness.
The project structure is identical to the previous one, to install and deploy this application,
please refer to Section 1.1, “Try the examples”. Once you've successfully started the application, you
can access it by pointing your browser to
http://localhost:8080/seam-booking/
Just nine classes (plus six session beans local interfaces) where used to implement this application. Six session bean action listeners contain all the business logic for the listed features.
BookingListAction
retrieves existing bookings for the currently logged in user.
ChangePasswordAction
updates the password of the currently logged in user.
HotelBookingAction
implements the core functionality of the application: hotel
room searching, selection, booking and booking confirmation. This functionality is implemented as a
conversation, so this is the most interesting class in the application.
RegisterAction
registers a new system user.
Three entity beans implement the application's persistent domain model.
Hotel
is an entity bean that represent a hotel
Booking
is an entity bean that represents an existing booking
User
is an entity bean to represents a user who can make hotel bookings
We encourage you browse the sourcecode at your pleasure. In this tutorial we'll concentrate upon one particular piece of functionality: hotel search, selection, booking and confirmation. From the point of view of the user, everything from selecting a hotel to confirming a booking is one continuous unit of work, a conversation. Searching, however, is not part of the conversation. The user can select multiple hotels from the same search results page, in different browser tabs.
Most web application architectures have no first class construct to represent a conversation. This
causes enormous problems managing state associated with the conversation. Usually, Java web applications
use a combination of two techniques: first, some state is thrown into the
HttpSession
; second, persistable state is flushed to the database after every
request, and reconstructed from the database at the beginning of each new request.
Since the database is the least scalable tier, this often results in an utterly unacceptable lack of scalability. Added latency is also a problem, due to the extra traffic to and from the database on every request. To reduce this redundant traffic, Java applications often introduce a data (second-level) cache that keeps commonly accessed data between requests. This cache is necessarily inefficient, because invalidation is based upon an LRU policy instead of being based upon when the user has finished working with the data. Furthermore, because the cache is shared between many concurrent transactions, we've introduced a whole raft of problem's associated with keeping the cached state consistent with the database.
Now consider the state held in the HttpSession
. By very careful programming, we
might be able to control the size of the session data. This is a lot more difficult than it sounds,
since web browsers permit ad hoc non-linear navigation. But suppose we suddenly discover a system
requirement that says that a user is allowed to have mutiple concurrent
conversations, halfway through the development of the system (this has happened to me).
Developing mechanisms to isolate session state associated with different concurrent conversations, and
incorporating failsafes to ensure that conversation state is destroyed when the user aborts one of the
conversations by closing a browser window or tab is not for the faint hearted (I've implemented this
stuff twice so far, once for a client application, once for Seam, but I'm famously psychotic).
Now there is a better way.
Seam introduces the conversation context as a first class construct. You can safely keep conversational state in this context, and be assured that it will have a well-defined lifecycle. Even better, you won't need to be continually pushing data back and forth between the application server and the database, since the conversation context is a natural cache of data that the user is currently working with.
Usually, the components we keep in the conversation context are stateful session beans. (We can also
keep entity beans and JavaBeans in the conversation context.) There is an ancient canard in the Java
community that stateful session beans are a scalability killer. This may have been true in 1998 when
WebFoobar 1.0 was released. It is no longer true today. Application servers like JBoss AS have extremely
sophisticated mechanisms for stateful session bean state replication. (For example, the JBoss EJB3
container performs fine-grained replication, replicating only those bean attribute values which actually
changed.) Note that all the traditional technical arguments for why stateful beans are inefficient apply
equally to the HttpSession
, so the practice of shifting state from business tier
stateful session bean components to the web session to try and improve performance is unbelievably
misguided. It is certainly possible to write unscalable applications using stateful session beans, by
using stateful beans incorrectly, or by using them for the wrong thing. But that doesn't mean you should
never use them. Anyway, Seam guides you toward a safe usage model. Welcome to
2005.
OK, I'll stop ranting now, and get back to the tutorial.
The booking example application shows how stateful components with different scopes can collaborate together to achieve complex behaviors. The main page of the booking application allows the user to search for hotels. The search results are kept in the Seam session scope. When the user navigates to one of these hotels, a conversation begins, and a conversation scoped component calls back to the session scoped component to retrieve the selected hotel.
The booking example also demonstrates the use of RichFaces Ajax to implement rich client behavior without the use of handwritten JavaScript.
The search functionality is implemented using a session-scope stateful session bean, similar to the one we saw in the message list example above.
Example 1.22.
@Stateful@Name("hotelSearch") @Scope(ScopeType.SESSION) @Restrict("#{i
dentity.loggedIn}") public class HotelSearchingAction implements HotelSearching { @PersistenceContext private EntityManager em; private String searchString; private int pageSize = 10; private int page; @DataModel
private List<Hotel> hotels; public void find() { page = 0; queryHotels(); } public void nextPage() { page++; queryHotels(); } private void queryHotels() { hotels = em.createQuery("select h from Hotel h where lower(h.name) like #{pattern} " + "or lower(h.city) like #{pattern} " + "or lower(h.zip) like #{pattern} " + "or lower(h.address) like #{pattern}") .setMaxResults(pageSize) .setFirstResult( page * pageSize ) .getResultList(); } public boolean isNextPageAvailable() { return hotels!=null && hotels.size()==pageSize; } public int getPageSize() { return pageSize; } public void setPageSize(int pageSize) { this.pageSize = pageSize; } @Factory(value="pattern", scope=ScopeType.EVENT) public String getSearchPattern() { return searchString==null ? "%" : '%' + searchString.toLowerCase().replace('*', '%') + '%'; } public String getSearchString() { return searchString; } public void setSearchString(String searchString) { this.searchString = searchString; }
@Remove public void destroy() {} }
![]() | The EJB standard |
![]() | The |
![]() | The
|
![]() | The EJB standard |
The main page of the application is a Facelets page. Let's look at the fragment which relates to searching for hotels:
Example 1.23.
<div class="section"> <span class="errors"> <h:messages globalOnly="true"/> </span> <h1>Search Hotels</h1> <h:form id="searchCriteria"> <fieldset> <h:inputText id="searchString" value="#{hotelSearch.searchString}" style="width: 165px;"> <a:support event="onkeyup" actionListener="#{hotelSearch.find}"reRender="searchResults" /> </h:inputText>   <a:commandButton id="findHotels" value="Find Hotels" action="#{hotelSearch.find}" reRender="searchResults"/>   <a:stat
us> <f:facet name="start"> <h:graphicImage value="/img/spinner.gif"/> </f:facet> </a:status> <br/> <h:outputLabel for="pageSize">Maximum results:</h:outputLabel>  <h:selectOneMenu value="#{hotelSearch.pageSize}" id="pageSize"> <f:selectItem itemLabel="5" itemValue="5"/> <f:selectItem itemLabel="10" itemValue="10"/> <f:selectItem itemLabel="20" itemValue="20"/> </h:selectOneMenu> </fieldset> </h:form> </div> <a:outputPanel
id="searchResults"> <div class="section"> <h:outputText value="No Hotels Found" rendered="#{hotels != null and hotels.rowCount==0}"/> <h:dataTable id="hotels" value="#{hotels}" var="hot" rendered="#{hotels.rowCount>0}"> <h:column> <f:facet name="header">Name</f:facet> #{hot.name} </h:column> <h:column> <f:facet name="header">Address</f:facet> #{hot.address} </h:column> <h:column> <f:facet name="header">City, State</f:facet> #{hot.city}, #{hot.state}, #{hot.country} </h:column> <h:column> <f:facet name="header">Zip</f:facet> #{hot.zip} </h:column> <h:column> <f:facet name="header">Action</f:facet> <s
:link id="viewHotel" value="View Hotel" action="#{hotelBooking.selectHotel(hot)}"/> </h:column> </h:dataTable> <s:link value="More results" action="#{hotelSearch.nextPage}" rendered="#{hotelSearch.nextPageAvailable}"/> </div> </a:outputPanel>
![]() | The RichFaces Ajax |
![]() | The RichFaces Ajax |
![]() | The RichFaces Ajax |
![]() | The Seam If you're wondering how navigation occurs,
you can find all the rules in |
This page displays the search results dynamically as we type, and lets us choose a hotel and pass it
to the selectHotel()
method of the HotelBookingAction
, which is
where the really interesting stuff is going to happen.
Now let's see how the booking example application uses a conversation-scoped stateful session bean to achieve a natural cache of persistent data related to the conversation. The following code example is pretty long. But if you think of it as a list of scripted actions that implement the various steps of the conversation, it's understandable. Read the class from top to bottom, as if it were a story.
Example 1.24.
@Stateful @Name("hotelBooking") @Restrict("#{identity.loggedIn}") public class HotelBookingAction implements HotelBooking { @PersistenceContext(type=EXTENDED) private EntityManager em; @In private User user; @In(required=false) @Out private Hotel hotel; @In(required=false) @Out(requir
ed=false) private Booking booking; @In private FacesMessages facesMessages; @In private Events events; @Logger private Log log; private boolean bookingValid; @Begin
public void selectHotel(Hotel selectedHotel) { hotel = em.merge(selectedHotel); } public void bookHotel() { booking = new Booking(hotel, user); Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance(); booking.setCheckinDate( calendar.getTime() ); calendar.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 1); booking.setCheckoutDate( calendar.getTime() ); } public void setBookingDetails() { Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance(); calendar.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, -1); if ( booking.getCheckinDate().before( calendar.getTime() ) ) { facesMessages.addToControl("checkinDate", "Check in date must be a future date"); bookingValid=false; } else if ( !booking.getCheckinDate().before( booking.getCheckoutDate() ) ) { facesMessages.addToControl("checkoutDate", "Check out date must be later than check in date"); bookingValid=false; } else { bookingValid=true; } } public boolean isBookingValid() { return bookingValid; } @End
public void confirm() { em.persist(booking); facesMessages.add("Thank you, #{user.name}, your confimation number " + " for #{hotel.name} is #{booki g.id}"); log.info("New booking: #{booking.id} for #{user.username}"); events.raiseTransactionSuccessEvent("bookingConfirmed"); } @End public void cancel() {} @Remove
public void destroy() {}
![]() | This bean uses an EJB3 extended persistence context, so that any entity instances remain managed for the whole lifecycle of the stateful session bean. |
![]() | The
|
![]() | The
|
![]() | The
|
![]() | This EJB remove method will be called when Seam destroys the conversation context. Don't forget to define this method! |
HotelBookingAction
contains all the action listener methods that implement selection,
booking and booking confirmation, and holds state related to this work in its instance variables. We
think you'll agree that this code is much cleaner and simpler than getting and setting
HttpSession
attributes.
Even better, a user can have multiple isolated conversations per login session. Try it! Log in, run a search, and navigate to different hotel pages in multiple browser tabs. You'll be able to work on creating two different hotel reservations at the same time. If you leave any one conversation inactive for long enough, Seam will eventually time out that conversation and destroy its state. If, after ending a conversation, you backbutton to a page of that conversation and try to perform an action, Seam will detect that the conversation was already ended, and redirect you to the search page.
If you check inside the WAR file for the booking application, you'll find
seam-ui.jar
in the WEB-INF/lib
directory. This package contains a
number of JSF custom controls that integrate with Seam. The booking application uses the
<s:link>
control for navigation from the search screen to the hotel
page:
<s:link value="View Hotel" action="#{hotelBooking.selectHotel(hot)}"/>
The use of <s:link>
here allows us to attach an action listener to a
HTML link without breaking the browser's "open in new window" feature. The standard JSF
<h:commandLink>
does not work with "open in new window". We'll see
later that <s:link>
also offers a number of other useful features,
including conversation propagation rules.
The booking application uses some other Seam and RichFaces Ajax controls, especially on the
/book.xhtml
page. We won't get into the details of those controls here, but if
you want to understand this code, please refer to the chapter covering Seam's functionality for JSF form
validation.
The WAR also includes seam-debug.jar
. The Seam debug page will be availabled
if this jar is deployed in
WEB-INF/lib
, along with the Facelets, and if you set the debug property
of the init
component:
<core:init jndi-pattern="@jndiPattern@" debug="true"/>
This page lets you browse and inspect the Seam components
in any of the Seam contexts associated with your current login session. Just point your browser at
http://localhost:8080/seam-booking/debug.seam
.
The DVD Store demo application shows the practical usage of jBPM for both task management and pageflow.
The user screens take advantage of a jPDL pageflow to implement searching and shopping cart functionality.
The administration screens take use jBPM to manage the approval and shipping cycle for orders. The business process may even be changed dynamically, by selecting a different process definition!
TODO
Look in the dvdstore
directory.
The Hibernate Booking demo is a straight port of the Booking demo to an alternative architecture that uses Hibernate for persistence and JavaBeans instead of session beans.
TODO
Look in the hibernate
directory.
Seam makes it very easy to implement applications which keep state on the server-side. However, server-side state is not always appropriate, especially in for functionality that serves up content. For this kind of problem we often need to let the user bookmark pages and have a relatively stateless server, so that any page can be accessed at any time, via the bookmark. The Blog example shows how to a implement RESTful application using Seam. Every page of the application can be bookmarked, including the search results page.
The Blog example demonstrates the use of "pull"-style MVC, where instead of using action listener methods to retrieve data and prepare the data for the view, the view pulls data from components as it is being rendered.
This snippet from the index.xhtml
facelets page displays a list of recent blog
entries:
Example 1.25.
<h:dataTable value="#{blog.recentBlogEntries}" var="blogEntry" rows="3">
<h:column>
<div class="blogEntry">
<h3>#{blogEntry.title}</h3>
<div>
<h:outputText escape="false"
value="#{blogEntry.excerpt==null ? blogEntry.body : blogEntry.excerpt}"/>
</div>
<p>
<h:outputLink value="entry.seam" rendered="#{blogEntry.excerpt!=null}">
<f:param name="blogEntryId" value="#{blogEntry.id}"/>
Read more...
</h:outputLink>
</p>
<p>
[Posted on
<h:outputText value="#{blogEntry.date}">
<f:convertDateTime timeZone="#{blog.timeZone}"
locale="#{blog.locale}" type="both"/>
</h:outputText>]
 
<h:outputLink value="entry.seam">[Link]
<f:param name="blogEntryId" value="#{blogEntry.id}"/>
</h:outputLink>
</p>
</div>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
If we navigate to this page from a bookmark, how does the data used by the
<h:dataTable>
actually get initialized? Well, what happens is that
the Blog
is retrieved lazily—"pulled"—when needed, by a Seam
component named blog
. This is the opposite flow of control to what is usual in
traditional web action-based frameworks like Struts.
Example 1.26.
@Name("blog") @Scope(ScopeType.STATELESS) @AutoCreate public class BlogService { @In EntityManager entityManager; @Unwrap
public Blog getBlog() { return (Blog) entityManager.createQuery("select distinct b from Blog b left join fetch b.blogEntries") .setHint("org.hibernate.cacheable", true) .getSingleResult(); } }
![]() | This component uses a seam-managed persistence context. Unlike the other examples we've seen, this persistence context is managed by Seam, instead of by the EJB3 container. The persistence context spans the entire web request, allowing us to avoid any exceptions that occur when accessing unfetched associations in the view. |
![]() | The |
This is good so far, but what about bookmarking the result of form submissions, such as a search results page?
The blog example has a tiny form in the top right of each page that allows the user to search for
blog entries. This is defined in a file, menu.xhtml
, included by the facelets
template, template.xhtml
:
Example 1.27.
<div id="search">
<h:form>
<h:inputText value="#{searchAction.searchPattern}"/>
<h:commandButton value="Search" action="/search.xhtml"/>
</h:form>
</div>
To implement a bookmarkable search results page, we need to perform a browser redirect after processing the search form submission. Because we used the JSF view id as the action outcome, Seam automatically redirects to the view id when the form is submitted. Alternatively, we could have defined a navigation rule like this:
<navigation-rule>
<navigation-case>
<from-outcome>searchResults</from-outcome>
<to-view-id>/search.xhtml</to-view-id>
<redirect/>
</navigation-case>
</navigation-rule>
Then the form would have looked like this:
<div id="search">
<h:form>
<h:inputText value="#{searchAction.searchPattern}"/>
<h:commandButton value="Search" action="searchResults"/>
</h:form>
</div>
But when we redirect, we need to include the values submitted with the form as request parameters, to
get a bookmarkable URL like
http://localhost:8080/seam-blog/search.seam?searchPattern=seam
. JSF does not provide
an easy way to do this, but Seam does. We use a Seam page parameter, defined in
WEB-INF/pages.xml
:
Example 1.28.
<pages>
<page view-id="/search.xhtml">
<param name="searchPattern" value="#{searchService.searchPattern}"/>
</page>
...
</pages>
This tells Seam to include the value of #{searchService.searchPattern}
as a
request parameter named searchPattern
when redirecting to the page, and then re-apply
the value of that parameter to the model before rendering the page.
The redirect takes us to the search.xhtml
page:
<h:dataTable value="#{searchResults}" var="blogEntry">
<h:column>
<div>
<h:outputLink value="entry.seam">
<f:param name="blogEntryId" value="#{blogEntry.id}"/>
#{blogEntry.title}
</h:outputLink>
posted on
<h:outputText value="#{blogEntry.date}">
<f:convertDateTime timeZone="#{blog.timeZone}" locale="#{blog.locale}" type="both"/>
</h:outputText>
</div>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
Which again uses "pull"-style MVC to retrieve the actual search results:
@Name("searchService")
public class SearchService
{
@In
private EntityManager entityManager;
private String searchPattern;
@Factory("searchResults")
public List<BlogEntry> getSearchResults()
{
if (searchPattern==null)
{
return null;
}
else
{
return entityManager.createQuery("select be from BlogEntry be "" +
"where lower(be.title) like :searchPattern " +
"lower(be.body) like :searchPattern order by be.date desc")
.setParameter( "searchPattern", getSqlSearchPattern() )
.setMaxResults(100)
.getResultList();
}
}
private String getSqlSearchPattern()
{
return searchPattern==null ? "" :
'%' + searchPattern.toLowerCase().replace('*', '%').replace('?', '_') + '%';
}
public String getSearchPattern()
{
return searchPattern;
}
public void setSearchPattern(String searchPattern)
{
this.searchPattern = searchPattern;
}
}
Very occasionally, it makes more sense to use push-style MVC for processing RESTful pages, and so
Seam provides the notion of a page action. The Blog example uses a page action for
the blog entry page, entry.xhtml
. Note that this is a little bit contrived, it would
have been easier to use pull-style MVC here as well.
The entryAction
component works much like an action class in a traditional
push-MVC action-oriented framework like Struts:
@Name("entryAction")
@Scope(STATELESS)
public class EntryAction
{
@In(create=true)
private Blog blog;
@Out
private BlogEntry blogEntry;
public void loadBlogEntry(String id) throws EntryNotFoundException
{
blogEntry = blog.getBlogEntry(id);
if (blogEntry==null) throw new EntryNotFoundException(id);
}
}
Page actions are also declared in pages.xml
:
<pages>
...
<page view-id="/entry.xhtml" action="#{entryAction.loadBlogEntry(blogEntry.id)}">
<param name="blogEntryId" value="#{blogEntry.id}"/>
</page>
<page view-id="/post.xhtml" action="#{loginAction.challenge}"/>
<page view-id="*" action="#{blog.hitCount.hit}"/>
</pages>
Notice that the example is using page actions for some other functionality—the login challenge, and the pageview counter. Also notice the use of a parameter in the page action method binding. This is not a standard feature of JSF EL, but Seam lets you use it, not just for page actions, but also in JSF method bindings.
When the entry.xhtml
page is requested, Seam first binds the page parameter
blogEntryId
to the model, then runs the page action, which retrieves the needed
data—the blogEntry
—and places it in the Seam event context.
Finally, the following is rendered:
<div class="blogEntry">
<h3>#{blogEntry.title}</h3>
<div>
<h:outputText escape="false" value="#{blogEntry.body}"/>
</div>
<p>
[Posted on 
<h:outputText value="#{blogEntry.date}">
<f:convertDateTime timezone="#{blog.timeZone}"
locale="#{blog.locale}" type="both"/>
</h:outputText>]
</p>
</div>
If the blog entry is not found in the database, the EntryNotFoundException
exception is thrown. We want this exception to result in a 404 error, not a 505, so we annotate the
exception class:
@ApplicationException(rollback=true)
@HttpError(errorCode=HttpServletResponse.SC_NOT_FOUND)
public class EntryNotFoundException extends Exception
{
EntryNotFoundException(String id)
{
super("entry not found: " + id);
}
}
An alternative implementation of the example does not use the parameter in the method binding:
@Name("entryAction")
@Scope(STATELESS)
public class EntryAction
{
@In(create=true)
private Blog blog;
@In @Out
private BlogEntry blogEntry;
public void loadBlogEntry() throws EntryNotFoundException
{
blogEntry = blog.getBlogEntry( blogEntry.getId() );
if (blogEntry==null) throw new EntryNotFoundException(id);
}
}
<pages>
...
<page view-id="/entry.xhtml" action="#{entryAction.loadBlogEntry}">
<param name="blogEntryId" value="#{blogEntry.id}"/>
</page>
...
</pages>
It is a matter of taste which implementation you prefer.
The Seam distribution includes a command line utility that makes it really easy to set up an Eclipse project, generate some simple Seam skeleton code, and reverse engineer an application from a preexisting database.
This is the easy way to get your feet wet with Seam, and gives you some ammunition for next time you find yourself trapped in an elevator with one of those tedious Ruby guys ranting about how great and wonderful his new toy is for building totally trivial applications that put things in databases.
In this release, seam-gen works best for people with JBoss AS. You can use the generated project with other J2EE or Java EE 5 application servers by making a few manual changes to the project configuration.
You can use seam-gen without Eclipse, but in this tutorial, we want to show you how to use it in conjunction with Eclipse for debugging and integration testing. If you don't want to install Eclipse, you can still follow along with this tutorial—all steps can be performed from the command line.
Seam-gen is basically just a big ugly Ant script wrapped around Hibernate Tools, together with some templates. That makes it easy to customize if you need to.
Make sure you have JDK 5 or JDK 6, JBoss AS 4.2 and Ant 1.6, along with recent versions of Eclipse, the JBoss IDE plugin for Eclipse and the TestNG plugin for Eclipse correctly installed before starting. Add your JBoss installation to the JBoss Server View in Eclipse. Start JBoss in debug mode. Finally, start a command prompt in the directory where you unzipped the Seam distribution.
JBoss has sophisticated support for hot re-deployment of WARs and EARs. Unfortunately, due to bugs in the JVM, repeated redeployment of an EAR—which is common during development—eventually causes the JVM to run out of perm gen space. For this reason, we recommend running JBoss in a JVM with a large perm gen space at development time. If you're running JBoss from JBoss IDE, you can configure this in the server launch configuration, under "VM arguments". We suggest the following values:
-Xms512m -Xmx1024m -XX:PermSize=256m -XX:MaxPermSize=512
If you don't have so much memory available, the following is our minimum recommendation:
-Xms256m -Xmx512m -XX:PermSize=128m -XX:MaxPermSize=256
If you're running JBoss from the command line, you can configure the JVM options in
bin/run.conf
.
If you don't want to bother with this stuff now, you don't have to—come back to it later, when you get
your first OutOfMemoryException
.
The first thing we need to do is configure seam-gen for your environment: JBoss AS installation directory, Eclipse workspace, and database connection. It's easy, just type:
cd jboss-seam-2.0.x seam setup
And you will be prompted for the needed information:
~/workspace/jboss-seam$ ./seam setup Buildfile: build.xml init: setup: [echo] Welcome to seam-gen :-) [input] Enter your Java project workspace (the directory that contains your Seam projects) [C:/Projects] [C:/Projects] /Users/pmuir/workspace [input] Enter your JBoss home directory [C:/Program Files/jboss-4.2.2.GA] [C:/Program Files/jboss-4.2.2.GA] /Applications/jboss-4.2.2.GA [input] Enter the project name [myproject] [myproject] helloworld [echo] Accepted project name as: helloworld [input] Select a RichFaces skin (not applicable if using ICEFaces) [blueSky] ([blueSky], classic, ruby, wine, deepMarine, emeraldTown, sakura, DEFAULT) [input] Is this project deployed as an EAR (with EJB components) or a WAR (with no EJB support) [ear] ([ear], war, ) [input] Enter the Java package name for your session beans [com.mydomain.helloworld] [com.mydomain.helloworld] org.jboss.helloworld [input] Enter the Java package name for your entity beans [org.jboss.helloworld] [org.jboss.helloworld] [input] Enter the Java package name for your test cases [org.jboss.helloworld.test] [org.jboss.helloworld.test] [input] What kind of database are you using? [hsql] ([hsql], mysql, oracle, postgres, mssql, db2, sybase, enterprisedb, h2) mysql [input] Enter the Hibernate dialect for your database [org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect] [org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect] [input] Enter the filesystem path to the JDBC driver jar [lib/hsqldb.jar] [lib/hsqldb.jar] /Users/pmuir/java/mysql.jar [input] Enter JDBC driver class for your database [com.mysql.jdbc.Driver] [com.mysql.jdbc.Driver] [input] Enter the JDBC URL for your database [jdbc:mysql:///test] [jdbc:mysql:///test] jdbc:mysql:///helloworld [input] Enter database username [sa] [sa] pmuir [input] Enter database password [] [] [input] skipping input as property hibernate.default_schema.new has already been set. [input] Enter the database catalog name (it is OK to leave this blank) [] [] [input] Are you working with tables that already exist in the database? [n] (y, [n], ) y [input] Do you want to drop and recreate the database tables and data in import.sql each time you deploy? [n] (y, [n], ) n [input] Enter your ICEfaces home directory (leave blank to omit ICEfaces) [] [] [propertyfile] Creating new property file: /Users/pmuir/workspace/jboss-seam/seam-gen/build.properties [echo] Installing JDBC driver jar to JBoss server [echo] Type 'seam create-project' to create the new project BUILD SUCCESSFUL Total time: 1 minute 32 seconds ~/workspace/jboss-seam $
The tool provides sensible defaults, which you can accept by just pressing enter at the prompt.
The most important choice you need to make is between EAR deployment and WAR deployment of your project.
EAR projects support EJB 3.0 and require Java EE 5. WAR projects do not support EJB 3.0, but may be deployed
to a J2EE environment. The packaging of a WAR is also simpler to understand. If you installed an EJB3-ready
application server like JBoss, choose ear
. Otherwise, choose war
.
We'll assume that you've chosen an EAR deployment for the rest of the tutorial, but you can follow exactly
the same steps for a WAR deployment.
If you are working with an existing data model, make sure you tell seam-gen that the tables already exist in the database.
The settings are stored in seam-gen/build.properties
, but you can also modify them
simply by running seam setup
a second time.
Now we can create a new project in our Eclipse workspace directory, by typing:
seam new-project
C:\Projects\jboss-seam>seam new-project Buildfile: build.xml ... new-project: [echo] A new Seam project named 'helloworld' was created in the C:\Projects directory [echo] Type 'seam explode' and go to http://localhost:8080/helloworld [echo] Eclipse Users: Add the project into Eclipse using File > New > Project and select General > Project (not Java Project) [echo] NetBeans Users: Open the project in NetBeans BUILD SUCCESSFUL Total time: 7 seconds C:\Projects\jboss-seam>
This copies the Seam jars, dependent jars and the JDBC driver jar to a new Eclipse project, and generates
all needed resources and configuration files, a facelets template file and stylesheet, along with Eclipse
metadata and an Ant build script. The Eclipse project will be automatically deployed to an exploded
directory structure in JBoss AS as soon as you add the project using New -> Project...
-> General -> Project -> Next
, typing the Project name
(helloworld
in this case), and then clicking Finish
. Do not select
Java Project
from the New Project wizard.
If your default JDK in Eclipse is not a Java SE 5 or Java SE 6 JDK, you will need to select a Java SE 5
compliant JDK using Project -> Properties -> Java Compiler
.
Alternatively, you can deploy the project from outside Eclipse by typing seam explode
.
Go to http://localhost:8080/helloworld
to see a welcome page. This is a facelets page,
view/home.xhtml
, using the template view/layout/template.xhtml
.
You can edit this page, or the template, in eclipse, and see the results immediately,
by clicking refresh in your browser.
Don't get scared by the XML configuration documents that were generated into the project directory. They are mostly standard Java EE stuff, the stuff you need to create once and then never look at again, and they are 90% the same between all Seam projects. (They are so easy to write that even seam-gen can do it.)
The generated project includes three database and persistence configurations. The
persistence-test.xml
and
import-test.sql
files are used when running the TestNG unit tests against HSQLDB. The
database schema and the test data in import-test.sql
is always exported to the database
before running tests. The myproject-dev-ds.xml
, persistence-dev.xml
and
import-dev.sql
files are for use when deploying the application to your development
database. The schema might be exported automatically at deployment, depending upon whether you told seam-gen
that you are working with an existing database. The myproject-prod-ds.xml
,
persistence-prod.xml
and import-prod.sql
files are for use when
deploying the application to your production database. The schema is not exported automatically at
deployment.
If you're used to traditional action-style web frameworks, you're probably wondering how you can create a simple web page with a stateless action method in Java. If you type:
seam new-action
Seam will prompt for some information, and generate a new facelets page and Seam component for your project.
C:\Projects\jboss-seam>seam new-action Buildfile: build.xml validate-workspace: validate-project: action-input: [input] Enter the Seam component name ping [input] Enter the local interface name [Ping] [input] Enter the bean class name [PingBean] [input] Enter the action method name [ping] [input] Enter the page name [ping] setup-filters: new-action: [echo] Creating a new stateless session bean component with an action method [copy] Copying 1 file to C:\Projects\helloworld\src\action\org\jboss\helloworld [copy] Copying 1 file to C:\Projects\helloworld\src\action\org\jboss\helloworld [copy] Copying 1 file to C:\Projects\helloworld\src\action\org\jboss\helloworld\test [copy] Copying 1 file to C:\Projects\helloworld\src\action\org\jboss\helloworld\test [copy] Copying 1 file to C:\Projects\helloworld\view [echo] Type 'seam restart' and go to http://localhost:8080/helloworld/ping.seam BUILD SUCCESSFUL Total time: 13 seconds C:\Projects\jboss-seam>
Because we've added a new Seam component, we need to restart the exploded directory deployment. You can do
this by typing seam restart
, or by running the restart
target in the
generated project build.xml
file from inside Eclipse. Another way to force a restart is
to edit the file resources/META-INF/application.xml
in Eclipse. Note that you
do not need to restart JBoss each time you change the application.
Now go to http://localhost:8080/helloworld/ping.seam
and click the button. You can see
the code behind this action by looking in the project src
directory. Put a breakpoint in
the ping()
method, and click the button again.
Finally, locate the PingTest.xml
file in the test package and run the integration tests
using the TestNG plugin for Eclipse. Alternatively, run the tests using seam test
or the
test
target of the generated build.
The next step is to create a form. Type:
seam new-form
C:\Projects\jboss-seam>seam new-form Buildfile: C:\Projects\jboss-seam\seam-gen\build.xml validate-workspace: validate-project: action-input: [input] Enter the Seam component name hello [input] Enter the local interface name [Hello] [input] Enter the bean class name [HelloBean] [input] Enter the action method name [hello] [input] Enter the page name [hello] setup-filters: new-form: [echo] Creating a new stateful session bean component with an action method [copy] Copying 1 file to C:\Projects\hello\src\com\hello [copy] Copying 1 file to C:\Projects\hello\src\com\hello [copy] Copying 1 file to C:\Projects\hello\src\com\hello\test [copy] Copying 1 file to C:\Projects\hello\view [copy] Copying 1 file to C:\Projects\hello\src\com\hello\test [echo] Type 'seam restart' and go to http://localhost:8080/hello/hello.seam BUILD SUCCESSFUL Total time: 5 seconds C:\Projects\jboss-seam>
Restart the application again, and go to http://localhost:8080/helloworld/hello.seam
.
Then take a look at the generated code. Run the test. Try adding some new fields to the form and Seam
component (remember to restart the deployment each time you change the Java code).
Manually create some tables in your database. (If you need to switch to a different database, just run
seam setup
again.) Now type:
seam generate-entities
Restart the deployment, and go to http://localhost:8080/helloworld
. You can browse the
database, edit existing objects, and create new objects. If you look at the generated code, you'll probably
be amazed how simple it is! Seam was designed so that data access code is easy to write by hand, even for
people who don't want to cheat by using seam-gen.
Place your existing, valid entity classes inside the src/model
. Now type
seam generate-ui
Restart the deployment, and go to http://localhost:8080/helloworld
.
Finally, we want to be able to deploy the application using standard Java EE 5 packaging. First, we need
to remove the exploded directory by running seam unexplode
. To deploy the EAR, we can
type seam deploy
at the command prompt, or run the deploy
target of
the generated project build script. You can undeploy using seam undeploy
or the
undeploy
target.
By default, the application will be deployed with the dev profile. The EAR will
include the persistence-dev.xml
and import-dev.sql
files, and the
myproject-dev-ds.xml
file will be deployed. You can change the profile, and use the
prod profile, by typing
seam -Dprofile=prod deploy
You can even define new deployment profiles for your application. Just add appropriately named files to
your project—for example, persistence-staging.xml
, import-staging.sql
and myproject-staging-ds.xml
—and select the name of the profile using
-Dprofile=staging
.
When you deploy your Seam application as an exploded directory, you'll get some support for incremental
hot deployment at development time. You need to enable debug mode in both Seam and Facelets, by adding this
line to components.xml
:
<core:init debug="true">
Now, the following files may be redeployed without requiring a full restart of the web application:
any facelets page
any pages.xml
file
But if we want to change any Java code, we still need to do a full restart of the application. (In JBoss
this may be accomplished by touching the top level deployment descriptor: application.xml
for an EAR deployment, or web.xml
for a WAR deployment.)
But if you really want a fast edit/compile/test cycle, Seam supports incremental redeployment of JavaBean
components. To make use of this functionality, you must deploy the JavaBean components into the
WEB-INF/dev
directory, so that they will be loaded by a special Seam classloader,
instead of by the WAR or EAR classloader.
You need to be aware of the following limitations:
the components must be JavaBean components, they cannot be EJB3 beans (we are working on fixing this limitation)
entities can never be hot-deloyed
components deployed via components.xml
may not be hot-deployed
the hot-deployable components will not be visible to any classes deployed outside of
WEB-INF/dev
Seam debug mode must be enabled and jboss-seam-debug.jar
must be in WEB-INF/lib
You must have the Seam filter installed in web.xml
You may see errors if the system is placed under any load and debug is enabled.
If you create a WAR project using seam-gen, incremental hot deployment is available out of the box for
classes in the src/action
source directory. However, seam-gen does not support
incremental hot deployment for EAR projects.
Seam 2.0 was developed for JavaServer Faces 1.2. When using JBoss AS, we recommend using JBoss 4.2, which bundles the JSF 1.2 reference implementation. However, it is still possible to use Seam 2.0 on the JBoss 4.0 platform. There are two basic steps required to do this: install an EJB3-enabled version of JBoss 4.0 and replace MyFaces with the JSF 1.2 reference implementation. Once you complete these steps, Seam 2.0 applications can be deployed to JBoss 4.0.
JBoss 4.0 does not ship a default configuration compatible with Seam. To run Seam, you must install JBoss 4.0.5 using the JEMS 1.2 installer with the ejb3 profile selected. Seam will not run with an installation that doesn't include EJB3 support. The JEMS installer can be downloaded from http://labs.jboss.com/jemsinstaller/downloads.
The web configuration for JBoss 4.0 can be found in the
server/default/deploy/jbossweb-tomcat55.sar
. You'll need to delete
myfaces-api.jar
any myfaces-impl.jar
from the
jsf-libs
directory. Then, you'll need to copy jsf-api.jar
,
jsf-impl.jar
, el-api.jar
, and el-ri.jar
to that directory. The JSF JARs can be found in the Seam lib
directory. The el JARs
can be obtained from the Seam 1.2 release.
You'll also need to edit the conf/web.xml
, replacing
myfaces-impl.jar
with jsf-impl.jar
.
JBoss Tools is a collection of Eclipse plugins. JBoss Tools a project creation wizard for Seam, Content Assist for the Unified Expression Language (EL) in both facelets and Java code, a graphical editor for jPDL, a graphical editor for Seam configuration files, support for running Seam integration tests from within Eclipse, and much more.
In short, if you are an Eclipse user, then you'll want JBoss Tools!
JBoss Tools, as with seam-gen, works best with JBoss AS, but it's possible with a few tweaks to get your app running on other application servers. The changes are much like those described for seam-gen later in this reference manual.
Make sure you have JDK 5, JBoss AS 4.2, Eclipse 3.3, the JBoss Tools plugins (at least Seam Tools, the Visual Page Editor, jBPM Tools and JBoss AS Tools) and the TestNG plugin for Eclipse correctly installed before starting.
TODO - detail where the update sites are.
Start up Eclipse and select the Seam perspective.
Go to File -> New -> Seam Web Project.
First, enter a name for your new project. For this tutorial, we're
going to use
helloworld
.
Now, we need to tell JBoss Tools about JBoss AS. This is a two stage process, first we need to define a runtime, make sure you select JBoss AS 4.2:
Enter a name for the runtime, and locate it on your hard drive:
Next, we need to define a server JBoss Tools can deploy the project to. Make sure to again select JBoss AS 4.2, and also the runtime you just defined:
On the next screen give the server a name, and hit Finish:
Make sure the runtime and server you just created are selected, select Dynamic Web Project with Seam 2.0 (technology preview) and hit Next:
The next 3 screens allow you to further customize your new project, but for us the defaults are fine. So just hit <empahsis>Next</empahsis> until you reach the final screen.
The first step here is to tell JBoss Tools about the Seam download you want to use. Add a new Seam Runtime - make sure to give it a name, and select 2.0 as the version:
The most important choice you need to make is between EAR deployment and WAR deployment of your project. EAR projects support EJB 3.0 and require Java EE 5. WAR projects do not support EJB 3.0, but may be deployed to a J2EE environment. The packaging of a WAR is also simpler to understand. If you installed an EJB3-ready application server like JBoss, choose EAR. Otherwise, choose WAR. We'll assume that you've chosen a WAR deployment for the rest of the tutorial, but you can follow exactly the same steps for a EAR deployment.
Next, select your database type. We'll assume you have MySQL installed, with an existing schema. You'll need to tell JBoss Tools about the database, select MySQL as the database, and create a new connection profile. Select Generic JDBC Connection:
Give it a name:
JBoss Tools doesn't come with drivers for any databases, so you need to tell JBoss Tools where the MySQL JDBC driver is. Tell it about the driver by clicking ....
Locate MySQL 5, and hit Add...:
Choose the MySQL JDBC Driver template:
Locate the jar on your computer by choosing Edit Jar/Zip:
Review the username and password used to connect, and if correct, hit Ok.
Finally, choose the newly created driver:
If you are working with an existing data model, make sure you tell JBoss Tools that the tables already exist in the database.
Review the username and password used to connect, test the connection using the Test Connection button, and if it works, hit Finish:
Finally, review the package names for your generated beans, and if you are happy, click Finish:
JBoss has sophisticated support for hot re-deployment of WARs and EARs. Unfortunately, due to bugs in the JVM, repeated redeployment of an EAR—which is common during development—eventually causes the JVM to run out of perm gen space. For this reason, we recommend running JBoss in a JVM with a large perm gen space at development time. We suggest the following values:
-Xms512m -Xmx1024m -XX:PermSize=256m -XX:MaxPermSize=512
If you don't have so much memory available, the following is our minimum recommendation:
-Xms256m -Xmx512m -XX:PermSize=128m -XX:MaxPermSize=256
Locate the server in the JBoss Server View, right click on the server and select Edit Launch Configuration:
Then, alter the VM arguements:
If you don't want to bother with this stuff now, you don't have to—come
back to it later, when you get your first
OutOfMemoryException
.
To start JBoss, and deploy the project, just right click on the server you created, and click Start, (or Debug to start in debug mode):
Don't get scared by the XML configuration documents that were generated into the project directory. They are mostly standard Java EE stuff, the stuff you need to create once and then never look at again, and they are 90% the same between all Seam projects.
If you're used to traditional action-style web frameworks, you're probably wondering how you can create a simple web page with a stateless action method in Java.
First, select New -> Seam Action:
Now, enter the name of the Seam component. JBoss Tools selects sensible defaults for other fields:
Finally, hit Finish.
Now go to http://localhost:8080/helloworld/ping.seam
and click the button. You can see the code behind this action by
looking in the project src
directory. Put a
breakpoint in the ping()
method, and click the
button again.
Finally, open the helloworld-test
project, locate
PingTest
class, right click on it, and choose
Run As -> TestNG Test:
The first step is to create a form. Select New -> Seam Form:
Now, enter the name of the Seam component. JBoss Tools selects sensible defaults for other fields:
Go to http://localhost:8080/helloworld/hello.seam
.
Then take a look at the generated code. Run the test. Try adding some
new fields to the form and Seam component (note, you don't need to
restart the app server each time you change the code in
src/action
as Seam hot reloads the component for
you Section 3.6, “Seam and incremental hot deployment with JBoss Tools”).
Manually create some tables in your database. (If you need to switch to a different database, create a new project, and select the correct database). Then, select New -> Seam Generate Entities:
JBoss Tools gives you the option to either reverse engineer entities, components and views from a database schema or to reverse engineer components and views from existing JPA entities. We're going to do Reverse engieneer from database.
Restart the deployment:
Then go to http://localhost:8080/helloworld
. You can
browse the database, edit existing objects, and create new objects. If
you look at the generated code, you'll probably be amazed how simple it
is! Seam was designed so that data access code is easy to write by
hand, even for people who don't want to cheat by using reverse
engineering.
JBoss Tools supports incremental hot deployment of:
any facelets page
any pages.xml
file
out of the box.
But if we want to change any Java code, we still need to do a full restart of the application by doing a Full Publish.
But if you really want a fast edit/compile/test cycle, Seam supports
incremental redeployment of JavaBean components. To make use of this
functionality, you must deploy the JavaBean components into the
WEB-INF/dev
directory, so that they will be loaded
by a special Seam classloader, instead of by the WAR or EAR
classloader.
You need to be aware of the following limitations:
the components must be JavaBean components, they cannot be EJB3 beans (we are working on fixing this limitation)
entities can never be hot-deloyed
components deployed via components.xml
may not
be hot-deployed
the hot-deployable components will not be visible to any classes
deployed outside of WEB-INF/dev
Seam debug mode must be enabled and
jboss-seam-debug.jar
must be in
WEB-INF/lib
You must have the Seam filter installed in web.xml
You may see errors if the system is placed under any load and debug is enabled.
If you create a WAR project using JBoss Tools, incremental hot deployment
is available out of the box for classes in the
src/action
source directory. However, JBoss Tools
does not support incremental hot deployment for EAR projects.
The two core concepts in Seam are the notion of a context and the notion of a component. Components are stateful objects, usually EJBs, and an instance of a component is associated with a context, and given a name in that context. Bijection provides a mechanism for aliasing internal component names (instance variables) to contextual names, allowing component trees to be dynamically assembled, and reassembled by Seam.
Let's start by describing the contexts built in to Seam.
Seam contexts are created and destroyed by the framework. The application does not control context demarcation via explicit Java API calls. Context are usually implicit. In some cases, however, contexts are demarcated via annotations.
The basic Seam contexts are:
Stateless context
Event (or request) context
Page context
Conversation context
Session context
Business process context
Application context
You will recognize some of these contexts from servlet and related specifications. However, two of them might be new to you: conversation context, and business process context. One reason state management in web applications is so fragile and error-prone is that the three built-in contexts (request, session and application) are not especially meaningful from the point of view of the business logic. A user login session, for example, is a fairly arbitrary construct in terms of the actual application work flow. Therefore, most Seam components are scoped to the conversation or business process contexts, since they are the contexts which are most meaningful in terms of the application.
Let's look at each context in turn.
Components which are truly stateless (stateless session beans, primarily) always live in the stateless context (this is really a non-context). Stateless components are not very interesting, and are arguably not very object-oriented. Nevertheless, they are important and often useful.
The event context is the "narrowest" stateful context, and is a generalization of the notion of the web request context to cover other kinds of events. Nevertheless, the event context associated with the lifecycle of a JSF request is the most important example of an event context, and the one you will work with most often. Components associated with the event context are destroyed at the end of the request, but their state is available and well-defined for at least the lifecycle of the request.
When you invoke a Seam component via RMI, or Seam Remoting, the event context is created and destroyed just for the invocation.
The page context allows you to associate state with a particular instance of a rendered page. You can initialize state in your event listener, or while actually rendering the page, and then have access to it from any event that originates from that page. This is especially useful for functionality like clickable lists, where the list is backed by changing data on the server side. The state is actually serialized to the client, so this construct is extremely robust with respect to multi-window operation and the back button.
The conversation context is a truly central concept in Seam. A conversation is a unit of work from the point of view of the user. It might span several interactions with the user, several requests, and several database transactions. But to the user, a conversation solves a single problem. For example, "book hotel", "approve contract", "create order" are all conversations. You might like to think of a conversation implementing a single "use case" or "user story", but the relationship is not necessarily quite exact.
A conversation holds state associated with "what the user is doing now, in this window". A single user may have multiple conversations in progress at any point in time, usually in multiple windows. The conversation context allows us to ensure that state from the different conversations does not collide and cause bugs.
It might take you some time to get used to thinking of applications in terms of conversations. But once you get used to it, we think you'll love the notion, and never be able to not think in terms of conversations again!
Some conversations last for just a single request. Conversations that span multiple requests must be demarcated using annotations provided by Seam.
Some conversations are also tasks. A task is a conversation that is significant in terms of a long-running business process, and has the potential to trigger a business process state transition when it is successfully completed. Seam provides a special set of annotations for task demarcation.
Conversations may be nested, with one conversation taking place "inside" a wider conversation. This is an advanced feature.
Usually, conversation state is actually held by Seam in the servlet session between requests. Seam implements configurable conversation timeout, automatically destroying inactive conversations, and thus ensuring that the state held by a single user login session does not grow without bound if the user abandons conversations.
Seam serializes processing of concurrent requests that take place in the same long-running conversation context, in the same process.
Alternatively, Seam may be configured to keep conversational state in the client browser.
A session context holds state associated with the user login session. While there are some cases where it is useful to share state between several conversations, we generally frown on the use of session context for holding components other than global information about the logged in user.
In a JSR-168 portal environment, the session context represents the portlet session.
The business process context holds state associated with the long running business process. This state is managed and made persistent by the BPM engine (JBoss jBPM). The business process spans multiple interactions with multiple users, so this state is shared between multiple users, but in a well-defined manner. The current task determines the current business process instance, and the lifecycle of the business process is defined externally using a process definition language, so there are no special annotations for business process demarcation.
The application context is the familiar servlet context from the servlet spec. Application context is mainly useful for holding static information such as configuration data, reference data or metamodels. For example, Seam stores its own configuration and metamodel in the application context.
A context defines a namespace, a set of context variables. These work much the same as session or request attributes in the servlet spec. You may bind any value you like to a context variable, but usually we bind Seam component instances to context variables.
So, within a context, a component instance is identified by the context variable name (this is
usually, but not always, the same as the component name). You may programatically access a named
component instance in a particular scope via the Contexts
class, which provides
access to several thread-bound instances of the Context
interface:
User user = (User) Contexts.getSessionContext().get("user");
You may also set or change the value associated with a name:
Contexts.getSessionContext().set("user", user);
Usually, however, we obtain components from a context via injection, and put component instances into a context via outjection.
Sometimes, as above, component instances are obtained from a particular known scope. Other times, all stateful scopes are searched, in priority order. The order is as follows:
Event context
Page context
Conversation context
Session context
Business process context
Application context
You can perform a priority search by calling Contexts.lookupInStatefulContexts()
.
Whenever you access a component by name from a JSF page, a priority search occurs.
Neither the servlet nor EJB specifications define any facilities for managing concurrent requests originating from the same client. The servlet container simply lets all threads run concurrently and leaves enforcing threadsafeness to application code. The EJB container allows stateless components to be accessed concurrently, and throws an exception if multiple threads access a stateful session bean.
This behavior might have been okay in old-style web applications which were based around fine-grained, synchronous requests. But for modern applications which make heavy use of many fine-grained, asynchronous (AJAX) requests, concurrency is a fact of life, and must be supported by the programming model. Seam weaves a concurrency management layer into its context model.
The Seam session and application contexts are multithreaded. Seam will allow concurrent requests in a context to be processed concurrently. The event and page contexts are by nature single threaded. The business process context is strictly speaking multi-threaded, but in practice concurrency is sufficiently rare that this fact may be disregarded most of the time. Finally, Seam enforces a single thread per conversation per process model for the conversation context by serializing concurrent requests in the same long-running conversation context.
Since the session context is multithreaded, and often contains volatile state, session scope
components are always protected by Seam from concurrent access. Seam serializes requests to session
scope session beans and JavaBeans by default (and detects and breaks any deadlocks that occur). This is
not the default behaviour for application scoped components however, since application scoped components
do not usually hold volatile state and because synchronization at the global level is
extremely expensive. However, you can force a serialized threading model on any
session bean or JavaBean component by adding the @Synchronized
annotation.
This concurrency model means that AJAX clients can safely use volatile session and conversational state, without the need for any special work on the part of the developer.
Seam components are POJOs (Plain Old Java Objects). In particular, they are JavaBeans or EJB 3.0 enterprise beans. While Seam does not require that components be EJBs and can even be used without an EJB 3.0 compliant container, Seam was designed with EJB 3.0 in mind and includes deep integration with EJB 3.0. Seam supports the following component types.
EJB 3.0 stateless session beans
EJB 3.0 stateful session beans
EJB 3.0 entity beans
JavaBeans
EJB 3.0 message-driven beans
Stateless session bean components are not able to hold state across multiple invocations. Therefore, they usually work by operating upon the state of other components in the various Seam contexts. They may be used as JSF action listeners, but cannot provide properties to JSF components for display.
Stateless session beans always live in the stateless context.
Stateless session beans can be accessed concurrently as a new instance is used for each request. Assigning the instance to the request is the responsibility of the EJB3 container (normally instances will be allocated from a reusable pool meaning that you may find any instance variables contain data from previous uses of the bean).
Stateless session beans are the least interesting kind of Seam component.
Seam stateless session bean components may be instantiated using Component.getInstance()
or @In(create=true)
. They should not be directly instantiated via JNDI lookup
or the new
operator.
Stateful session bean components are able to hold state not only across multiple invocations of the
bean, but also across multiple requests. Application state that does not belong in the database should
usually be held by stateful session beans. This is a major difference between Seam and many other web
application frameworks. Instead of sticking information about the current conversation directly in the
HttpSession
, you should keep it in instance variables of a stateful session bean
that is bound to the conversation context. This allows Seam to manage the lifecycle of this state for
you, and ensure that there are no collisions between state relating to different concurrent
conversations.
Stateful session beans are often used as JSF action listener, and as backing beans that provide properties to JSF components for display or form submission.
By default, stateful session beans are bound to the conversation context. They may never be bound to the page or stateless contexts.
Concurrent requests to session-scoped stateful session beans are always serialized by Seam.
Seam stateful session bean components may be instantiated using Component.getInstance()
or @In(create=true)
. They should not be directly instantiated via JNDI lookup
or the new
operator.
Entity beans may be bound to a context variable and function as a seam component. Because entities have a persistent identity in addition to their contextual identity, entity instances are usually bound explicitly in Java code, rather than being instantiated implicitly by Seam.
Entity bean components do not support bijection or context demarcation. Nor does invocation of an entity bean trigger validation.
Entity beans are not usually used as JSF action listeners, but do often function as backing beans that provide properties to JSF components for display or form submission. In particular, it is common to use an entity as a backing bean, together with a stateless session bean action listener to implement create/update/delete type functionality.
By default, entity beans are bound to the conversation context. They may never be bound to the stateless context.
Note that it in a clustered environment is somewhat less efficient to bind an entity bean directly to a conversation or session scoped Seam context variable than it would be to hold a reference to the entity bean in a stateful session bean. For this reason, not all Seam applications define entity beans to be Seam components.
Seam entity bean components may be instantiated using Component.getInstance()
,
@In(create=true)
or directly using the new
operator.
Javabeans may be used just like a stateless or stateful session bean. However, they do not provide the functionality of a session bean (declarative transaction demarcation, declarative security, efficient clustered state replication, EJB 3.0 persistence, timeout methods, etc).
In a later chapter, we show you how to use Seam and Hibernate without an EJB container. In this use case, components are JavaBeans instead of session beans. Note, however, that in many application servers it is somewhat less efficient to cluster conversation or session scoped Seam JavaBean components than it is to cluster stateful session bean components.
By default, JavaBeans are bound to the event context.
Concurrent requests to session-scoped JavaBeans are always serialized by Seam.
Seam JavaBean components may be instantiated using Component.getInstance()
or @In(create=true)
. They should not be directly instantiated using the
new
operator.
Message-driven beans may function as a seam component. However, message-driven beans are called quite differently to other Seam components - instead of invoking them via the context variable, they listen for messages sent to a JMS queue or topic.
Message-driven beans may not be bound to a Seam context. Nor do they have access to the session or conversation state of their "caller". However, they do support bijection and some other Seam functionality.
Message-driven beans are never instantiated by the application. They are instantiated by the EJB container when a message is received.
In order to perform its magic (bijection, context demarcation, validation, etc), Seam must intercept component invocations. For JavaBeans, Seam is in full control of instantiation of the component, and no special configuration is needed. For entity beans, interception is not required since bijection and context demarcation are not defined. For session beans, we must register an EJB interceptor for the session bean component. We could use an annotation, as follows:
@Stateless
@Interceptors(SeamInterceptor.class)
public class LoginAction implements Login {
...
}
But a much better way is to define the interceptor in ejb-jar.xml
.
<interceptors>
<interceptor>
<interceptor-class>org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class>
</interceptor>
</interceptors>
<assembly-descriptor>
<interceptor-binding>
<ejb-name>*</ejb-name>
<interceptor-class>org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class>
</interceptor-binding>
</assembly-descriptor>
All seam components need a name. We can assign a name to a component using the
@Name
annotation:
@Name("loginAction")
@Stateless
public class LoginAction implements Login {
...
}
This name is the seam component name and is not related to any other name defined by the EJB specification. However, seam component names work just like JSF managed bean names and you can think of the two concepts as identical.
@Name
is not the only way to define a component name, but we always need
to specify the name somewhere. If we don't, then none of the other
Seam annotations will function.
Just like in JSF, a seam component instance is usually bound to a context variable with the same name
as the component name. So, for example, we would access the LoginAction
using
Contexts.getStatelessContext().get("loginAction")
. In particular, whenever Seam
itself instantiates a component, it binds the new instance to a variable with the component name.
However, again like JSF, it is possible for the application to bind a component to some other context
variable by programmatic API call. This is only useful if a particular component serves more than one
role in the system. For example, the currently logged in User
might be bound to the
currentUser
session context variable, while a User
that is the
subject of some administration functionality might be bound to the user
conversation
context variable.
For very large applications, and for built-in seam components, qualified names are often used.
@Name("com.jboss.myapp.loginAction")
@Stateless
public class LoginAction implements Login {
...
}
We may use the qualified component name both in Java code and in JSF's expression language:
<h:commandButton type="submit" value="Login"
action="#{com.jboss.myapp.loginAction.login}"/>
Since this is noisy, Seam also provides a means of aliasing a qualified name to a simple name. Add a
line like this to the components.xml
file:
<factory name="loginAction" scope="STATELESS" value="#{com.jboss.myapp.loginAction}"/>
All of the built-in Seam components have qualified names, but most of them are aliased to a simple
name by the components.xml
file included in the Seam jar.
We can override the default scope (context) of a component using the @Scope
annotation. This lets us define what context a component instance is bound to, when it is instantiated
by Seam.
@Name("user")
@Entity
@Scope(SESSION)
public class User {
...
}
org.jboss.seam.ScopeType
defines an enumeration of possible scopes.
Some Seam component classes can fulfill more than one role in the system. For example, we often have
a User
class which is usually used as a session-scoped component representing the
current user but is used in user administration screens as a conversation-scoped component. The
@Role
annotation lets us define an additional named role for a component, with a
different scope—it lets us bind the same component class to different context variables. (Any
Seam component instance may be bound to multiple context variables, but this lets
us do it at the class level, and take advantage of auto-instantiation.)
@Name("user")
@Entity
@Scope(CONVERSATION)
@Role(name="currentUser", scope=SESSION)
public class User {
...
}
The @Roles
annotation lets us specify as many additional roles as we like.
@Name("user")
@Entity
@Scope(CONVERSATION)
@Roles({@Role(name="currentUser", scope=SESSION),
@Role(name="tempUser", scope=EVENT)})
public class User {
...
}
Like many good frameworks, Seam eats its own dogfood and is implemented mostly as a set of built-in
Seam interceptors (see later) and Seam components. This makes it easy for applications to interact with
built-in components at runtime or even customize the basic functionality of Seam by replacing the
built-in components with custom implementations. The built-in components are defined in the Seam
namespace org.jboss.seam.core
and the Java package of the same name.
The built-in components may be injected, just like any Seam components, but they also provide
convenient static instance()
methods:
FacesMessages.instance().add("Welcome back, #{user.name}!");
Dependency injection or inversion of control is by now a familiar concept to most Java developers. Dependency injection allows a component to obtain a reference to another component by having the container "inject" the other component to a setter method or instance variable. In all dependency injection implementations that we have seen, injection occurs when the component is constructed, and the reference does not subsequently change for the lifetime of the component instance. For stateless components, this is reasonable. From the point of view of a client, all instances of a particular stateless component are interchangeable. On the other hand, Seam emphasizes the use of stateful components. So traditional dependency injection is no longer a very useful construct. Seam introduces the notion of bijection as a generalization of injection. In contrast to injection, bijection is:
contextual - bijection is used to assemble stateful components from various different contexts (a component from a "wider" context may even have a reference to a component from a "narrower" context)
bidirectional - values are injected from context variables into attributes of the component being invoked, and also outjected from the component attributes back out to the context, allowing the component being invoked to manipulate the values of contextual variables simply by setting its own instance variables
dynamic - since the value of contextual variables changes over time, and since Seam components are stateful, bijection takes place every time a component is invoked
In essence, bijection lets you alias a context variable to a component instance variable, by specifying that the value of the instance variable is injected, outjected, or both. Of course, we use annotations to enable bijection.
The @In
annotation specifies that a value should be injected, either into an instance
variable:
@Name("loginAction")
@Stateless
public class LoginAction implements Login {
@In User user;
...
}
or into a setter method:
@Name("loginAction")
@Stateless
public class LoginAction implements Login {
User user;
@In
public void setUser(User user) {
this.user=user;
}
...
}
By default, Seam will do a priority search of all contexts, using the name of the property or instance
variable that is being injected. You may wish to specify the context variable name explicitly, using, for
example, @In("currentUser")
.
If you want Seam to create an instance of the component when there is no existing component instance
bound to the named context variable, you should specify @In(create=true)
. If the value is
optional (it can be null), specify @In(required=false)
.
For some components, it can be repetitive to have to specify @In(create=true)
everywhere
they are used. In such cases, you can annotate the component @AutoCreate
, and then it
will always be created, whenever needed, even without the explicit use of create=true
.
You can even inject the value of an expression:
@Name("loginAction")
@Stateless
public class LoginAction implements Login {
@In("#{user.username}") String username;
...
}
Injected values are disinjected (i.e, set to null
) immediately after method
completion and outjection.
(There is much more information about component lifecycle and injection in the next chapter.)
The @Out
annotation specifies that an attribute should be outjected, either from an
instance variable:
@Name("loginAction")
@Stateless
public class LoginAction implements Login {
@Out User user;
...
}
or from a getter method:
@Name("loginAction")
@Stateless
public class LoginAction implements Login {
User user;
@Out
public User getUser() {
return user;
}
...
}
An attribute may be both injected and outjected:
@Name("loginAction")
@Stateless
public class LoginAction implements Login {
@In @Out User user;
...
}
or:
@Name("loginAction")
@Stateless
public class LoginAction implements Login {
User user;
@In
public void setUser(User user) {
this.user=user;
}
@Out
public User getUser() {
return user;
}
...
}
Session bean and entity bean Seam components support all the usual EJB 3.0 lifecycle callback
(@PostConstruct
, @PreDestroy
, etc). But Seam also supports
the use of any of these callbacks with JavaBean components. However, since these annotations are
not available in a J2EE environment, Seam defines two additional component lifecycle callbacks,
equivalent to @PostConstruct
and @PreDestroy
.
The @Create
method is called after Seam instantiates a component.
Components may define only one @Create
method.
The @Destroy
method is called when the context that the Seam component is bound to
ends. Components may define only one @Destroy
method.
In addition, stateful session bean components must define a method with no parameters
annotated @Remove
. This method is called by Seam when the context ends.
Finally, a related annotation is the @Startup
annotation, which may be applied to any
application or session scoped component. The @Startup
annotation tells Seam to
instantiate the component immediately, when the context begins, instead of waiting until it is first
referenced by a client. It is possible to control the order of instantiation of startup components by
specifying @Startup(depends={....})
.
The @Install
annotation lets you control conditional installation of components that
are required in some deployment scenarios and not in others. This is useful if:
You want to mock out some infrastructural component in tests.
You want change the implementation of a component in certain deployment scenarios.
You want to install some components only if their dependencies are available (useful for framework authors).
@Install
works by letting you specify precedence
and dependencies.
The precedence of a component is a number that Seam uses to decide which component to install when there are multiple classes with the same component name in the classpath. Seam will choose the component with the higher precendence. There are some predefined precedence values (in ascending order):
BUILT_IN
— the lowest precedece components are
the components built in to Seam.
FRAMEWORK
— components defined by third-party
frameworks may override built-in components, but are overridden by
application components.
APPLICATION
— the default precedence. This is
appropriate for most application components.
DEPLOYMENT
— for application components which
are deployment-specific.
MOCK
— for mock objects used in testing.
Suppose we have a component named messageSender
that talks to
a JMS queue.
@Name("messageSender")
public class MessageSender {
public void sendMessage() {
//do something with JMS
}
}
In our unit tests, we don't have a JMS queue available, so we would like to stub out this method. We'll create a mock component that exists in the classpath when unit tests are running, but is never deployed with the application:
@Name("messageSender")
@Install(precedence=MOCK)
public class MockMessageSender extends MessageSender {
public void sendMessage() {
//do nothing!
}
}
The precedence
helps Seam decide which version to use when it finds
both components in the classpath.
This is nice if we are able to control exactly which classes are in the classpath. But
if I'm writing a reusable framework with many dependecies, I don't want to have to
break that framework across many jars. I want to be able to decide which components
to install depending upon what other components are installed, and upon what classes
are available in the classpath. The @Install
annotation also
controls this functionality. Seam uses this mechanism internally to enable conditional
installation of many of the built-in components. However, you probably won't need to
use it in your application.
Who is not totally fed up with seeing noisy code like this?
private static final Log log = LogFactory.getLog(CreateOrderAction.class);
public Order createOrder(User user, Product product, int quantity) {
if ( log.isDebugEnabled() ) {
log.debug("Creating new order for user: " + user.username() +
" product: " + product.name()
+ " quantity: " + quantity);
}
return new Order(user, product, quantity);
}
It is difficult to imagine how the code for a simple log message could possibly be more verbose. There is more lines of code tied up in logging than in the actual business logic! I remain totally astonished that the Java community has not come up with anything better in 10 years.
Seam provides a logging API that simplifies this code significantly:
@Logger private Log log;
public Order createOrder(User user, Product product, int quantity) {
log.debug("Creating new order for user: #0 product: #1 quantity: #2", user.username(), product.name(), quantity);
return new Order(user, product, quantity);
}
It doesn't matter if you declare the log
variable static or not—it will work
either way, except for entity bean components which require the log
variable to be
static.
Note that we don't need the noisy if ( log.isDebugEnabled() )
guard, since string
concatenation happens inside the debug()
method. Note also that we
don't usually need to specify the log category explicitly, since Seam knows what component it is injecting
the Log
into.
If User
and Product
are Seam components available in the current
contexts, it gets even better:
@Logger private Log log;
public Order createOrder(User user, Product product, int quantity) {
log.debug("Creating new order for user: #{user.username} product: #{product.name} quantity: #0", quantity);
return new Order(user, product, quantity);
}
Seam logging automagically chooses whether to send output to log4j or JDK logging. If log4j is in the classpath, Seam with use it. If it is not, Seam will use JDK logging.
Many application servers feature an amazingly broken implementation of HttpSession
clustering, where changes to the state of mutable objects bound to the session are only replicated when the
application calls setAttribute()
explicitly. This is a source of bugs that can not
effectively be tested for at development time, since they will only manifest when failover occurs.
Furthermore, the actual replication message contains the entire serialized object graph bound to the session
attribute, which is inefficient.
Of course, EJB stateful session beans must perform automatic dirty checking and replication of mutable state and a sophisticated EJB container can introduce optimizations such as attribute-level replication. Unfortunately, not all Seam users have the good fortune to be working in an environment that supports EJB 3.0. So, for session and conversation scoped JavaBean and entity bean components, Seam provides an extra layer of cluster-safe state management over the top of the web container session clustering.
For session or conversation scoped JavaBean components, Seam automatically forces replication to occur by
calling setAttribute()
once in every request that the component was invoked by the
application. Of course, this strategy is inefficient for read-mostly components. You can control this
behavior by implementing the org.jboss.seam.core.Mutable
interface, or by extending
org.jboss.seam.core.AbstractMutable
, and writing your own dirty-checking logic inside
the component. For example,
@Name("account")
public class Account extends AbstractMutable
{
private BigDecimal balance;
public void setBalance(BigDecimal balance)
{
setDirty(this.balance, balance);
this.balance = balance;
}
public BigDecimal getBalance()
{
return balance;
}
...
}
Or, you can use the @ReadOnly
annotation to achieve a similar effect:
@Name("account")
public class Account
{
private BigDecimal balance;
public void setBalance(BigDecimal balance)
{
this.balance = balance;
}
@ReadOnly
public BigDecimal getBalance()
{
return balance;
}
...
}
For session or conversation scoped entity bean components, Seam automatically forces replication to occur
by calling setAttribute()
once in every request, unless the (conversation-scoped)
entity is currently associated with a Seam-managed persistence context, in which case no replication is
needed. This strategy is not necessarily efficient, so session or conversation scope entity beans
should be used with care. You can always write a stateful session bean or JavaBean component to "manage" the
entity bean instance. For example,
@Stateful
@Name("account")
public class AccountManager extends AbstractMutable
{
private Account account; // an entity bean
@Unwrap
public void getAccount()
{
return account;
}
...
}
Note that the EntityHome
class in the Seam Application Framework provides a great example
of managing an entity bean instance using a Seam component.
We often need to work with objects that are not Seam components. But we still want to be able to inject
them into our components using @In
and use them in value and method binding expressions,
etc. Sometimes, we even need to tie them into the Seam context lifecycle (@Destroy
, for
example). So the Seam contexts can contain objects which are not Seam components, and Seam provides a couple
of nice features that make it easier to work with non-component objects bound to contexts.
The factory component pattern lets a Seam component act as the instantiator for a
non-component object. A factory method will be called when a context variable is
referenced but has no value bound to it. We define factory methods using the @Factory
annotation. The factory method binds a value to the context variable, and determines the scope of the bound
value. There are two styles of factory method. The first style returns a value, which is bound to the
context by Seam:
@Factory(scope=CONVERSATION)
public List<Customer> getCustomerList() {
return ... ;
}
The second style is a method of type void
which binds the value to the context
variable itself:
@DataModel List<Customer> customerList;
@Factory("customerList")
public void initCustomerList() {
customerList = ... ;
}
In both cases, the factory method is called when we reference the customerList
context
variable and its value is null, and then has no further part to play in the lifecycle of the value. An even
more powerful pattern is the manager component pattern. In this case, we have a Seam
component that is bound to a context variable, that manages the value of the context variable, while
remaining invisible to clients.
A manager component is any component with an @Unwrap
method. This method returns the
value that will be visable to clients, and is called every time a context variable is
referenced.
@Name("customerList")
@Scope(CONVERSATION)
public class CustomerListManager
{
...
@Unwrap
public List<Customer> getCustomerList() {
return ... ;
}
}
The manager component pattern is especially useful if we have an object where you need more control over the
lifecycle of the component. For example, if you have a heavyweight object that needs a cleanup operation when
the context ends you could @Unwrap
the object, and perform cleanup in the
@Destroy
method of the manager component.
@Name("hens")
@Scope(APPLICATION)
public class HenHouse {
Set<Hen> hens;
@In(required=false) Hen hen;
@Unwrap
public List<Hen> getHens() {
if (hens == null) {
// Setup our hens
}
return hens;
}
@Observer({"chickBorn", "chickenBoughtAtMarket"})
public addHen() {
hens.add(hen);
}
@Observer("chickenSoldAtMarket")
public removeHen() {
hens.remove(hen);
}
@Observer("foxGetsIn")
public removeAllHens() {
hens.clear();
}
...
}
Here the managed component observes many events which change the underlying object. The component manages these actions itself, and because the object is unwrapped on every access, a consistent view is provided.
The philosophy of minimizing XML-based configuration is extremely strong in Seam. Nevertheless,
there are various reasons why we might want to configure a Seam component using XML: to isolate
deployment-specific information from the Java code, to enable the creation of re-usable frameworks,
to configure Seam's built-in functionality, etc.
Seam provides two basic approaches to configuring components: configuration via property settings in a
properties file or in web.xml
, and configuration via components.xml
.
Seam components may be provided with configuration properties either via servlet context parameters,
or via a properties file named seam.properties
in the root of the classpath.
The configurable Seam component must expose JavaBeans-style property setter methods for the
configurable attributes. If a Seam component named com.jboss.myapp.settings
has a
setter method named setLocale()
, we can provide a property named
com.jboss.myapp.settings.locale
in the seam.properties
file or
as a servlet context parameter, and Seam will set the value of the locale
attribute
whenever it instantiates the component.
The same mechanism is used to configure Seam itself. For example, to set the conversation timeout, we
provide a value for org.jboss.seam.core.manager.conversationTimeout
in
web.xml
or seam.properties
. (There is a built-in Seam
component named org.jboss.seam.core.manager
with a setter method named
setConversationTimeout()
.)
The components.xml
file is a bit more powerful than property settings. It lets
you:
Configure components that have been installed automatically—including both built-in
components, and application components that have been annotated with the
@Name
annotation and picked up by Seam's deployment scanner.
Install classes with no @Name
annotation as Seam components—this
is most useful for certain kinds of infrastructural components which can be installed multiple
times different names (for example Seam-managed persistence contexts).
Install components that do have a @Name
annotation
but are not installed by default because of an @Install
annotation that
indicates the component should not be installed.
Override the scope of a component.
A components.xml
file may appear in one of three different places:
The WEB-INF
directory of a war
.
The META-INF
directory of a jar
.
Any directory of a jar
that contains classes with an
@Name
annotation.
Usually, Seam components are installed when the deployment scanner discovers a class with a
@Name
annotation sitting in an archive with a seam.properties
file or a META-INF/components.xml
file. (Unless the component has an
@Install
annotation indicating it should not be installed by default.)
The components.xml
file lets us handle special cases where we need
to override the annotations.
For example, the following components.xml
file installs jBPM:
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:bpm="http://jboss.com/products/seam/bpm">
<bpm:jbpm/>
</components>
This example does the same thing:
<components>
<component class="org.jboss.seam.bpm.Jbpm"/>
</components>
This one installs and configures two different Seam-managed persistence contexts:
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:persistence="http://jboss.com/products/seam/persistence"
<persistence:managed-persistence-context name="customerDatabase"
persistence-unit-jndi-name="java:/customerEntityManagerFactory"/>
<persistence:managed-persistence-context name="accountingDatabase"
persistence-unit-jndi-name="java:/accountingEntityManagerFactory"/>
</components>
As does this one:
<components>
<component name="customerDatabase"
class="org.jboss.seam.persistence.ManagedPersistenceContext">
<property name="persistenceUnitJndiName">java:/customerEntityManagerFactory</property>
</component>
<component name="accountingDatabase"
class="org.jboss.seam.persistence.ManagedPersistenceContext">
<property name="persistenceUnitJndiName">java:/accountingEntityManagerFactory</property>
</component>
</components>
This example creates a session-scoped Seam-managed persistence context (this is not recommended in practice):
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:persistence="http://jboss.com/products/seam/persistence"
<persistence:managed-persistence-context name="productDatabase"
scope="session"
persistence-unit-jndi-name="java:/productEntityManagerFactory"/>
</components>
<components>
<component name="productDatabase"
scope="session"
class="org.jboss.seam.persistence.ManagedPersistenceContext">
<property name="persistenceUnitJndiName">java:/productEntityManagerFactory</property>
</component>
</components>
It is common to use the auto-create
option for infrastructural
objects like persistence contexts, which saves you from having to explicitly
specify create=true
when you use the @In
annotation.
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:persistence="http://jboss.com/products/seam/persistence"
<persistence:managed-persistence-context name="productDatabase"
auto-create="true"
persistence-unit-jndi-name="java:/productEntityManagerFactory"/>
</components>
<components>
<component name="productDatabase"
auto-create="true"
class="org.jboss.seam.persistence.ManagedPersistenceContext">
<property name="persistenceUnitJndiName">java:/productEntityManagerFactory</property>
</component>
</components>
The <factory>
declaration lets you specify a value or method binding
expression that will be evaluated to initialize the value of a context variable when it is first
referenced.
<components>
<factory name="contact" method="#{contactManager.loadContact}" scope="CONVERSATION"/>
</components>
You can create an "alias" (a second name) for a Seam component like so:
<components>
<factory name="user" value="#{actor}" scope="STATELESS"/>
</components>
You can even create an "alias" for a commonly used expression:
<components>
<factory name="contact" value="#{contactManager.contact}" scope="STATELESS"/>
</components>
It is especially common to see the use of auto-create="true"
with the
<factory>
declaration:
<components>
<factory name="session" value="#{entityManager.delegate}" scope="STATELESS" auto-create="true"/>
</components>
Sometimes we want to reuse the same components.xml
file with minor changes during
both deployment and testing. Seam lets you place wildcards of the form @wildcard@
in
the components.xml
file which can be replaced either by your Ant build script (at
deployment time) or by providing a file named components.properties
in the classpath
(at development time). You'll see this approach used in the Seam examples.
If you have a large number of components that need to be configured in XML, it makes much more sense
to split up the information in components.xml
into many small files. Seam lets
you put configuration for a class named, for example, com.helloworld.Hello
in a
resource named com/helloworld/Hello.component.xml
. (You might be familiar with this
pattern, since it is the same one we use in Hibernate.) The root element of the file may be either a
<components>
or <component>
element.
The first option lets you define multiple components in the file:
<components>
<component class="com.helloworld.Hello" name="hello">
<property name="name">#{user.name}</property>
</component>
<factory name="message" value="#{hello.message}"/>
</components>
The second option only lets you define or configure one component, but is less noisy:
<component name="hello">
<property name="name">#{user.name}</property>
</component>
In the second option, the class name is implied by the file in which the component definition appears.
Alternatively, you may put configuration for all classes in the com.helloworld
package in com/helloworld/components.xml
.
Properties of string, primitive or primitive wrapper type may be configured just as you would expect:
org.jboss.seam.core.manager.conversationTimeout 60000
<core:manager conversation-timeout="60000"/>
<component name="org.jboss.seam.core.manager">
<property name="conversationTimeout">60000</property>
</component>
Arrays, sets and lists of strings or primitives are also supported:
org.jboss.seam.bpm.jbpm.processDefinitions order.jpdl.xml, return.jpdl.xml, inventory.jpdl.xml
<bpm:jbpm>
<bpm:process-definitions>
<value>order.jpdl.xml</value>
<value>return.jpdl.xml</value>
<value>inventory.jpdl.xml</value>
</bpm:process-definitions>
</bpm:jbpm>
<component name="org.jboss.seam.bpm.jbpm">
<property name="processDefinitions">
<value>order.jpdl.xml</value>
<value>return.jpdl.xml</value>
<value>inventory.jpdl.xml</value>
</property>
</component>
Even maps with String-valued keys and string or primitive values are supported:
<component name="issueEditor">
<property name="issueStatuses">
<key>open</key> <value>open issue</value>
<key>resolved</key> <value>issue resolved by developer</value>
<key>closed</key> <value>resolution accepted by user</value>
</property>
</component>
Finally, you may wire together components using a value-binding expression. Note that this is quite
different to injection using @In
, since it happens at component instantiation time
instead of invocation time. It is therefore much more similar to the dependency injection facilities
offered by traditional IoC containers like JSF or Spring.
<drools:managed-working-memory name="policyPricingWorkingMemory" rule-base="#{policyPricingRules}"/>
<component name="policyPricingWorkingMemory"
class="org.jboss.seam.drools.ManagedWorkingMemory">
<property name="ruleBase">#{policyPricingRules}</property>
</component>
Throughout the examples, there have been two competing ways of declaring components: with and without
the use of XML namespaces. The following shows a typical components.xml
file
without namespaces:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components http://jboss.com/products/seam/components-2.1.xsd">
<component class="org.jboss.seam.core.init">
<property name="debug">true</property>
<property name="jndiPattern">@jndiPattern@</property>
</component>
</components>
As you can see, this is somewhat verbose. Even worse, the component and attribute names cannot be validated at development time.
The namespaced version looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:core="http://jboss.com/products/seam/core"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation=
"http://jboss.com/products/seam/core http://jboss.com/products/seam/core-2.1.xsd
http://jboss.com/products/seam/components http://jboss.com/products/seam/components-2.1.xsd">
<core:init debug="true" jndi-pattern="@jndiPattern@"/>
</components>
Even though the schema declarations are verbose, the actual XML content is lean and easy to understand.
The schemas provide detailed information about each component and the attributes available, allowing XML
editors to offer intelligent autocomplete. The use of namespaced elements makes generating and
maintaining correct components.xml
files much simpler.
Now, this works great for the built-in Seam components, but what about user components? There are two options.
First, Seam supports mixing the two models, allowing the use of the generic <component>
declarations for user components, along with namespaced declarations for built-in components. But even better,
Seam allows you to quickly declare namespaces for your own components.
Any Java package can be associated with an XML namespace by annotating the package with the
@Namespace
annotation. (Package-level annotations are declared in a file named
package-info.java
in the package directory.) Here is an example from the seampay demo:
@Namespace(value="http://jboss.com/products/seam/examples/seampay")
package org.jboss.seam.example.seampay;
import org.jboss.seam.annotations.Namespace;
That is all you need to do to use the namespaced style in components.xml
!
Now we can write:
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:pay="http://jboss.com/products/seam/examples/seampay"
... >
<pay:payment-home new-instance="#{newPayment}"
created-message="Created a new payment to #{newPayment.payee}" />
<pay:payment name="newPayment"
payee="Somebody"
account="#{selectedAccount}"
payment-date="#{currentDatetime}"
created-date="#{currentDatetime}" />
...
</components>
Or:
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:pay="http://jboss.com/products/seam/examples/seampay"
... >
<pay:payment-home>
<pay:new-instance>"#{newPayment}"</pay:new-instance>
<pay:created-message>Created a new payment to #{newPayment.payee}</pay:created-message>
</pay:payment-home>
<pay:payment name="newPayment">
<pay:payee>Somebody"</pay:payee>
<pay:account>#{selectedAccount}</pay:account>
<pay:payment-date>#{currentDatetime}</pay:payment-date>
<pay:created-date>#{currentDatetime}</pay:created-date>
</pay:payment>
...
</components>
These examples illustrate the two usage models of a namespaced element. In the first declaration,
the <pay:payment-home>
references the paymentHome
component:
package org.jboss.seam.example.seampay;
...
@Name("paymentHome")
public class PaymentController
extends EntityHome<Payment>
{
...
}
The element name is the hyphenated form of the component name. The attributes of the element are the hyphenated form of the property names.
In the second declaration, the <pay:payment>
element refers to the
Payment
class in the org.jboss.seam.example.seampay
package.
In this case Payment
is an entity that is being declared as a Seam component:
package org.jboss.seam.example.seampay;
...
@Entity
public class Payment
implements Serializable
{
...
}
If we want validation and autocompletion to work for user-defined components, we will need a schema. Seam does not yet provide a mechanism to automatically generate a schema for a set of components, so it is necessary to generate one manually. The schema definitions for the standard Seam packages can be used for guidance.
The following are the the namespaces used by Seam:
components — http://jboss.com/products/seam/components
core — http://jboss.com/products/seam/core
drools — http://jboss.com/products/seam/drools
framework — http://jboss.com/products/seam/framework
jms — http://jboss.com/products/seam/jms
remoting — http://jboss.com/products/seam/remoting
theme — http://jboss.com/products/seam/theme
security — http://jboss.com/products/seam/security
mail — http://jboss.com/products/seam/mail
web — http://jboss.com/products/seam/web
pdf — http://jboss.com/products/seam/pdf
spring — http://jboss.com/products/seam/spring
Complementing the contextual component model, there are two further basic concepts that facilitate the extreme loose-coupling that is the distinctive feature of Seam applications. The first is a strong event model where events may be mapped to event listeners via JSF-like method binding expressions. The second is the pervasive use of annotations and interceptors to apply cross-cutting concerns to components which implement business logic.
The Seam component model was developed for use with event-driven applications, specifically to enable the development of fine-grained, loosely-coupled components in a fine-grained eventing model. Events in Seam come in several types, most of which we have already seen:
JSF events
jBPM transition events
Seam page actions
Seam component-driven events
Seam contextual events
All of these various kinds of events are mapped to Seam components via JSF EL method binding expressions. For a JSF event, this is defined in the JSF template:
<h:commandButton value="Click me!" action="#{helloWorld.sayHello}"/>
For a jBPM transition event, it is specified in the jBPM process definition or pageflow definition:
<start-page name="hello" view-id="/hello.jsp">
<transition to="hello">
<action expression="#{helloWorld.sayHello}"/>
</transition>
</start-page>
You can find out more information about JSF events and jBPM events elsewhere. Let's concentrate for now upon the two additional kinds of events defined by Seam.
A Seam page action is an event that occurs just before we render a page.
We declare page actions in WEB-INF/pages.xml
. We
can define a page action for either a particular JSF view id:
<pages>
<page view-id="/hello.jsp" action="#{helloWorld.sayHello}"/>
</pages>
Or we can use a *
wildcard as a suffix to the
view-id
to specify an action that applies to all
view ids that match the pattern:
<pages>
<page view-id="/hello/*" action="#{helloWorld.sayHello}"/>
</pages>
If multiple wildcarded page actions match the current view-id, Seam will call all the actions, in order of least-specific to most-specific.
The page action method can return a JSF outcome. If the outcome is non-null, Seam will use the defined navigation rules to navigate to a view.
Furthermore, the view id mentioned in the <page>
element need not correspond to a real JSP or Facelets page! So, we can
reproduce the functionality of a traditional action-oriented framework
like Struts or WebWork using page actions. For example:
TODO: translate struts action into page action
This is quite useful if you want to do complex things in response to non-faces requests (for example, HTTP GET requests).
Multiple or conditional page actions my be specified using the <action>
tag:
<pages>
<page view-id="/hello.jsp">
<action execute="#{helloWorld.sayHello}" if="#{not validation.failed}"/>
<action execute="#{hitCount.increment}"/>
</page>
</pages>
A JSF faces request (a form submission) encapsulates both an "action" (a method binding) and "parameters" (input value bindings). A page action might also needs parameters!
Since GET requests are bookmarkable, page parameters are passed as human-readable request parameters. (Unlike JSF form inputs, which are anything but!)
You can use page parameters with or without an action method.
Seam lets us provide a value binding that maps a named request parameter to an attribute of a model object.
<pages>
<page view-id="/hello.jsp" action="#{helloWorld.sayHello}">
<param name="firstName" value="#{person.firstName}"/>
<param name="lastName" value="#{person.lastName}"/>
</page>
</pages>
The <param>
declaration is bidirectional, just
like a value binding for a JSF input:
When a non-faces (GET) request for the view id occurs, Seam sets the value of the named request parameter onto the model object, after performing appropriate type conversions.
Any <s:link>
or <s:button>
transparently includes the request parameter. The value of the parameter is
determined by evaluating the value binding during the render phase (when the
<s:link>
is rendered).
Any navigation rule with a <redirect/>
to
the view id transparently includes the request parameter. The value
of the parameter is determined by evaluating the value binding at
the end of the invoke application phase.
The value is transparently propagated with any JSF form submission
for the page with the given view id. This means that view parameters
behave like PAGE
-scoped context variables for
faces requests.
The essential idea behind all this is that however
we get from any other page to /hello.jsp
(or from
/hello.jsp
back to /hello.jsp
),
the value of the model attribute referred to in the value binding is
"remembered", without the need for a conversation (or other server-side
state).
If just the name
attribute is specified then the
request parameter is propagated using the PAGE
context
(it isn't mapped to model property).
<pages>
<page view-id="/hello.jsp" action="#{helloWorld.sayHello}">
<param name="firstName" />
<param name="lastName" />
</page>
</pages>
Propagation of page parameters is especially useful if you want to build multi-layer master-detail CRUD pages. You can use it to "remember" which view you were previously on (e.g. when pressing the Save button), and which entity you were editing.
Any <s:link>
or <s:button>
transparently propagates the request parameter if that parameter is listed
as a page parameter for the view.
The value is transparently propagated with any JSF form submission
for the page with the given view id. (This means that view parameters
behave like PAGE
-scoped context variables for
faces requests.
This all sounds pretty complex, and you're probably wondering if such an exotic construct is really worth the effort. Actually, the idea is very natural once you "get it". It is definitely worth taking the time to understand this stuff. Page parameters are the most elegant way to propagate state across a non-faces request. They are especially cool for problems like search screens with bookmarkable results pages, where we would like to be able to write our application code to handle both POST and GET requests with the same code. Page parameters eliminate repetitive listing of request parameters in the view definition and make redirects much easier to code.
You can specify a JSF converter for complex model propreties:
<pages>
<page view-id="/calculator.jsp" action="#{calculator.calculate}">
<param name="x" value="#{calculator.lhs}"/>
<param name="y" value="#{calculator.rhs}"/>
<param name="op" converterId="com.my.calculator.OperatorConverter" value="#{calculator.op}"/>
</page>
</pages>
Alternatively:
<pages>
<page view-id="/calculator.jsp" action="#{calculator.calculate}">
<param name="x" value="#{calculator.lhs}"/>
<param name="y" value="#{calculator.rhs}"/>
<param name="op" converter="#{operatorConverter}" value="#{calculator.op}"/>
</page>
</pages>
JSF validators, and required="true"
may
also be used:
<pages>
<page view-id="/blog.xhtml">
<param name="date"
value="#{blog.date}"
validatorId="com.my.blog.PastDate"
required="true"/>
</page>
</pages>
Alternatively:
<pages>
<page view-id="/blog.xhtml">
<param name="date"
value="#{blog.date}"
validator="#{pastDateValidator}"
required="true"/>
</page>
</pages>
Even better, model-based Hibernate validator annotations are automatically recognized and validated.
When type conversion or validation fails, a global FacesMessage
is added to the FacesContext
.
You can use standard JSF navigation rules defined in faces-config.xml
in a Seam application. However, JSF navigation rules have a number of annoying
limitations:
It is not possible to specify request parameters to be used when redirecting.
It is not possible to begin or end conversations from a rule.
Rules work by evaluating the return value of the action method; it is not possible to evaluate an arbitrary EL expression.
A further problem is that "orchestration" logic gets scattered between pages.xml
and faces-config.xml
. It's better to unify this logic into pages.xml
.
This JSF navigation rule:
<navigation-rule>
<from-view-id>/editDocument.xhtml</from-view-id>
<navigation-case>
<from-action>#{documentEditor.update}</from-action>
<from-outcome>success</from-outcome>
<to-view-id>/viewDocument.xhtml</to-view-id>
<redirect/>
</navigation-case>
</navigation-rule>
Can be rewritten as follows:
<page view-id="/editDocument.xhtml">
<navigation from-action="#{documentEditor.update}">
<rule if-outcome="success">
<redirect view-id="/viewDocument.xhtml"/>
</rule>
</navigation>
</page>
But it would be even nicer if we didn't have to pollute our DocumentEditor
component with string-valued return values (the JSF outcomes). So Seam lets us write:
<page view-id="/editDocument.xhtml">
<navigation from-action="#{documentEditor.update}"
evaluate="#{documentEditor.errors.size}">
<rule if-outcome="0">
<redirect view-id="/viewDocument.xhtml"/>
</rule>
</navigation>
</page>
Or even:
<page view-id="/editDocument.xhtml">
<navigation from-action="#{documentEditor.update}">
<rule if="#{documentEditor.errors.empty}">
<redirect view-id="/viewDocument.xhtml"/>
</rule>
</navigation>
</page>
The first form evaluates a value binding to determine the outcome value to be used by the subsequent rules. The second approach ignores the outcome and evaluates a value binding for each possible rule.
Of course, when an update succeeds, we probably want to end the current conversation. We can do that like this:
<page view-id="/editDocument.xhtml">
<navigation from-action="#{documentEditor.update}">
<rule if="#{documentEditor.errors.empty}">
<end-conversation/>
<redirect view-id="/viewDocument.xhtml"/>
</rule>
</navigation>
</page>
As we've ended conversation any subsequent requests won't know which document we are interested in. We can pass the document id as a request parameter which also makes the view bookmarkable:
<page view-id="/editDocument.xhtml">
<navigation from-action="#{documentEditor.update}">
<rule if="#{documentEditor.errors.empty}">
<end-conversation/>
<redirect view-id="/viewDocument.xhtml">
<param name="documentId" value="#{documentEditor.documentId}"/>
</redirect>
</rule>
</navigation>
</page>
Null outcomes are a special case in JSF. The null outcome is interpreted to mean "redisplay the page". The following navigation rule matches any non-null outcome, but not the null outcome:
<page view-id="/editDocument.xhtml">
<navigation from-action="#{documentEditor.update}">
<rule>
<render view-id="/viewDocument.xhtml"/>
</rule>
</navigation>
</page>
If you want to perform navigation when a null outcome occurs, use the following form instead:
<page view-id="/editDocument.xhtml">
<navigation from-action="#{documentEditor.update}">
<render view-id="/viewDocument.xhtml"/>
</navigation>
</page>
The view-id may be given as a JSF EL expression:
<page view-id="/editDocument.xhtml">
<navigation>
<rule if-outcome="success">
<redirect view-id="/#{userAgent}/displayDocument.xhtml"/>
</rule>
</navigation>
</page>
If you have a lot of different page actions and page parameters,
or even just a lot of navigation rules,
you will almost certainly want to split the declarations up over
multiple files. You can define actions and parameters for a page
with the view id /calc/calculator.jsp
in a
resource named calc/calculator.page.xml
. The
root element in this case is the <page>
element, and the view id is implied:
<page action="#{calculator.calculate}">
<param name="x" value="#{calculator.lhs}"/>
<param name="y" value="#{calculator.rhs}"/>
<param name="op" converter="#{operatorConverter}" value="#{calculator.op}"/>
</page>
Seam components can interact by simply calling each others methods. Stateful components may even implement the observer/observable pattern. But to enable components to interact in a more loosely-coupled fashion than is possible when the components call each others methods directly, Seam provides component-driven events.
We specify event listeners (observers) in components.xml
.
<components>
<event type="hello">
<action execute="#{helloListener.sayHelloBack}"/>
<action execute="#{logger.logHello}"/>
</event>
</components>
Where the event type is just an arbitrary string.
When an event occurs, the actions registered for that event will be called
in the order they appear in components.xml
. How does a
component raise an event? Seam provides a built-in component for this.
@Name("helloWorld")
public class HelloWorld {
public void sayHello() {
FacesMessages.instance().add("Hello World!");
Events.instance().raiseEvent("hello");
}
}
Or you can use an annotation.
@Name("helloWorld")
public class HelloWorld {
@RaiseEvent("hello")
public void sayHello() {
FacesMessages.instance().add("Hello World!");
}
}
Notice that this event producer has no dependency upon event consumers. The event listener may now be implemented with absolutely no dependency upon the producer:
@Name("helloListener")
public class HelloListener {
public void sayHelloBack() {
FacesMessages.instance().add("Hello to you too!");
}
}
The method binding defined in components.xml
above
takes care of mapping the event to the consumer.
If you don't like futzing about in the components.xml
file, you can use an annotation instead:
@Name("helloListener")
public class HelloListener {
@Observer("hello")
public void sayHelloBack() {
FacesMessages.instance().add("Hello to you too!");
}
}
You might wonder why I've not mentioned anything about event objects in this discussion. In Seam, there is no need for an event object to propagate state between event producer and listener. State is held in the Seam contexts, and is shared between components. However, if you really want to pass an event object, you can:
@Name("helloWorld")
public class HelloWorld {
private String name;
public void sayHello() {
FacesMessages.instance().add("Hello World, my name is #0.", name);
Events.instance().raiseEvent("hello", name);
}
}
@Name("helloListener")
public class HelloListener {
@Observer("hello")
public void sayHelloBack(String name) {
FacesMessages.instance().add("Hello #0!", name);
}
}
Seam defines a number of built-in events that the application can use to perform special kinds of framework integration. The events are:
org.jboss.seam.validationFailed
— called when JSF validation fails
org.jboss.seam.noConversation
— called when there is no long running conversation and a long running conversation is required
org.jboss.seam.preSetVariable.<name>
— called when the context variable <name> is set
org.jboss.seam.postSetVariable.<name>
— called when the context variable <name> is set
org.jboss.seam.preRemoveVariable.<name>
— called when the context variable <name> is unset
org.jboss.seam.postRemoveVariable.<name>
— called when the context variable <name> is unset
org.jboss.seam.preDestroyContext.<SCOPE>
— called before the <SCOPE> context is destroyed
org.jboss.seam.postDestroyContext.<SCOPE>
— called after the <SCOPE> context is destroyed
org.jboss.seam.beginConversation
— called whenever a long-running conversation begins
org.jboss.seam.endConversation
— called whenever a long-running conversation ends
org.jboss.seam.conversationTimeout
— called when a conversation timeout occurs. The conversation id is passed as a parameter.
org.jboss.seam.beginPageflow
— called when a pageflow begins
org.jboss.seam.beginPageflow.<name>
— called when the pageflow <name> begins
org.jboss.seam.endPageflow
— called when a pageflow ends
org.jboss.seam.endPageflow.<name>
— called when the pageflow <name> ends
org.jboss.seam.createProcess.<name>
— called when the process <name> is created
org.jboss.seam.endProcess.<name>
— called when the process <name> ends
org.jboss.seam.initProcess.<name>
— called when the process <name> is associated with the conversation
org.jboss.seam.initTask.<name>
— called when the task <name> is associated with the conversation
org.jboss.seam.startTask.<name>
— called when the task <name> is started
org.jboss.seam.endTask.<name>
— called when the task <name> is ended
org.jboss.seam.postCreate.<name>
— called when the component <name> is created
org.jboss.seam.preDestroy.<name>
— called when the component <name> is destroyed
org.jboss.seam.beforePhase
— called before the start of a JSF phase
org.jboss.seam.afterPhase
— called after the end of a JSF phase
org.jboss.seam.postInitialization
— called when Seam has initialized and started up all components
org.jboss.seam.postAuthenticate.<name>
— called after a user is authenticated
org.jboss.seam.preAuthenticate.<name>
— called before attempting to authenticate a user
org.jboss.seam.notLoggedIn
— called there is no authenticated user and authentication is required
org.jboss.seam.rememberMe
— occurs when Seam security detects the username in a cookie
org.jboss.seam.exceptionHandled.<type>
— called when an uncaught exception is handled by Seam
org.jboss.seam.exceptionHandled
— called when an uncaught exception is handled by Seam
org.jboss.seam.exceptionNotHandled
— called when there was no handler for an uncaught exception
org.jboss.seam.afterTransactionSuccess
— called when a transaction succeeds in the Seam Application Framework
org.jboss.seam.afterTransactionSuccess.<name>
— called when a transaction succeeds in the Seam Application Framework which manages an entity called <name>
Seam components may observe any of these events in just the same way they observe any other component-driven events.
EJB 3.0 introduced a standard interceptor model for session bean components. To add an
interceptor to a bean, you need to write a class with a method annotated
@AroundInvoke
and annotate the bean with an
@Interceptors
annotation that specifies the name of the interceptor
class. For example, the following interceptor checks that the user is logged in before
allowing invoking an action listener method:
public class LoggedInInterceptor {
@AroundInvoke
public Object checkLoggedIn(InvocationContext invocation) throws Exception {
boolean isLoggedIn = Contexts.getSessionContext().get("loggedIn")!=null;
if (isLoggedIn) {
//the user is already logged in
return invocation.proceed();
}
else {
//the user is not logged in, fwd to login page
return "login";
}
}
}
To apply this interceptor to a session bean which acts as an action listener, we must
annotate the session bean @Interceptors(LoggedInInterceptor.class)
.
This is a somewhat ugly annotation. Seam builds upon the interceptor framework in
EJB3 by allowing you to use @Interceptors
as a meta-annotation for class
level interceptors (those annotated @Target(TYPE)
). In
our example, we would create an @LoggedIn
annotation, as follows:
@Target(TYPE)
@Retention(RUNTIME)
@Interceptors(LoggedInInterceptor.class)
public @interface LoggedIn {}
We can now simply annotate our action listener bean with @LoggedIn
to apply the interceptor.
@Stateless
@Name("changePasswordAction")
@LoggedIn
@Interceptors(SeamInterceptor.class)
public class ChangePasswordAction implements ChangePassword {
...
public String changePassword() { ... }
}
If interceptor ordering is important (it usually is), you can add
@Interceptor
annotations to your interceptor
classes to specify a partial order of interceptors.
@Interceptor(around={BijectionInterceptor.class,
ValidationInterceptor.class,
ConversationInterceptor.class},
within=RemoveInterceptor.class)
public class LoggedInInterceptor
{
...
}
You can even have a "client-side" interceptor, that runs around any of the built-in functionality of EJB3:
@Interceptor(type=CLIENT)
public class LoggedInInterceptor
{
...
}
EJB interceptors are stateful, with a lifecycle that is the same as the component
they intercept. For interceptors which do not need to maintain state, Seam lets
you get a performance optimization by specifying
@Interceptor(stateless=true)
.
Much of the functionality of Seam is implemented as a set of built-in Seam interceptors, including the interceptors named in the previous example. You don't have to explicitly specify these interceptors by annotating your components; they exist for all interceptable Seam components.
You can even use Seam interceptors with JavaBean components, not just EJB3 beans!
EJB defines interception not only for business methods (using @AroundInvoke
),
but also for the lifecycle methods @PostConstruct
, @PreDestroy
,
@PrePassivate
and @PostActive
. Seam supports all these
lifecycle methods on both component and interceptor not only for EJB3 beans, but also for
JavaBean components (except @PreDestroy
which is not meaningful for JavaBean
components).
JSF is surprisingly limited when it comes to exception handling. As a partial
workaround for this problem, Seam lets you define how a particular class of
exception is to be treated by annotating the exception class, or declaring
the exception class in an XML file. This facility is meant to be combined with
the EJB 3.0-standard @ApplicationException
annotation which
specifies whether the exception should cause a transaction rollback.
EJB specifies well-defined rules that let us control whether an exception
immediately marks the current transaction for rollback when it is thrown by
a business method of the bean: system exceptions always
cause a transaction rollback, application exceptions do
not cause a rollback by default, but they do if
@ApplicationException(rollback=true)
is specified. (An application exception is any checked exception, or any
unchecked exception annotated @ApplicationException
.
A system exception is any unchecked exception without an
@ApplicationException
annotation.)
Note that there is a difference between marking a transaction for rollback, and actually rolling it back. The exception rules say that the transaction should be marked rollback only, but it may still be active after the exception is thrown.
Seam applies the EJB 3.0 exception rollback rules also to Seam JavaBean components.
But these rules only apply in the Seam component layer. What about an exception that is uncaught and propagates out of the Seam component layer, and out of the JSF layer? Well, it is always wrong to leave a dangling transaction open, so Seam rolls back any active transaction when an exception occurs and is uncaught in the Seam component layer.
To enable Seam's exception handling, we need to make sure we have the master servlet
filter declared in web.xml
:
<filter>
<filter-name>Seam Filter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>Seam Filter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>*.seam</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
You may also need to disable Facelets development mode in web.xml
and
Seam debug mode in components.xml
if you want your exception handlers
to fire.
The following exception results in a HTTP 404 error whenever it propagates out of the Seam component layer. It does not roll back the current transaction immediately when thrown, but the transaction will be rolled back if it the exception is not caught by another Seam component.
@HttpError(errorCode=404)
public class ApplicationException extends Exception { ... }
This exception results in a browser redirect whenever it propagates out of the Seam component layer. It also ends the current conversation. It causes an immediate rollback of the current transaction.
@Redirect(viewId="/failure.xhtml", end=true)
@ApplicationException(rollback=true)
public class UnrecoverableApplicationException extends RuntimeException { ... }
Note that @Redirect
does not work for exceptions
which occur during the render phase of the JSF lifecycle.
You can also use EL to specify the viewId
to redirect to.
This exception results in a redirect, along with a message to the user, when it propagates out of the Seam component layer. It also immediately rolls back the current transaction.
@Redirect(viewId="/error.xhtml", message="Unexpected error")
public class SystemException extends RuntimeException { ... }
Since we can't add annotations to all the exception classes we are interested in,
Seam also lets us specify this functionality in pages.xml
.
<pages>
<exception class="javax.persistence.EntityNotFoundException">
<http-error error-code="404"/>
</exception>
<exception class="javax.persistence.PersistenceException">
<end-conversation/>
<redirect view-id="/error.xhtml">
<message>Database access failed</message>
</redirect>
</exception>
<exception>
<end-conversation/>
<redirect view-id="/error.xhtml">
<message>Unexpected failure</message>
</redirect>
</exception>
</pages>
The last <exception>
declaration does not specify a class,
and is a catch-all for any exception for which handling is not otherwise specified
via annotations or in pages.xml
.
You can also use EL to specify the view-id
to redirect to.
You can also access the handled exception instance through EL, Seam places it in the conversation context, e.g. to access the message of the exception:
...
throw new AuthorizationException("You are not allowed to do this!");
<pages>
<exception class="org.jboss.seam.security.AuthorizationException">
<end-conversation/>
<redirect view-id="/error.xhtml">
<message severity="WARN">#{org.jboss.seam.handledException.message}</message>
</redirect>
</exception>
</pages>
org.jboss.seam.handledException
holds the nested exception that
was actually handled by an exception handler. The outermost (wrapper) exception is
also available, as org.jboss.seam.exception
.
For the exception handlers defined in pages.xml
, it is possible
to declare the logging level at which the exception will be logged, or to even
suppress the exception being logged altogether. The attributes log
and logLevel
can be used to control exception logging. By setting
log="false"
as per the following example, then no log message will
be generated when the specified exception occurs:
<exception class="org.jboss.seam.security.NotLoggedInException" log="false">
<redirect view-id="/register.xhtml">
<message severity="warn">You must be a member to use this feature</message>
</redirect>
</exception>
If the log
attribute is not specified, then it defaults to true
(i.e. the exception will be logged). Alternatively, you can specify the logLevel
to control at which log level the exception will be logged:
<exception class="org.jboss.seam.security.NotLoggedInException" logLevel="info">
<redirect view-id="/register.xhtml">
<message severity="warn">You must be a member to use this feature</message>
</redirect>
</exception>
The acceptable values for logLevel
are: fatal, error, warn, info, debug
or trace
. If the logLevel
is not specified, or if an invalid value is
configured, then it will default to error
.
If you are using JPA:
<exception class="javax.persistence.EntityNotFoundException">
<redirect view-id="/error.xhtml">
<message>Not found</message>
</redirect>
</exception>
<exception class="javax.persistence.OptimisticLockException">
<end-conversation/>
<redirect view-id="/error.xhtml">
<message>Another user changed the same data, please try again</message>
</redirect>
</exception>
If you are using the Seam Application Framework:
<exception class="org.jboss.seam.framework.EntityNotFoundException">
<redirect view-id="/error.xhtml">
<message>Not found</message>
</redirect>
</exception>
If you are using Seam Security:
<exception class="org.jboss.seam.security.AuthorizationException">
<redirect>
<message>You don't have permission to do this</message>
</redirect>
</exception>
<exception class="org.jboss.seam.security.NotLoggedInException">
<redirect view-id="/login.xhtml">
<message>Please log in first</message>
</redirect>
</exception>
And, for JSF:
<exception class="javax.faces.application.ViewExpiredException">
<redirect view-id="/error.xhtml">
<message>Your session has timed out, please try again</message>
</redirect>
</exception>
A ViewExpiredException
occurs if the user posts back
to a page once their session has expired. no-conversation-view-id
and conversation-required
give you finer grained control over
session expiration if you are inside a conversation.
<s:link>
and <s:button>
It's time to understand Seam's conversation model in more detail.
Historically, the notion of a Seam "conversation" came about as a merger of three different ideas:
The idea of a workspace, which I encountered in a project for the Victorian government in 2002. In this project I was forced to implement workspace management on top of Struts, an experience I pray never to repeat.
The idea of an application transaction
with optimistic semantics, and the realization that existing
frameworks based around a stateless architecture could not
provide effective management of extended persistence contexts.
(The Hibernate team is truly fed up with copping the blame for
LazyInitializationException
s, which are
not really Hibernate's fault, but rather the fault of the
extremely limiting persistence context model supported by
stateless architectures such as the Spring framework or the
traditional stateless session facade
(anti)pattern in J2EE.)
The idea of a workflow task.
By unifying these ideas and providing deep support in the framework, we have a powerful construct that lets us build richer and more efficient applications with less code than before.
The examples we have seen so far make use of a very simple conversation model that follows these rules:
There is always a conversation context active during the apply request values, process validations, update model values, invoke application and render response phases of the JSF request lifecycle.
At the end of the restore view phase of the JSF request lifecycle, Seam attempts to restore any previous long-running conversation context. If none exists, Seam creates a new temporary conversation context.
When an @Begin
method is encountered,
the temporary conversation context is promoted to a long
running conversation.
When an @End
method is encountered,
any long-running conversation context is demoted to a
temporary conversation.
At the end of the render response phase of the JSF request lifecycle, Seam stores the contents of a long running conversation context or destroys the contents of a temporary conversation context.
Any faces request (a JSF postback) will propagate the conversation context. By default, non-faces requests (GET requests, for example) do not propagate the conversation context, but see below for more information on this.
If the JSF request lifecycle is foreshortened by a redirect,
Seam transparently stores and restores the current conversation
context—unless the conversation was already ended via
@End(beforeRedirect=true)
.
Seam transparently propagates the conversation context (including the temporary conversation context) across JSF postbacks and redirects. If you don't do anything special, a non-faces request (a GET request for example) will not propagate the conversation context and will be processed in a new temporary conversation. This is usually - but not always - the desired behavior.
If you want to propagate a Seam conversation across a non-faces request, you need to explicitly code the Seam conversation id as a request parameter:
<a href="main.jsf?conversationId=#{conversation.id}">Continue</a>
Or, the more JSF-ish:
<h:outputLink value="main.jsf">
<f:param name="conversationId" value="#{conversation.id}"/>
<h:outputText value="Continue"/>
</h:outputLink>
If you use the Seam tag library, this is equivalent:
<h:outputLink value="main.jsf">
<s:conversationId/>
<h:outputText value="Continue"/>
</h:outputLink>
If you wish to disable propagation of the conversation context for a postback, a similar trick is used:
<h:commandLink action="main" value="Exit">
<f:param name="conversationPropagation" value="none"/>
</h:commandLink>
If you use the Seam tag library, this is equivalent:
<h:commandLink action="main" value="Exit">
<s:conversationPropagation type="none"/>
</h:commandLink>
Note that disabling conversation context propagation is absolutely not the same thing as ending the conversation.
The conversationPropagation
request parameter, or
the <s:conversationPropagation>
tag may even
be used to begin and end conversation, or begin a nested
conversation.
<h:commandLink action="main" value="Exit">
<s:conversationPropagation type="end"/>
</h:commandLink>
<h:commandLink action="main" value="Select Child">
<s:conversationPropagation type="nested"/>
</h:commandLink>
<h:commandLink action="main" value="Select Hotel">
<s:conversationPropagation type="begin"/>
</h:commandLink>
<h:commandLink action="main" value="Select Hotel">
<s:conversationPropagation type="join"/>
</h:commandLink>
This conversation model makes it easy to build applications which behave correctly with respect to multi-window operation. For many applications, this is all that is needed. Some complex applications have either or both of the following additional requirements:
A conversation spans many smaller units of user interaction, which execute serially or even concurrently. The smaller nested conversations have their own isolated set of conversation state, and also have access to the state of the outer conversation.
The user is able to switch between many conversations within the same browser window. This feature is called workspace management.
A nested conversation is created by invoking a method marked
@Begin(nested=true)
inside the scope of an
existing conversation. A nested conversation has its own
conversation context, and also has read-only access to the
context of the outer conversation. (It can read the outer
conversation's context variables, but not write to them.)
When an @End
is subsequently encountered,
the nested conversation will be destroyed, and the outer
conversation will resume, by "popping" the conversation stack.
Conversations may be nested to any arbitrary depth.
Certain user activity (workspace management, or the back button) can cause the outer conversation to be resumed before the inner conversation is ended. In this case it is possible to have multiple concurrent nested conversations belonging to the same outer conversation. If the outer conversation ends before a nested conversation ends, Seam destroys all nested conversation contexts along with the outer context.
A conversation may be thought of as a continuable state. Nested conversations allow the application to capture a consistent continuable state at various points in a user interaction, thus insuring truly correct behavior in the face of backbuttoning and workspace management.
TODO: an example to show how a nested conversation prevents bad stuff happening when you backbutton.
Usually, if a component exists in a parent conversation of the
current nested conversation, the nested conversation will use
the same instance. Occasionally, it is useful to have a different
instance in each nested conversation, so that the component
instance that exists in the parent conversation is invisible to
its child conversations. You can achieve this behavior by
annotating the component @PerNestedConversation
.
JSF does not define any kind of action listener that is triggered
when a page is accessed via a non-faces request (for example, a
HTTP GET request). This can occur if the user bookmarks the page,
or if we navigate to the page via an <h:outputLink>
.
Sometimes we want to begin a conversation immediately the page is
accessed. Since there is no JSF action method, we can't solve the problem
in the usual way, by annotating the action with @Begin
.
A further problem arises if the page needs some state to be fetched
into a context variable. We've already seen two ways to solve this
problem. If that state is held in a Seam component, we can fetch the
state in a @Create
method. If not, we can define a
@Factory
method for the context variable.
If none of these options works for you, Seam lets you define a
page action in the pages.xml
file.
<pages>
<page view-id="/messageList.jsp" action="#{messageManager.list}"/>
...
</pages>
This action method is called at the beginning of the render response phase, any time the page is about to be rendered. If a page action returns a non-null outcome, Seam will process any appropriate JSF and Seam navigation rules, possibly resulting in a completely different page being rendered.
If all you want to do before rendering the page is begin a conversation, you could use a built-in action method that does just that:
<pages>
<page view-id="/messageList.jsp" action="#{conversation.begin}"/>
...
</pages>
Note that you can also call this built-in action from a JSF
control, and, similarly, you can use
#{conversation.end}
to end conversations.
If you want more control, to join existing conversations or
begin a nested conversion, to begin a pageflow or an atomic
conversation, you should use the
<begin-conversation>
element.
<pages>
<page view-id="/messageList.jsp">
<begin-conversation nested="true" pageflow="AddItem"/>
<page>
...
</pages>
There is also an <end-conversation>
element.
<pages>
<page view-id="/home.jsp">
<end-conversation/>
<page>
...
</pages>
To solve the first problem, we now have five options:
Annotate the @Create
method with
@Begin
Annotate the @Factory
method with
@Begin
Annotate the Seam page action method with
@Begin
Use <begin-conversation>
in
pages.xml
.
Use #{conversation.begin}
as
the Seam page action method
JSF command links always perform a form submission via JavaScript,
which breaks the web browser's "open in new window" or "open in new tab"
feature. In plain JSF, you need to use an <h:outputLink>
if you need this functionality. But there are two major limitations to
<h:outputLink>
.
JSF provides no way to attach an action listener to an
<h:outputLink>
.
JSF does not propagate the selected row of a DataModel
since there is no actual form submission.
Seam provides the notion of a page action to help
solve the first problem, but this does nothing to help us with the second
problem. We could work around this by using the
RESTful approach of passing a request parameter and requerying
for the selected object on the server side. In some cases—such as the
Seam blog example application—this is indeed the best approach. The
RESTful style supports bookmarking, since it does not require server-side state.
In other cases, where we don't care about bookmarks, the use of
@DataModel
and @DataModelSelection
is
just so convenient and transparent!
To fill in this missing functionality, and to make conversation propagation
even simpler to manage, Seam provides the <s:link>
JSF tag.
The link may specify just the JSF view id:
<s:link view="/login.xhtml" value="Login"/>
Or, it may specify an action method (in which case the action outcome determines the page that results):
<s:link action="#{login.logout}" value="Logout"/>
If you specify both a JSF view id and an action method, the 'view' will be used unless the action method returns a non-null outcome:
<s:link view="/loggedOut.xhtml" action="#{login.logout}" value="Logout"/>
The link automatically propagates the selected row of a DataModel
using inside <h:dataTable>
:
<s:link view="/hotel.xhtml" action="#{hotelSearch.selectHotel}" value="#{hotel.name}"/>
You can leave the scope of an existing conversation:
<s:link view="/main.xhtml" propagation="none"/>
You can begin, end, or nest conversations:
<s:link action="#{issueEditor.viewComment}" propagation="nest"/>
If the link begins a conversation, you can even specify a pageflow to be used:
<s:link action="#{documentEditor.getDocument}" propagation="begin"
pageflow="EditDocument"/>
The taskInstance
attribute if for use in jBPM task lists:
<s:link action="#{documentApproval.approveOrReject}" taskInstance="#{task}"/>
(See the DVD Store demo application for examples of this.)
Finally, if you need the "link" to be rendered as a button, use <s:button>
:
<s:button action="#{login.logout}" value="Logout"/>
It is quite common to display a message to the user indicating
success or failure of an action. It is convenient to use a JSF
FacesMessage
for this. Unfortunately, a
successful action often requires a browser redirect, and JSF
does not propagate faces messages across redirects. This makes
it quite difficult to display success messages in plain JSF.
The built in conversation-scoped Seam component named
facesMessages
solves this problem.
(You must have the Seam redirect filter installed.)
@Name("editDocumentAction")
@Stateless
public class EditDocumentBean implements EditDocument {
@In EntityManager em;
@In Document document;
@In FacesMessages facesMessages;
public String update() {
em.merge(document);
facesMessages.add("Document updated");
}
}
Any message added to facesMessages
is
used in the very next render response phase for the current
conversation. This even works when there is no long-running
conversation since Seam preserves even temporary conversation
contexts across redirects.
You can even include JSF EL expressions in a faces message summary:
facesMessages.add("Document #{document.title} was updated");
You may display the messages in the usual way, for example:
<h:messages globalOnly="true"/>
When working with conversations that deal with persistent objects, it may be desirable to use the natural business key of the object instead of the standard, "surrogate" conversation id:
Easy redirect to existing conversation
It can be useful to redirect to an existing conversation if the user requests the same operation twice. Take this example: “ You are on ebay, half way through paying for an item you just won as a Christmas present for your parents. Lets say you're sending it straight to them - you enter your payment details but you can't remember their address. You accidentally reuse the same browser window finding out their address. Now you need to return to the payment for the item. ”
With a natural conversation its really easy to have the user rejoin the existing conversation, and pick up where they left off - just have them to rejoin the payForItem conversation with the itemId as the conversation id.
User friendly URLs
For me this consists of a navigable hierarchy (I can navigate by editing the url) and a meaningful URL (like this Wiki uses - so don't identify things by random ids). For some applications user friendly URLs are less important, of course.
With a natural conversations, when you are building your hotel
booking system (or, of course, whatever your app is) you can
generate a URL like
http://seam-hotels/book.seam?hotel=BestWesternAntwerpen
(of course, whatever parameter hotel
maps
to on your domain model must be unique) and with URLRewrite
easily transform this to
http://seam-hotels/book/BestWesternAntwerpen.
Much better!
Natural conversations are defined in pages.xml
:
<conversation name="PlaceBid"
parameter-name="auctionId"
parameter-value="#{auction.auctionId}"/>
The first thing to note from the above definition is that the conversation
has a name, in this case PlaceBid
. This name uniquely
identifies this particular named conversation, and is used by the
page
definition to identify a named conversation to participate
in.
The next attribute, parameter-name
defines the request parameter
that will contain the natural conversation id, in place of the default conversation
id parameter. In this example, the parameter-name
is auctionId
.
This means that instead of a conversation parameter like cid=123
appearing in the URL for your page, it will contain auctionId=765432
instead.
The last attribute in the above configuration, parameter-value
,
defines an EL expression used to evaluate the value of the natural business key to
use as the conversation id. In this example, the conversation id will be the primary
key value of the auction
instance currently in scope.
Next, we define which pages will participate in the named conversation.
This is done by specifying the conversation
attribute for a
page
definition:
<page view-id="/bid.xhtml" conversation="PlaceBid" login-required="true">
<navigation from-action="#{bidAction.confirmBid}">
<rule if-outcome="success">
<redirect view-id="/auction.xhtml">
<param name="id" value="#{bidAction.bid.auction.auctionId}"/>
</redirect>
</rule>
</navigation>
</page>
When starting, or redirecting to, a natural conversation there are a number of options for specifying the natural conversation name. Let's start by looking at the following page definition:
<page view-id="/auction.xhtml">
<param name="id" value="#{auctionDetail.selectedAuctionId}"/>
<navigation from-action="#{bidAction.placeBid}">
<redirect view-id="/bid.xhtml"/>
</navigation>
</page>
From here, we can see that invoking the action #{bidAction.placeBid}
from our auction view (by the way, all these examples are taken from the seamBay example in Seam),
that we will be redirected to /bid.xhtml
, which, as we saw previously,
is configured with the natural conversation PlaceBid
. The declaration for
our action method looks like this:
@Begin(join = true)
public void placeBid()
When named conversations are specified in the <page/>
element,
redirection to the named conversation occurs as part of navigation rules, after the
action method has already been invoked. This is a problem when redirecting to an
existing conversation, as redirection needs to be occur before the action method is
invoked. Therefore it is necessary to specify the conversation name when
the action is invoked. One way of doing this is by using the s:conversationName
tag:
<h:commandButton id="placeBidWithAmount" styleClass="placeBid" action="#{bidAction.placeBid}">
<s:conversationName value="PlaceBid"/>
</h:commandButton>
Another alternative is to specify the conversationName
attribute when
using either s:link
or s:button
:
<s:link value="Place Bid" action="#{bidAction.placeBid}" conversationName="PlaceBid"/>
Workspace management is the ability to "switch" conversations in a single window. Seam makes workspace management completely transparent at the level of the Java code. To enable workspace management, all you need to do is:
Provide description text for each view id (when using JSF or Seam navigation rules) or page node (when using jPDL pageflows). This description text is displayed to the user by the workspace switchers.
Include one or more of the standard workspace switcher JSP or facelets fragments in your pages. The standard fragments support workspace management via a drop down menu, a list of conversations, or breadcrumbs.
When you use JSF or Seam navigation rules, Seam switches to a
conversation by restoring the current view-id
for that conversation. The descriptive text for the
workspace is defined in a file called pages.xml
that Seam expects to find in the WEB-INF
directory, right next to faces-config.xml
:
<pages>
<page view-id="/main.xhtml">
<description>Search hotels: #{hotelBooking.searchString}</description>
</page>
<page view-id="/hotel.xhtml">
<description>View hotel: #{hotel.name}</description>
</page>
<page view-id="/book.xhtml">
<description>Book hotel: #{hotel.name}</description>
</page>
<page view-id="/confirm.xhtml">
<description>Confirm: #{booking.description}</description>
</page>
</pages>
Note that if this file is missing, the Seam application will continue to work perfectly! The only missing functionality will be the ability to switch workspaces.
When you use a jPDL pageflow definition, Seam switches
to a conversation by restoring the current jBPM process
state. This is a more flexible model since it allows the
same view-id
to have different
descriptions depending upon the current
<page>
node. The description
text is defined by the <page>
node:
<pageflow-definition name="shopping">
<start-state name="start">
<transition to="browse"/>
</start-state>
<page name="browse" view-id="/browse.xhtml">
<description>DVD Search: #{search.searchPattern}</description>
<transition to="browse"/>
<transition name="checkout" to="checkout"/>
</page>
<page name="checkout" view-id="/checkout.xhtml">
<description>Purchase: $#{cart.total}</description>
<transition to="checkout"/>
<transition name="complete" to="complete"/>
</page>
<page name="complete" view-id="/complete.xhtml">
<end-conversation />
</page>
</pageflow-definition>
Include the following fragment in your JSP or facelets page to get a drop-down menu that lets you switch to any current conversation, or to any other page of the application:
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{switcher.conversationIdOrOutcome}">
<f:selectItem itemLabel="Find Issues" itemValue="findIssue"/>
<f:selectItem itemLabel="Create Issue" itemValue="editIssue"/>
<f:selectItems value="#{switcher.selectItems}"/>
</h:selectOneMenu>
<h:commandButton action="#{switcher.select}" value="Switch"/>
In this example, we have a menu that includes an item for each conversation, together with two additional items that let the user begin a new conversation.
Only conversations with a description (specified in
pages.xml
) will be included in the drop-down
menu.
The conversation list is very similar to the conversation switcher, except that it is displayed as a table:
<h:dataTable value="#{conversationList}" var="entry"
rendered="#{not empty conversationList}">
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">Workspace</f:facet>
<h:commandLink action="#{entry.select}" value="#{entry.description}"/>
<h:outputText value="[current]" rendered="#{entry.current}"/>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">Activity</f:facet>
<h:outputText value="#{entry.startDatetime}">
<f:convertDateTime type="time" pattern="hh:mm a"/>
</h:outputText>
<h:outputText value=" - "/>
<h:outputText value="#{entry.lastDatetime}">
<f:convertDateTime type="time" pattern="hh:mm a"/>
</h:outputText>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">Action</f:facet>
<h:commandButton action="#{entry.select}" value="#{msg.Switch}"/>
<h:commandButton action="#{entry.destroy}" value="#{msg.Destroy}"/>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
We imagine that you will want to customize this for your own application.
Only conversations with a description will be included in the list.
Notice that the conversation list lets the user destroy workspaces.
Breadcrumbs are useful in applications which use a nested conversation model. The breadcrumbs are a list of links to conversations in the current conversation stack:
<ui:repeat value="#{conversationStack}" var="entry">
<h:outputText value=" | "/>
<h:commandLink value="#{entry.description}" action="#{entry.select}"/>
</ui:repeat
Conversational components have one minor limitation: they cannot be used to hold bindings to JSF components. (We generally prefer not to use this feature of JSF unless absolutely necessary, since it creates a hard dependency from application logic to the view.) On a postback request, component bindings are updated during the Restore View phase, before the Seam conversation context has been restored.
To work around this use an event scoped component to store the component bindings and inject it into the conversation scoped component that requires it.
@Name("grid")
@Scope(ScopeType.EVENT)
public class Grid
{
private HtmlPanelGrid htmlPanelGrid;
// getters and setters
...
}
@Name("gridEditor")
@Scope(ScopeType.CONVERSATION)
public class GridEditor
{
@In(required=false)
private Grid grid;
...
}
Also, you can't inject a conversation scoped component into an event
scoped component which you bind a JSF control to. This includes Seam
built in components like facesMessages
.
Alternatively, you can access the JSF component tree through the implicit uiComponent
handle. The following example accesses getRowIndex()
of the
UIData
component which backs the data table during iteration, it prints
the current row number:
<h:dataTable id="lineItemTable" var="lineItem" value="#{orderHome.lineItems}">
<h:column>
Row: #{uiComponent['lineItemTable'].rowIndex}
</h:column>
...
</h:dataTable>
JSF UI components are available with their client identifier in this map.
A general discussion of concurrent calls to Seam components can be found in Section 4.1.10, “Concurrency model”. Here we will discuss the most common situation in which you will encounter concurrency — accessing conversational components from AJAX requests. We're going to discuss the options that a Ajax client library should provide to control events originating at the client — and we'll look at the options RichFaces gives you.
Conversational components don't allow real concurrent access therefore Seam queues each request to process them serially. This allows each request to be executed in a deterministic fashion. However, a simple queue isn't that great — firstly, if a method is, for some reason, taking a very long time to complete, running it over and over again whenever the client generates a request is bad idea (potential for Denial of Service attacks), and, secondly, AJAX is often to used to provide a quick status update to the user, so continuing to run the action after a long time isn't useful.
Therefore Seam queues the action event for a period of time (the concurrent request timeout); if it can't process the event in time, it creates a temporary conversation and prints out a message to the user to let them know what's going on. It's therefore very important not to flood the server with AJAX events!
We can set a sensible default for the concurrent request timeout (in ms) in components.xml:
<core:manager concurrent-request-timeout="500" />
So far we've discussed "synchronous" AJAX requests - the client tells the server that an event has occur, and then rerenders part of the page based on the result. This approach is great when the AJAX request is lightweight (the methods called are simple e.g. calculating the sum of a column of numbers). But what if we need to do a complex computation?
For heavy computation we should use a truly asynchronous (poll based) approach — the client sends an AJAX request to the server, which causes action to be executed asynchronously on the server (so the the response to the client is immediate); the client then polls the server for updates. This is useful when you have a long-running action for which it is important that every action executes (you don't want some to be dropped as duplicates, or to timeout).
How should we design our conversational AJAX application?
Well first, you need to decide whether you want to use the simpler "synchronous" request or whether you want to add using a poll-style approach.
If you go for a "synchronous" approach, then you need to make an estimate of how long your AJAX request will take to complete - is it much shorter than the concurrent request timeout? If not, you probably want to alter the concurrent request timeout for this method (as discussed above). Next you probably want a queue on the client side to prevent flooding the server with requests. If the event occurs often (e.g. a keypress, onblur of input fields) and immediate update of the client is not a priority you should set a request delay on the client side. When working out your request delay, factor in that the event may also be queued on the server side.
Finally, the client library may provide an option to abort unfinished duplicate requests in favor of the most recent. You need to be careful with this option as it can lead to flooding of the server with requests if the server is not able to abort the unfinished request.
Using a poll-style design requires less fine-tuning. You just mark your
action method @Asynchronous
and decide on a polling
interval:
int total;
// This method is called when an event occurs on the client
// It takes a really long time to execute
@Asynchronous
public void calculateTotal() {
total = someReallyComplicatedCalculation();
}
// This method is called as the result of the poll
// It's very quick to execute
public int getTotal() {
return total;
}
RichFaces Ajax is the AJAX library most commonly used with Seam, and provides all the controls discussed above:
eventsQueue
— provide a queue in which
events are placed. All events are queued and requests are sent to
the server serially. This is useful if the request can to the
server can take some time to execute (e.g. heavy computation,
retrieving information from a slow source) as the server isn't
flooded.
ignoreDupResponses
— ignore the response
produced by the request if a more recent 'similar' request is
already in the queue. ignoreDupResponses="true" does not
cancel the the processing of the request on the server
side — just prevents unnecessary updates on the client side.
This option should be used with care with Seam's conversations as it allows multiple concurrent requests to be made.
requestDelay
— defines the time (in ms.)
that the request will be remain on the queue. If the request has
not been processed by after this time the request will be sent
(regardless of whether a response has been received) or discarded
(if there is a more recent similar event on the queue).
This option should be used with care with Seam's conversations as it allows multiple concurrent requests to be made. You need to be sure that the delay you set (in combination with the concurrent request timeout) is longer than the action will take to execute.
<a:poll reRender="total" interval="1000" />
—
Polls the server, and rerenders an area as needed
JBoss jBPM is a business process management engine for any Java SE or EE environment. jBPM lets you represent a business process or user interaction as a graph of nodes representing wait states, decisions, tasks, web pages, etc. The graph is defined using a simple, very readable, XML dialect called jPDL, and may be edited and visualised graphically using an eclipse plugin. jPDL is an extensible language, and is suitable for a range of problems, from defining web application page flow, to traditional workflow management, all the way up to orchestration of services in a SOA environment.
Seam applications use jBPM for two different problems:
Defining the pageflow involved in complex user interactions. A jPDL process definition defines the page flow for a single conversation. A Seam conversation is considered to be a relatively short-running interaction with a single user.
Defining the overarching business process. The business process may span multiple conversations with multiple users. Its state is persistent in the jBPM database, so it is considered long-running. Coordination of the activities of multiple users is a much more complex problem than scripting an interaction with a single user, so jBPM offers sophisticated facilities for task management and dealing with multiple concurrent paths of execution.
Don't get these two things confused ! They operate at very different levels or granularity. Pageflow, conversation and task all refer to a single interaction with a single user. A business process spans many tasks. Futhermore, the two applications of jBPM are totally orthogonal. You can use them together or independently or not at all.
You don't have to know jDPL to use Seam. If you're perfectly happy defining pageflow using JSF or Seam navigation rules, and if your application is more data-driven that process-driven, you probably don't need jBPM. But we're finding that thinking of user interaction in terms of a well-defined graphical representation is helping us build more robust applications.
There are two ways to define pageflow in Seam:
Using JSF or Seam navigation rules - the stateless navigation model
Using jPDL - the stateful navigation model
Very simple applications will only need the stateless navigation model. Very complex applications will use both models in different places. Each model has its strengths and weaknesses!
The stateless model defines a mapping from a set of named, logical outcomes of an event directly to the resulting page of the view. The navigation rules are entirely oblivious to any state held by the application other than what page was the source of the event. This means that your action listener methods must sometimes make decisions about the page flow, since only they have access to the current state of the application.
Here is an example page flow definition using JSF navigation rules:
<navigation-rule>
<from-view-id>/numberGuess.jsp</from-view-id>
<navigation-case>
<from-outcome>guess</from-outcome>
<to-view-id>/numberGuess.jsp</to-view-id>
<redirect/>
</navigation-case>
<navigation-case>
<from-outcome>win</from-outcome>
<to-view-id>/win.jsp</to-view-id>
<redirect/>
</navigation-case>
<navigation-case>
<from-outcome>lose</from-outcome>
<to-view-id>/lose.jsp</to-view-id>
<redirect/>
</navigation-case>
</navigation-rule>
Here is the same example page flow definition using Seam navigation rules:
<page view-id="/numberGuess.jsp">
<navigation>
<rule if-outcome="guess">
<redirect view-id="/numberGuess.jsp"/>
</rule>
<rule if-outcome="win">
<redirect view-id="/win.jsp"/>
</rule>
<rule if-outcome="lose">
<redirect view-id="/lose.jsp"/>
</rule>
</navigation>
</page>
If you find navigation rules overly verbose, you can return view ids directly from your action listener methods:
public String guess() {
if (guess==randomNumber) return "/win.jsp";
if (++guessCount==maxGuesses) return "/lose.jsp";
return null;
}
Note that this results in a redirect. You can even specify parameters to be used in the redirect:
public String search() {
return "/searchResults.jsp?searchPattern=#{searchAction.searchPattern}";
}
The stateful model defines a set of transitions between a set of named, logical application states. In this model, it is possible to express the flow of any user interaction entirely in the jPDL pageflow definition, and write action listener methods that are completely unaware of the flow of the interaction.
Here is an example page flow definition using jPDL:
<pageflow-definition name="numberGuess">
<start-page name="displayGuess" view-id="/numberGuess.jsp">
<redirect/>
<transition name="guess" to="evaluateGuess">
<action expression="#{numberGuess.guess}" />
</transition>
</start-page>
<decision name="evaluateGuess" expression="#{numberGuess.correctGuess}">
<transition name="true" to="win"/>
<transition name="false" to="evaluateRemainingGuesses"/>
</decision>
<decision name="evaluateRemainingGuesses" expression="#{numberGuess.lastGuess}">
<transition name="true" to="lose"/>
<transition name="false" to="displayGuess"/>
</decision>
<page name="win" view-id="/win.jsp">
<redirect/>
<end-conversation />
</page>
<page name="lose" view-id="/lose.jsp">
<redirect/>
<end-conversation />
</page>
</pageflow-definition>
There are two things we notice immediately here:
The JSF/Seam navigation rules are much simpler. (However, this obscures the fact that the underlying Java code is more complex.)
The jPDL makes the user interaction immediately understandable, without us needing to even look at the JSP or Java code.
In addition, the stateful model is more constrained. For each logical state (each step in the page flow), there are a constrained set of possible transitions to other states. The stateless model is an ad hoc model which is suitable to relatively unconstrained, freeform navigation where the user decides where he/she wants to go next, not the application.
The stateful/stateless navigation distinction is quite similar to the traditional view of modal/modeless interaction. Now, Seam applications are not usually modal in the simple sense of the word - indeed, avoiding application modal behavior is one of the main reasons for having conversations! However, Seam applications can be, and often are, modal at the level of a particular conversation. It is well-known that modal behavior is something to avoid as much as possible; it is very difficult to predict the order in which your users are going to want to do things! However, there is no doubt that the stateful model has its place.
The biggest contrast between the two models is the back-button behavior.
When JSF or Seam navigation rules are used, Seam lets the user freely
navigate via the back, forward and refresh buttons. It is the
responsibility of the application to ensure that conversational
state remains internally consistent when this occurs. Experience
with the combination of web application frameworks like Struts
or WebWork - that do not support a conversational model - and
stateless component models like EJB stateless session beans
or the Spring framework has taught many developers that this is
close to impossible to do! However, our experience is that in
the context of Seam, where there is a well-defined conversational
model, backed by stateful session beans, it is actually quite
straightforward. Usually it is as simple as combining the use
of no-conversation-view-id
with null
checks at the beginning of action listener methods. We consider
support for freeform navigation to be almost always desirable.
In this case, the no-conversation-view-id
declaration goes in pages.xml
. It tells
Seam to redirect to a different page if a request originates
from a page rendered during a conversation, and that conversation
no longer exists:
<page view-id="/checkout.xhtml"
no-conversation-view-id="/main.xhtml"/>
On the other hand, in the stateful model, backbuttoning is
interpreted as an undefined transition back to a previous state.
Since the stateful model enforces a defined set of transitions
from the current state, back buttoning is by default disallowed
in the stateful model! Seam transparently detects the use of the
back button, and blocks any attempt to perform an action from
a previous, "stale" page, and simply redirects the user to
the "current" page (and displays a faces message). Whether you
consider this a feature or a limitation of the stateful model
depends upon your point of view: as an application developer,
it is a feature; as a user, it might be frustrating! You can
enable backbutton navigation from a particular page node by
setting back="enabled"
.
<page name="checkout"
view-id="/checkout.xhtml"
back="enabled">
<redirect/>
<transition to="checkout"/>
<transition name="complete" to="complete"/>
</page>
This allows backbuttoning from the
checkout
state to any previous
state!
Of course, we still need to define what happens if a request
originates from a page rendered during a pageflow, and the
conversation with the pageflow no longer exists. In this case,
the no-conversation-view-id
declaration
goes into the pageflow definition:
<page name="checkout"
view-id="/checkout.xhtml"
back="enabled"
no-conversation-view-id="/main.xhtml">
<redirect/>
<transition to="checkout"/>
<transition name="complete" to="complete"/>
</page>
In practice, both navigation models have their place, and you'll quickly learn to recognize when to prefer one model over the other.
We need to install the Seam jBPM-related components, and tell them
where to find our pageflow definition. We can specify this
Seam configuration in components.xml
.
<bpm:jbpm>
<bpm:pageflow-definitions>
<value>pageflow.jpdl.xml</value>
</bpm:pageflow-definitions>
</bpm:jbpm>
The first line installs jBPM, the second points to a jPDL-based pageflow definition.
We "start" a jPDL-based pageflow by specifying the name of the
process definition using a @Begin
,
@BeginTask
or @StartTask
annotation:
@Begin(pageflow="numberguess")
public void begin() { ... }
Alternatively we can start a pageflow using pages.xml:
<page>
<begin-conversation pageflow="numberguess"/>
</page>
If we are beginning the pageflow during the RENDER_RESPONSE
phase—during a @Factory
or @Create
method, for example—we consider ourselves to be already at the page being
rendered, and use a <start-page>
node as the first node
in the pageflow, as in the example above.
But if the pageflow is begun as the result of an action listener invocation,
the outcome of the action listener determines which is the first page to be
rendered. In this case, we use a <start-state>
as
the first node in the pageflow, and declare a transition for each possible
outcome:
<pageflow-definition name="viewEditDocument">
<start-state name="start">
<transition name="documentFound" to="displayDocument"/>
<transition name="documentNotFound" to="notFound"/>
</start-state>
<page name="displayDocument" view-id="/document.jsp">
<transition name="edit" to="editDocument"/>
<transition name="done" to="main"/>
</page>
...
<page name="notFound" view-id="/404.jsp">
<end-conversation/>
</page>
</pageflow-definition>
Each <page>
node represents a state where
the system is waiting for user input:
<page name="displayGuess" view-id="/numberGuess.jsp">
<redirect/>
<transition name="guess" to="evaluateGuess">
<action expression="#{numberGuess.guess}" />
</transition>
</page>
The view-id
is the JSF view id. The <redirect/>
element has the same effect as <redirect/>
in a
JSF navigation rule: namely, a post-then-redirect behavior, to overcome problems
with the browser's refresh button. (Note that Seam propagates conversation contexts
over these browser redirects. So there is no need for a Ruby on Rails style "flash"
construct in Seam!)
The transition name is the name of a JSF outcome triggered by clicking
a command button or command link in numberGuess.jsp
.
<h:commandButton type="submit" value="Guess" action="guess"/>
When the transition is triggered by clicking this button, jBPM will activate the
transition action by calling the guess()
method of the
numberGuess
component. Notice that the syntax used for
specifying actions in the jPDL is just a familiar JSF EL expression, and that
the transition action handler is just a method of a Seam component in the
current Seam contexts. So we have exactly the same event model for jBPM events
that we already have for JSF events! (The One Kind of Stuff
principle.)
In the case of a null outcome (for example, a command button with no
action
defined), Seam will signal the transition with no
name if one exists, or else simply redisplay the page if all transitions
have names. So we could slightly simplify our example pageflow and this button:
<h:commandButton type="submit" value="Guess"/>
Would fire the following un-named transition:
<page name="displayGuess" view-id="/numberGuess.jsp">
<redirect/>
<transition to="evaluateGuess">
<action expression="#{numberGuess.guess}" />
</transition>
</page>
It is even possible to have the button call an action method, in which case the action outcome will determine the transition to be taken:
<h:commandButton type="submit" value="Guess" action="#{numberGuess.guess}"/>
<page name="displayGuess" view-id="/numberGuess.jsp">
<transition name="correctGuess" to="win"/>
<transition name="incorrectGuess" to="evaluateGuess"/>
</page>
However, this is considered an inferior style, since it moves responsibility for controlling the flow out of the pageflow definition and back into the other components. It is much better to centralize this concern in the pageflow itself.
Usually, we don't need the more powerful features of jPDL when defining pageflows.
We do need the <decision>
node, however:
<decision name="evaluateGuess" expression="#{numberGuess.correctGuess}">
<transition name="true" to="win"/>
<transition name="false" to="evaluateRemainingGuesses"/>
</decision>
A decision is made by evaluating a JSF EL expression in the Seam contexts.
We end the conversation using <end-conversation>
or @End
. (In fact, for readability, use of
both is encouraged.)
<page name="win" view-id="/win.jsp">
<redirect/>
<end-conversation/>
</page>
Optionally, we can end a task, specify a jBPM transition
name. In this case, Seam will signal the end of the current task in the
overarching business process.
<page name="win" view-id="/win.jsp">
<redirect/>
<end-task transition="success"/>
</page>
It is possible to compose pageflows and have one pageflow pause
pause while another pageflow executes. The <process-state>
node pauses the outer pageflow, and begins execution of a named
pageflow:
<process-state name="cheat">
<sub-process name="cheat"/>
<transition to="displayGuess"/>
</process-state>
The inner flow begins executing at a <start-state>
node. When it reaches an <end-state>
node,
execution of the inner flow ends, and execution of the outer flow
resumes with the transition defined by the <process-state>
element.
A business process is a well-defined set of tasks that must
be performed by users or software systems according to
well-defined rules about who can perform
a task, and when it should be performed.
Seam's jBPM integration makes it easy to display lists of
tasks to users and let them manage their tasks. Seam also
lets the application store state associated with the business
process in the BUSINESS_PROCESS
context,
and have that state made persistent via jBPM variables.
A simple business process definition looks much the same as a
page flow definition (One Kind of Stuff),
except that instead of <page>
nodes,
we have <task-node>
nodes. In a
long-running business process, the wait states are where the
system is waiting for some user to log in and perform a task.
<process-definition name="todo">
<start-state name="start">
<transition to="todo"/>
</start-state>
<task-node name="todo">
<task name="todo" description="#{todoList.description}">
<assignment actor-id="#{actor.id}"/>
</task>
<transition to="done"/>
</task-node>
<end-state name="done"/>
</process-definition>
It is perfectly possible that we might have both jPDL business
process definitions and jPDL pageflow definitions in the
same project. If so, the relationship between the two is that
a single <task>
in a business process
corresponds to a whole pageflow
<pageflow-definition>
We need to install jBPM, and tell it where to find the business process definitions:
<bpm:jbpm>
<bpm:process-definitions>
<value>todo.jpdl.xml</value>
</bpm:process-definitions>
</bpm:jbpm>
As jBPM processes are persistent across application restarts,
when using Seam in a production environment you won't want to
install the process definition every time the application starts.
Therefore, in a production environment, you'll need to deploy
the process to jBPM outside of Seam. In other words, only install
process definitions from components.xml
when
developing your application.
We always need to know what user is currently logged in.
jBPM "knows" users by their actor id
and group actor ids. We specify the
current actor ids using the built in Seam component named
actor
:
@In Actor actor;
public String login() {
...
actor.setId( user.getUserName() );
actor.getGroupActorIds().addAll( user.getGroupNames() );
...
}
To initiate a business process instance, we use the
@CreateProcess
annotation:
@CreateProcess(definition="todo")
public void createTodo() { ... }
Alternatively we can initiate a business process using pages.xml:
<page>
<create-process definition="todo" />
</page>
When a process reaches a task node, task instances are created. These must be assigned to users or user groups. We can either hardcode our actor ids, or delegate to a Seam component:
<task name="todo" description="#{todoList.description}">
<assignment actor-id="#{actor.id}"/>
</task>
In this case, we have simply assigned the task to the current user. We can also assign tasks to a pool:
<task name="todo" description="#{todoList.description}">
<assignment pooled-actors="employees"/>
</task>
Several built-in Seam components make it easy to display task lists.
The pooledTaskInstanceList
is a list of pooled tasks
that users may assign to themselves:
<h:dataTable value="#{pooledTaskInstanceList}" var="task">
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">Description</f:facet>
<h:outputText value="#{task.description}"/>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<s:link action="#{pooledTask.assignToCurrentActor}" value="Assign" taskInstance="#{task}"/>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
Note that instead of <s:link>
we could have used
a plain JSF <h:commandLink>
:
<h:commandLink action="#{pooledTask.assignToCurrentActor}">
<f:param name="taskId" value="#{task.id}"/>
</h:commandLink>
The pooledTask
component is a built-in component that
simply assigns the task to the current user.
The taskInstanceListForType
component includes tasks of
a particular type that are assigned to the current user:
<h:dataTable value="#{taskInstanceListForType['todo']}" var="task">
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">Description</f:facet>
<h:outputText value="#{task.description}"/>
</h:column>
<h:column>
<s:link action="#{todoList.start}" value="Start Work" taskInstance="#{task}"/>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
To begin work on a task, we use either @StartTask
or @BeginTask
on the listener method:
@StartTask
public String start() { ... }
Alternatively we can begin work on a task using pages.xml:
<page>
<start-task />
</page>
These annotations begin a special kind of conversation that has significance in terms of the overarching business process. Work done by this conversation has access to state held in the business process context.
If we end the conversation using @EndTask
, Seam
will signal the completion of the task:
@EndTask(transition="completed")
public String completed() { ... }
Alternatively we can use pages.xml:
<page>
<end-task transition="completed" />
</page>
You can also use EL to specify the transition in pages.xml.
At this point, jBPM takes over and continues executing the business process definition. (In more complex processes, several tasks might need to be completed before process execution can resume.)
Please refer to the jBPM documentation for a more thorough overview of the sophisticated features that jBPM provides for managing complex business processes.
Seam provides extensive support for the two most popular persistence architectures for Java: Hibernate3, and the Java Persistence API introduced with EJB 3.0. Seam's unique state-management architecture allows the most sophisticated ORM integration of any web application framework.
Seam grew out of the frustration of the Hibernate team with the statelessness typical of the previous generation of Java application architectures. The state management architecture of Seam was originally designed to solve problems relating to persistence—in particular problems associated with optimistic transaction processing. Scalable online applications always use optimistic transactions. An atomic (database/JTA) level transaction should not span a user interaction unless the application is designed to support only a very small number of concurrent clients. But almost all interesting work involves first displaying data to a user, and then, slightly later, updating the same data. So Hibernate was designed to support the idea of a persistence context which spanned an optimistic transaction.
Unfortunately, the so-called "stateless" architectures that preceded Seam and
EJB 3.0 had no construct for representing an optimistic transaction. So, instead,
these architectures provided persistence contexts scoped to the atomic
transaction. Of course, this resulted in many problems for users, and is the
cause of the number one user complaint about Hibernate: the dreaded
LazyInitializationException
. What we need is a construct
for representing an optimistic transaction in the application tier.
EJB 3.0 recognizes this problem, and introduces the idea of a stateful component (a stateful session bean) with an extended persistence context scoped to the lifetime of the component. This is a partial solution to the problem (and is a useful construct in and of itself) however there are two problems:
The lifecycle of the stateful session bean must be managed manually via code in the web tier (it turns out that this is a subtle problem and much more difficult in practice than it sounds).
Propagation of the persistence context between stateful components in the same optimistic transaction is possible, but tricky.
Seam solves the first problem by providing conversations, and stateful session bean components scoped to the conversation. (Most conversations actually represent optimistic transactions in the data layer.) This is sufficient for many simple applications (such as the Seam booking demo) where persistence context propagation is not needed. For more complex applications, with many loosly-interacting components in each conversation, propagation of the persistence context across components becomes an important issue. So Seam extends the persistence context management model of EJB 3.0, to provide conversation-scoped extended persistence contexts.
EJB session beans feature declarative transaction management. The EJB container is able to start a transaction transparently when the bean is invoked, and end it when the invocation ends. If we write a session bean method that acts as a JSF action listener, we can do all the work associated with that action in one transaction, and be sure that it is committed or rolled back when we finish processing the action. This is a great feature, and all that is needed by some Seam applications.
However, there is a problem with this approach. A Seam application may not perform all data access for a request from a single method call to a session bean.
The request might require processing by several loosly-coupled components, each of which is called independently from the web layer. It is common to see several or even many calls per request from the web layer to EJB components in Seam.
Rendering of the view might require lazy fetching of associations.
The more transactions per request, the more likely we are to encounter atomicity and isolation problems when our application is processing many concurrent requests. Certainly, all write operations should occur in the same transaction!
Hibernate users developed the "open session in view" pattern to work
around this problem. In the Hibernate community, "open session in view" was historically
even more important because frameworks like Spring use transaction-scoped persistence contexts.
So rendering the view would cause LazyInitializationException
s when
unfetched associations were accessed.
This pattern is usually implemented as a single transaction which spans the entire request. There are several problems with this implementation, the most serious being that we can never be sure that a transaction is successful until we commit it—but by the time the "open session in view" transaction is committed, the view is fully rendered, and the rendered response may already have been flushed to the client. How can we notify the user that their transaction was unsuccessful?
Seam solves both the transaction isolation problem and the association fetching problem, while working around the problems with "open session in view". The solution comes in two parts:
use an extended persistence context that is scoped to the conversation, instead of to the transaction
use two transactions per request; the first spans the beginning of the restore view phase (some transaction managers begin the transaction later at the beginning of the apply request vaues phase) until the end of the invoke application phase; the second spans the render response phase
In the next section, we'll tell you how to set up a conversation-scope persistence context. But first we need to tell you how to enable Seam transaction management. Note that you can use conversation-scoped persistence contexts without Seam transaction management, and there are good reasons to use Seam transaction management even when you're not using Seam-managed persistence contexts. However, the two facilities were designed to work together, and work best when used together.
Seam transaction management is useful even if you're using EJB 3.0 container-managed persistence contexts. But it is especially useful if you use Seam outside a Java EE 5 environment, or in any other case where you would use a Seam-managed persistence context.
Seam transaction management is enabled by default for all JSF requests.
If you want to disable this feature, you can do it
in components.xml
:
<core:init transaction-management-enabled="false"/>
<transaction:no-transaction />
Seam provides a transaction management abstraction for beginning, committing, rolling back, and
synchronizing with a transaction. By default Seam uses a JTA transaction component that integrates with
Container Managed and programmatic EJB transactions. If you are working in a Java EE 5 environment, you
should install the EJB synchronization component in components.xml
:
<transaction:ejb-transaction />
However, if you are working in a non EE 5 container, Seam will try auto detect the transaction synchronization mechanism to use. However, if Seam is unable to detect the correct transaction synchronization to use, you may find you need configure one of the following:
JPA RESOURCE_LOCAL transactions with the
javax.persistence.EntityTransaction
interface. EntityTransaction
begins the transaction at the beginning
of the apply request values phase.
Hibernate managed transactions with the
org.hibernate.Transaction
interface. HibernateTransaction
begins the transaction at the beginning
of the apply request values phase.
Spring managed transactions with the
org.springframework.transaction.PlatformTransactionManager
interface. The Spring PlatformTransactionManagement
manager may begin the
transaction at the beginning of the apply request values phase if the
userConversationContext
attribute is set.
Explicitly disable Seam managed transactions
Configure JPA RESOURCE_LOCAL transaction management by adding the following to your components.xml where
#{em}
is the name of the
persistence:managed-persistence-context
component. If your managed persistence context is named entityManager
, you can
opt to leave out the entity-manager
attribute. (see
Seam-managed persistence contexts
)
<transaction:entity-transaction entity-manager="#{em}"/>
To configure Hibernate managed transactions declare the following in your components.xml where
#{hibernateSession}
is the name of the project's
persistence:managed-hibernate-session
component. If your managed hibernate session is named session
, you can
opt to leave out the session
attribute. (see
Seam-managed persistence contexts
)
<transaction:hibernate-transaction session="#{hibernateSession}"/>
To explicitly disable Seam managed transactions declare the following in your components.xml:
<transaction:no-transaction />
For configuring Spring managed transactions see using Spring PlatformTransactionManagement .
Transaction synchronization provides callbacks for transaction related events
such as beforeCompletion()
and afterCompletion()
.
By default, Seam uses it's own transaction synchronization component which requires explicit use of the
Seam transaction component when committing a transaction to ensure synchronization callbacks are
correctly executed. If in a Java EE 5 environment the
<transaction:ejb-transaction/>
component should be be declared in components.xml
to ensure that Seam synchronization callbacks are
correctly called if the container commits a transaction outside of Seam's knowledge.
If you're using Seam outside of a Java EE 5 environment, you can't rely upon the container to manage the persistence context lifecycle for you. Even if you are in an EE 5 environment, you might have a complex application with many loosly coupled components that collaborate together in the scope of a single conversation, and in this case you might find that propagation of the persistence context between component is tricky and error-prone.
In either case, you'll need to use a managed persistence context
(for JPA) or a managed session (for Hibernate) in your components.
A Seam-managed persistence context is just a built-in Seam component that manages an
instance of EntityManager
or Session
in the
conversation context. You can inject it with @In
.
Seam-managed persistence contexts are extremely efficient in a clustered environment. Seam is able to perform an optimization that EJB 3.0 specification does not allow containers to use for container-managed extended persistence contexts. Seam supports transparent failover of extended persisence contexts, without the need to replicate any persistence context state between nodes. (We hope to fix this oversight in the next revision of the EJB spec.)
Configuring a managed persistence context is easy. In components.xml
,
we can write:
<persistence:managed-persistence-context name="bookingDatabase"
auto-create="true"
persistence-unit-jndi-name="java:/EntityManagerFactories/bookingData"/>
This configuration creates a conversation-scoped Seam component named
bookingDatabase
that manages the lifecycle of EntityManager
instances for the persistence unit (EntityManagerFactory
instance)
with JNDI name java:/EntityManagerFactories/bookingData
.
Of course, you need to make sure that you have bound the EntityManagerFactory
into JNDI. In JBoss, you can do this by adding the following property setting to
persistence.xml
.
<property name="jboss.entity.manager.factory.jndi.name"
value="java:/EntityManagerFactories/bookingData"/>
Now we can have our EntityManager
injected using:
@In EntityManager bookingDatabase;
If you are using EJB3 and mark your class or method
@TransactionAttribute(REQUIRES_NEW)
then the
transaction and persistence context shouldn't be propagated to method
calls on this object. However as the Seam-managed persistence
context is propagated to any component within the conversation, it
will be propagated to methods marked REQUIRES_NEW
.
Therefore, if you mark a method REQUIRES_NEW
then
you should access the entity manager using @PersistenceContext.
Seam-managed Hibernate sessions are similar. In components.xml
:
<persistence:hibernate-session-factory name="hibernateSessionFactory"/>
<persistence:managed-hibernate-session name="bookingDatabase"
auto-create="true"
session-factory-jndi-name="java:/bookingSessionFactory"/>
Where java:/bookingSessionFactory
is the name of the session factory
specified in hibernate.cfg.xml
.
<session-factory name="java:/bookingSessionFactory">
<property name="transaction.flush_before_completion">true</property>
<property name="connection.release_mode">after_statement</property>
<property name="transaction.manager_lookup_class">org.hibernate.transaction.JBossTransactionManagerLookup</property>
<property name="transaction.factory_class">org.hibernate.transaction.JTATransactionFactory</property>
<property name="connection.datasource">java:/bookingDatasource</property>
...
</session-factory>
Note that Seam does not flush the session, so you should always enable
hibernate.transaction.flush_before_completion
to
ensure that the session is automatically flushed before the JTA transaction
commits.
We can now have a managed Hibernate Session
injected into our
JavaBean components using the following code:
@In Session bookingDatabase;
Persistence contexts scoped to the conversation allows you to program optimistic
transactions that span multiple requests to the server without the need to use the
merge()
operation , without the need to re-load
data at the beginning of each request, and without the need to wrestle with the
LazyInitializationException
or
NonUniqueObjectException
.
As with any optimistic transaction management, transaction isolation and consistency
can be achieved via use of optimistic locking. Fortunately, both Hibernate and EJB
3.0 make it very easy to use optimistic locking, by providing the
@Version
annotation.
By default, the persistence context is flushed (synchronized with the database)
at the end of each transaction. This is sometimes the desired behavior. But very
often, we would prefer that all changes are held in memory and only written to
the database when the conversation ends successfully. This allows for truly
atomic conversations. As the result of a truly stupid and shortsighted decision
by certain non-JBoss, non-Sun and non-Sybase members of the EJB 3.0 expert group,
there is currently no simple, usable and portable way to implement atomic
conversations using EJB 3.0 persistence. However, Hibernate provides this feature
as a vendor extension to the FlushModeType
s defined by the
specification, and it is our expectation that other vendors will soon provide
a similar extension.
Seam lets you specify FlushModeType.MANUAL
when beginning a
conversation. Currently, this works only when Hibernate is the underlying
persistence provider, but we plan to support other equivalent vendor extensions.
@In EntityManager em; //a Seam-managed persistence context
@Begin(flushMode=MANUAL)
public void beginClaimWizard() {
claim = em.find(Claim.class, claimId);
}
Now, the claim
object remains managed by the persistence context
for the rest ot the conversation. We can make changes to the claim:
public void addPartyToClaim() {
Party party = ....;
claim.addParty(party);
}
But these changes will not be flushed to the database until we explicitly force the flush to occur:
@End
public void commitClaim() {
em.flush();
}
Of course, you could set the flushMode
to MANUAL
from pages.xml, for example in a navigation rule:
<begin-conversation flush-mode="MANUAL" />
The EntityManager
interface lets you access a vendor-specific
API via the getDelegate()
method. Naturally, the most interesting
vendor is Hibernate, and the most powerful delegate interface is
org.hibernate.Session
. You'd be nuts to use anything else. Trust
me, I'm not biased at all. If you must use a different JPA provider see
Using Alternate JPA Providers.
But regardless of whether you're using Hibernate (genius!) or something else (masochist, or just not very bright), you'll almost certainly want to use the delegate in your Seam components from time to time. One approach would be the following:
@In EntityManager entityManager;
@Create
public void init() {
( (Session) entityManager.getDelegate() ).enableFilter("currentVersions");
}
But typecasts are unquestionably the ugliest syntax in the Java language, so most
people avoid them whenever possible. Here's a different way to get at the
delegate. First, add the following line to components.xml
:
<factory name="session"
scope="STATELESS"
auto-create="true"
value="#{entityManager.delegate}"/>
Now we can inject the session directly:
@In Session session;
@Create
public void init() {
session.enableFilter("currentVersions");
}
Seam proxies the EntityManager
or Session
object whenever you use a Seam-managed persistence context or inject a container
managed persistence context using @PersistenceContext
. This
lets you use EL expressions in your query strings, safely and efficiently. For
example, this:
User user = em.createQuery("from User where username=#{user.username}")
.getSingleResult();
is equivalent to:
User user = em.createQuery("from User where username=:username")
.setParameter("username", user.getUsername())
.getSingleResult();
Of course, you should never, ever write it like this:
User user = em.createQuery("from User where username=" + user.getUsername()) //BAD!
.getSingleResult();
(It is inefficient and vulnerable to SQL injection attacks.)
The coolest, and most unique, feature of Hibernate is filters. Filters let you provide a restricted view of the data in the database. You can find out more about filters in the Hibernate documentation. But we thought we'd mention an easy way to incorporate filters into a Seam application, one that works especially well with the Seam Application Framework.
Seam-managed persistence contexts may have a list of filters defined, which will be
enabled whenever an EntityManager
or Hibernate Session
is first created. (Of course, they may only be used when Hibernate is the underlying
persistence provider.)
<persistence:filter name="regionFilter">
<persistence:name>region</persistence:name>
<persistence:parameters>
<key>regionCode</key>
<value>#{region.code}</value>
</persistence:parameters>
</persistence:filter>
<persistence:filter name="currentFilter">
<persistence:name>current</persistence:name>
<persistence:parameters>
<key>date</key>
<value>#{currentDate}</value>
</persistence:parameters>
</persistence:filter>
<persistence:managed-persistence-context name="personDatabase"
persistence-unit-jndi-name="java:/EntityManagerFactories/personDatabase">
<core:filters>
<value>#{regionFilter}</value>
<value>#{currentFilter}</value>
</core:filters>
</persistence:managed-persistence-context>
In plain JSF, validation is defined in the view:
<h:form>
<h:messages/>
<div>
Country:
<h:inputText value="#{location.country}" required="true">
<my:validateCountry/>
</h:inputText>
</div>
<div>
Zip code:
<h:inputText value="#{location.zip}" required="true">
<my:validateZip/>
</h:inputText>
</div>
<h:commandButton/>
</h:form>
In practice, this approach usually violates DRY, since most "validation" actually enforces constraints that are part of the data model, and exist all the way down to the database schema definition. Seam provides support for model-based constraints defined using Hibernate Validator.
Let's start by defining our constraints, on our
Location
class:
public class Location {
private String country;
private String zip;
@NotNull
@Length(max=30)
public String getCountry() { return country; }
public void setCountry(String c) { country = c; }
@NotNull
@Length(max=6)
@Pattern("^\d*$")
public String getZip() { return zip; }
public void setZip(String z) { zip = z; }
}
Well, that's a decent first cut, but in practice it might be more elegant to use custom constraints instead of the ones built into Hibernate Validator:
public class Location {
private String country;
private String zip;
@NotNull
@Country
public String getCountry() { return country; }
public void setCountry(String c) { country = c; }
@NotNull
@ZipCode
public String getZip() { return zip; }
public void setZip(String z) { zip = z; }
}
Whichever route we take, we no longer need to specify the
type of validation to be used in the JSF page. Instead, we
can use <s:validate>
to validate
against the constraint defined on the model object.
<h:form>
<h:messages/>
<div>
Country:
<h:inputText value="#{location.country}" required="true">
<s:validate/>
</h:inputText>
</div>
<div>
Zip code:
<h:inputText value="#{location.zip}" required="true">
<s:validate/>
</h:inputText>
</div>
<h:commandButton/>
</h:form>
Note: specifying @NotNull
on the model does not eliminate the requirement
for required="true"
to appear on the control!
This is due to a limitation of the JSF validation architecture.
This approach defines constraints on the model, and presents constraint violations in the view—a significantly better design.
However, it is not much less verbose than what we started with,
so let's try <s:validateAll>
:
<h:form>
<h:messages/>
<s:validateAll>
<div>
Country:
<h:inputText value="#{location.country}" required="true"/>
</div>
<div>
Zip code:
<h:inputText value="#{location.zip}" required="true"/>
</div>
<h:commandButton/>
</s:validateAll>
</h:form>
This tag simply adds an <s:validate>
to every input in the form. For a large form, it can save a lot
of typing!
Now we need to do something about displaying feedback to the user when validation fails. Currently we are displaying all messages at the top of the form. What we would really like to do is display the message next to the field with the error (this is possible in plain JSF), highlight the field and label (this is not possible) and, for good measure, display some image next to the field (also not possible). We also want to display a little colored asterisk next to the label for each required form field.
That's quite a lot of functionality we need for each field of our form. We wouldn't want to have to specify higlighting and the layout of the image, message and input field for every field on the form. So, instead, we'll specify the common layout in a facelets template:
<ui:composition xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
xmlns:s="http://jboss.com/products/seam/taglib">
<div>
<s:label styleClass="#{invalid?'error':''}">
<ui:insert name="label"/>
<s:span styleClass="required" rendered="#{required}">*</s:span>
</s:label>
<span class="#{invalid?'error':''}">
<h:graphicImage value="/img/error.gif" rendered="#{invalid}"/>
<s:validateAll>
<ui:insert/>
</s:validateAll>
</span>
<s:message styleClass="error"/>
</div>
</ui:composition>
We can include this template for each of our form fields using
<s:decorate>
.
<h:form>
<h:messages globalOnly="true"/>
<s:decorate template="edit.xhtml">
<ui:define name="label">Country:</ui:define>
<h:inputText value="#{location.country}" required="true"/>
</s:decorate>
<s:decorate template="edit.xhtml">
<ui:define name="label">Zip code:</ui:define>
<h:inputText value="#{location.zip}" required="true"/>
</s:decorate>
<h:commandButton/>
</h:form>
Finally, we can use RichFaces Ajax to display validation messages as the user is navigating around the form:
<h:form>
<h:messages globalOnly="true"/>
<s:decorate id="countryDecoration" template="edit.xhtml">
<ui:define name="label">Country:</ui:define>
<h:inputText value="#{location.country}" required="true">
<a:support event="onblur" reRender="countryDecoration" bypassUpdates="true"/>
</h:inputText>
</s:decorate>
<s:decorate id="zipDecoration" template="edit.xhtml">
<ui:define name="label">Zip code:</ui:define>
<h:inputText value="#{location.zip}" required="true">
<a:support event="onblur" reRender="zipDecoration" bypassUpdates="true"/>
</h:inputText>
</s:decorate>
<h:commandButton/>
</h:form>
It's better style to define explicit ids for important controls on the page, especially if you want to do automated testing for the UI, using some toolkit like Selenium. If you don't provide explicit ids, JSF will generate them, but the generated values will change if you change anything on the page.
<h:form id="form">
<h:messages globalOnly="true"/>
<s:decorate id="countryDecoration" template="edit.xhtml">
<ui:define name="label">Country:</ui:define>
<h:inputText id="country" value="#{location.country}" required="true">
<a:support event="onblur" reRender="countryDecoration" bypassUpdates="true"/>
</h:inputText>
</s:decorate>
<s:decorate id="zipDecoration" template="edit.xhtml">
<ui:define name="label">Zip code:</ui:define>
<h:inputText id="zip" value="#{location.zip}" required="true">
<a:support event="onblur" reRender="zipDecoration" bypassUpdates="true"/>
</h:inputText>
</s:decorate>
<h:commandButton/>
</h:form>
And what if you want to specify a different message to be displayed when validation fails? You can use the Seam message bundle (and all it's goodies like el expressions inside the message, and per-view message bundles) with the Hibernate Validator:
public class Location {
private String name;
private String zip;
// Getters and setters for name
@NotNull
@Length(max=6)
@ZipCode(message="#{messages['location.zipCode.invalid']}")
public String getZip() { return zip; }
public void setZip(String z) { zip = z; }
}
location.zipCode.invalid = The zip code is not valid for #{location.name}
One aspect of JBoss Seam is its RAD (Rapid Application Development) capability. While not synonymous with RAD, one interesting tool in this space is dynamic languages. Until recently, choosing a dynamic language was required choosing a completely different development platform (a development platform with a set of APIs and a runtime so great that you would no longer want to use you old legacy Java [sic] APIs anymore, which would be lucky because you would be forced to use those proprietary APIs anyway). Dynamic languages built on top of the Java Virtual Machine, and Groovy in particular broke this approach in silos.
JBoss Seam now unites the dynamic language world with the Java EE world by seamlessly integrating both static and dynamic languages. JBoss Seam lets the application developer use the best tool for the task, without context switching. Writing dynamic Seam components is exactly like writing regular Seam components. You use the same annotations, the same APIs, the same everything.
Groovy is an agile dynamic language based on the Java language but with additional features inspired by Python, Ruby and Smalltalk. The strengths of Groovy are twofold:
Java syntax is supported in Groovy: Java code is Groovy code, making the learning curve very smooth
Groovy objects are Java objects, and Groovy classes are Java classes: Groovy integrates smoothly with existing Java libraries and frameworks.
TODO: write a quick overview of the Groovy syntax add-on
There is not much to say about it. Since a Groovy object is a Java object, you can virtually write any Seam component, or any class for what it worth, in Groovy and deploy it. You can also mix Groovy classes and Java classes in the same application.
As you should have noticed by now, Seam uses annotations heavily. Be sure to use Groovy 1.1 or above for annotation support. Here are some example of groovy code used in a Seam application.
@Entity
@Name("hotel")
class Hotel implements Serializable
{
@Id @GeneratedValue
Long id
@Length(max=50) @NotNull
String name
@Length(max=100) @NotNull
String address
@Length(max=40) @NotNull
String city
@Length(min=2, max=10) @NotNull
String state
@Length(min=4, max=6) @NotNull
String zip
@Length(min=2, max=40) @NotNull
String country
@Column(precision=6, scale=2)
BigDecimal price
@Override
String toString()
{
return "Hotel(${name},${address},${city},${zip})"
}
}
Groovy natively support the notion of properties (getter/setter), so there is no need to
explicitly write verbose getters and setters: in the previous example, the hotel class can be
accessed from Java as hotel.getCity()
, the getters and setters being generated by the
Groovy compiler. This type of syntactic sugar makes the entity code very concise.
Writing Seam components in Groovy is in no way different than in Java: annotations are used to mark the class as a Seam component.
@Scope(ScopeType.SESSION)
@Name("bookingList")
class BookingListAction implements Serializable
{
@In EntityManager em
@In User user
@DataModel List<Booking> bookings
@DataModelSelection Booking booking
@Logger Log log
@Factory public void getBookings()
{
bookings = em.createQuery('''
select b from Booking b
where b.user.username = :username
order by b.checkinDate''')
.setParameter("username", user.username)
.getResultList()
}
public void cancel()
{
log.info("Cancel booking: #{bookingList.booking.id} for #{user.username}")
Booking cancelled = em.find(Booking.class, booking.id)
if (cancelled != null) em.remove( cancelled )
getBookings()
FacesMessages.instance().add("Booking cancelled for confirmation number #{bookingList.booking.id}", new Object[0])
}
}
Seam gen has a transparent integration with Groovy. You can write Groovy code in seam-gen backed
projects without any additional infrastructure requirement. When writing a Groovy entity, simply place
your .groovy
files in src/model
. Unsurprisingly, when writing
an action, simply place your .groovy
files in
src/action
.
Deploying Groovy classes is very much like deploying Java classes (surprisingly, no need to write nor comply with a 3-letter composite specification to support a multi-language component framework).
Beyond standard deployments, JBoss Seam has the ability, at development time, to redeploy JavaBeans Seam
component classes without having to restart the application, saving a lot of time in the development / test
cycle. The same support is provided for GroovyBeans Seam components when the .groovy
files are deployed.
A Groovy class is a Java class, with a bytecode representation just like a Java
class. To deploy, a Groovy entity, a Groovy Session bean or a Groovy Seam component, a compilation step
is necessary. A common approach is to use the groovyc
ant task. Once compiles, a
Groovy class is in no way different than a Java class and the application server will treat them
equally. Note that this allow a seamless mix of Groovy and Java code.
JBoss Seam natively supports the deployment of .groovy
files (ie without
compilation) in incremental hotdeployment mode (development only). This enables a very fast edit/test
cycle. To set up .groovy deployments, follow the configuration at Section 2.8, “Seam and incremental hot deployment” and deploy your Groovy code (.groovy
files) into the WEB-INF/dev
directory. The GroovyBean components will be picked up
incrementally with no need to restart the application (and obviously not the application server either).
Be aware that the native .groovy file deployment suffers the same limitations as the regular Seam hotdeployment:
The components must be JavaBeans or GroovyBeans. They cannot be EJB3 bean
Entities cannot be hotdeployed
The hot-deployable components will not be visible to any classes deployed outside of
WEB-INF/dev
Seam debug mode must be enabled
Seam-gen transparently supports Groovy files deployment and compilation. This includes the native
.groovy
file deployment in development mode (compilation-less). If you create a
seam-gen project of type WAR, Java and Groovy classes in src/action
will
automatically be candidate for the incremental hot deployment. If you are in production mode, the Groovy
files will simply be compiled before deployment.
You will find a live example of the Booking demo written completely in Groovy and supporting
incremental hot deployment in examples/groovybooking
.
Seam makes it really easy to create applications by writing
plain Java classes with annotations, which don't need to extend
any special interfaces or superclasses. But we can simplify
some common programming tasks even further, by providing a set
of pre-built components which can be re-used either by
configuration in components.xml
(for very
simple cases) or extension.
The Seam Application Framework can reduce the amount of code you need to write when doing basic database access in a web application, using either Hibernate or JPA.
We should emphasize that the framework is extremely simple, just a handful of simple classes that are easy to understand and extend. The "magic" is in Seam itself—the same magic you use when creating any Seam application even without using this framework.
The components provided by the Seam application framework
may be used in one of two different approaches. The first
way is to install and configure an instance of the component
in components.xml
, just like we have
done with other kinds of built-in Seam components. For
example, the following fragment from
components.xml
installs a component
which can perform basic CRUD operations for a
Person
entity:
<framework:entity-home name="personHome"
entity-class="eg.Person"
entity-manager="#{personDatabase}">
<framework:id>#{param.personId}</framework:id>
</framework:entity-home>
If that looks a bit too much like "programming in XML" for your taste, you can use extension instead:
@Name("personHome")
public class PersonHome extends EntityHome<Person> {
@In EntityManager personDatabase;
public EntityManager getEntityManager() {
return personDatabase;
}
}
The second approach has one huge advantage: you can easily add extra functionality, and override the built-in functionality (the framework classes were carefully designed for extension and customization).
A second advantage is that your classes may be EJB stateful session beans, if you like. (They do not have to be, they can be plain JavaBean components if you prefer.) If you are using JBoss AS, you'll need 4.2.2.GA or later:
@Stateful
@Name("personHome")
public class PersonHome extends EntityHome<Person> implements LocalPersonHome {
}
You can also make your classes stateless session beans. In this case
you must use injection to provide the
persistence context, even if it is called
entityManager
:
@Stateless
@Name("personHome")
public class PersonHome extends EntityHome<Person> implements LocalPersonHome {
@In EntityManager entityManager;
public EntityManager getPersistenceContext() {
entityManager;
}
}
At this time, the Seam Application Framework provides four main
built-in components: EntityHome
and
HibernateEntityHome
for CRUD, along with
EntityQuery
and HibernateEntityQuery
for queries.
The Home and Query components are written so that they can function with a scope of session, event or conversation. Which scope you use depends upon the state model you wish to use in your application.
The Seam Application Framework only works with Seam-managed
persistence contexts. By default, the components will look
for a persistence context named entityManager
.
A Home object provides persistence operations for a particular entity
class. Suppose we have our trusty Person
class:
@Entity
public class Person {
@Id private Long id;
private String firstName;
private String lastName;
private Country nationality;
//getters and setters...
}
We can define a personHome
component either via
configuration:
<framework:entity-home name="personHome" entity-class="eg.Person" />
Or via extension:
@Name("personHome")
public class PersonHome extends EntityHome<Person> {}
A Home object provides the following operations: persist()
,
remove()
, update()
and
getInstance()
. Before you can call the
remove()
, or update()
operations, you
must first set the identifier of the object you are interested in, using the
setId()
method.
We can use a Home directly from a JSF page, for example:
<h1>Create Person</h1>
<h:form>
<div>First name: <h:inputText value="#{personHome.instance.firstName}"/></div>
<div>Last name: <h:inputText value="#{personHome.instance.lastName}"/></div>
<div>
<h:commandButton value="Create Person" action="#{personHome.persist}"/>
</div>
</h:form>
Usually, it is much nicer to be able to refer to the Person
merely as person
, so let's make that possible by adding a
line to components.xml
:
<factory name="person"
value="#{personHome.instance}"/>
<framework:entity-home name="personHome"
entity-class="eg.Person" />
(If we are using configuration.)
Or by adding a @Factory
method to PersonHome
:
@Name("personHome")
public class PersonHome extends EntityHome<Person> {
@Factory("person")
public Person initPerson() { return getInstance(); }
}
(If we are using extension.) This change simplifies our JSF page to the following:
<h1>Create Person</h1>
<h:form>
<div>First name: <h:inputText value="#{person.firstName}"/></div>
<div>Last name: <h:inputText value="#{person.lastName}"/></div>
<div>
<h:commandButton value="Create Person" action="#{personHome.persist}"/>
</div>
</h:form>
Well, that lets us create new Person
entries. Yes,
that is all the code that is required! Now, if we want to be able to
display, update and delete pre-existing Person
entries in the database, we need to be able to pass the entry
identifier to the PersonHome
. Page parameters
are a great way to do that:
<pages>
<page view-id="/editPerson.jsp">
<param name="personId" value="#{personHome.id}"/>
</page>
</pages>
Now we can add the extra operations to our JSF page:
<h1>
<h:outputText rendered="#{!personHome.managed}" value="Create Person"/>
<h:outputText rendered="#{personHome.managed}" value="Edit Person"/>
</h1>
<h:form>
<div>First name: <h:inputText value="#{person.firstName}"/></div>
<div>Last name: <h:inputText value="#{person.lastName}"/></div>
<div>
<h:commandButton value="Create Person" action="#{personHome.persist}" rendered="#{!personHome.managed}"/>
<h:commandButton value="Update Person" action="#{personHome.update}" rendered="#{personHome.managed}"/>
<h:commandButton value="Delete Person" action="#{personHome.remove}" rendered="#{personHome.managed}"/>
</div>
</h:form>
When we link to the page with no request parameters, the page will
be displayed as a "Create Person" page. When we provide a value for
the personId
request parameter, it will be an
"Edit Person" page.
Suppose we need to create Person
entries with their
nationality initialized. We can do that easily, via configuration:
<factory name="person"
value="#{personHome.instance}"/>
<framework:entity-home name="personHome"
entity-class="eg.Person"
new-instance="#{newPerson}"/>
<component name="newPerson"
class="eg.Person">
<property name="nationality">#{country}</property>
</component>
Or by extension:
@Name("personHome")
public class PersonHome extends EntityHome<Person> {
@In Country country;
@Factory("person")
public Person initPerson() { return getInstance(); }
protected Person createInstance() {
return new Person(country);
}
}
Of course, the Country
could be an object managed by
another Home object, for example, CountryHome
.
To add more sophisticated operations (association management, etc), we can
just add methods to PersonHome
.
@Name("personHome")
public class PersonHome extends EntityHome<Person> {
@In Country country;
@Factory("person")
public Person initPerson() { return getInstance(); }
protected Person createInstance() {
return new Person(country);
}
public void migrate()
{
getInstance().setCountry(country);
update();
}
}
The Home object raises an org.jboss.seam.afterTransactionSuccess
event when a transaction succeeds (a call to persist()
,
update()
or remove()
succeeds). By observing
this event we can refresh our queries when the underlying entities are changed. If
we only want to refresh certain queries when a particular entity is persited,
updated or removed we can observe the
org.jboss.seam.afterTransactionSuccess.<name>
event (where <name>
is the name of the entity).
The Home object automatically displays faces messages when an operation is successful. To customize these messages we can, again, use configuration:
<factory name="person"
value="#{personHome.instance}"/>
<framework:entity-home name="personHome"
entity-class="eg.Person"
new-instance="#{newPerson}">
<framework:created-message>New person #{person.firstName} #{person.lastName} created</framework:created-message>
<framework:deleted-message>Person #{person.firstName} #{person.lastName} deleted</framework:deleted-message>
<framework:updated-message>Person #{person.firstName} #{person.lastName} updated</framework:updated-message>
</framework:entity-home>
<component name="newPerson"
class="eg.Person">
<property name="nationality">#{country}</property>
</component>
Or extension:
@Name("personHome")
public class PersonHome extends EntityHome<Person> {
@In Country country;
@Factory("person")
public Person initPerson() { return getInstance(); }
protected Person createInstance() {
return new Person(country);
}
protected String getCreatedMessage() { return "New person #{person.firstName} #{person.lastName} created"; }
protected String getUpdatedMessage() { return "Person #{person.firstName} #{person.lastName} updated"; }
protected String getDeletedMessage() { return "Person #{person.firstName} #{person.lastName} deleted"; }
}
But the best way to specify the messages is to put them in a resource
bundle known to Seam (the bundle named messages
,
by default).
Person_created=New person #{person.firstName} #{person.lastName} created Person_deleted=Person #{person.firstName} #{person.lastName} deleted Person_updated=Person #{person.firstName} #{person.lastName} updated
This enables internationalization, and keeps your code and configuration clean of presentation concerns.
The final step is to add validation functionality to the page, using
<s:validateAll>
and <s:decorate>
,
but I'll leave that for you to figure out.
If we need a list of all Person
instance in the database, we
can use a Query object. For example:
<framework:entity-query name="people"
ejbql="select p from Person p"/>
We can use it from a JSF page:
<h1>List of people</h1>
<h:dataTable value="#{people.resultList}" var="person">
<h:column>
<s:link view="/editPerson.jsp" value="#{person.firstName} #{person.lastName}">
<f:param name="personId" value="#{person.id}"/>
</s:link>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
We probably need to support pagination:
<framework:entity-query name="people"
ejbql="select p from Person p"
order="lastName"
max-results="20"/>
We'll use a page parameter to determine the page to display:
<pages>
<page view-id="/searchPerson.jsp">
<param name="firstResult" value="#{people.firstResult}"/>
</page>
</pages>
The JSF code for a pagination control is a bit verbose, but manageable:
<h1>Search for people</h1>
<h:dataTable value="#{people.resultList}" var="person">
<h:column>
<s:link view="/editPerson.jsp" value="#{person.firstName} #{person.lastName}">
<f:param name="personId" value="#{person.id}"/>
</s:link>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
<s:link view="/search.xhtml" rendered="#{people.previousExists}" value="First Page">
<f:param name="firstResult" value="0"/>
</s:link>
<s:link view="/search.xhtml" rendered="#{people.previousExists}" value="Previous Page">
<f:param name="firstResult" value="#{people.previousFirstResult}"/>
</s:link>
<s:link view="/search.xhtml" rendered="#{people.nextExists}" value="Next Page">
<f:param name="firstResult" value="#{people.nextFirstResult}"/>
</s:link>
<s:link view="/search.xhtml" rendered="#{people.nextExists}" value="Last Page">
<f:param name="firstResult" value="#{people.lastFirstResult}"/>
</s:link>
Real search screens let the user enter a bunch of optional search criteria to narrow the list of results returned. The Query object lets you specify optional "restrictions" to support this important usecase:
<component name="examplePerson" class="Person"/>
<framework:entity-query name="people"
ejbql="select p from Person p"
order="lastName"
max-results="20">
<framework:restrictions>
<value>lower(firstName) like lower( concat(#{examplePerson.firstName},'%') )</value>
<value>lower(lastName) like lower( concat(#{examplePerson.lastName},'%') )</value>
</framework:restrictions>
</framework:entity-query>
Notice the use of an "example" object.
<h1>Search for people</h1>
<h:form>
<div>First name: <h:inputText value="#{examplePerson.firstName}"/></div>
<div>Last name: <h:inputText value="#{examplePerson.lastName}"/></div>
<div><h:commandButton value="Search" action="/search.jsp"/></div>
</h:form>
<h:dataTable value="#{people.resultList}" var="person">
<h:column>
<s:link view="/editPerson.jsp" value="#{person.firstName} #{person.lastName}">
<f:param name="personId" value="#{person.id}"/>
</s:link>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
To refresh the query when the underlying entities change we observe the
org.jboss.seam.afterTransactionSuccess
event:
<event type="org.jboss.seam.afterTransactionSuccess">
<action execute="#{people.refresh}" />
</event>
Or, to just refresh the query when the person entity is persisted, updated or
removed through PersonHome
:
<event type="org.jboss.seam.afterTransactionSuccess.Person">
<action execute="#{people.refresh}" />
</event>
Unfortunately Query objects don't work well with
join fetch queries - the use of pagination with
these queries is not recomended, and you'll have to implement your own
method of calculating the total number of results (by overriding
getCountEjbql()
.
The examples in this section have all shown reuse by configuration. However, reuse by extension is equally possible for Query objects.
A totally optional part of the Seam Application Framework is the class
Controller
and its subclasses
EntityController
HibernateEntityController
and
BusinessProcessController
. These classes provide
nothing more than some convenience methods for access to commonly
used built-in components and methods of built-in components. They help
save a few keystrokes (characters can add up!) and provide a great
launchpad for new users to explore the rich functionality built in
to Seam.
For example, here is what RegisterAction
from the
Seam registration example would look like:
@Stateless
@Name("register")
public class RegisterAction extends EntityController implements Register
{
@In private User user;
public String register()
{
List existing = createQuery("select u.username from User u where u.username=:username")
.setParameter("username", user.getUsername())
.getResultList();
if ( existing.size()==0 )
{
persist(user);
info("Registered new user #{user.username}");
return "/registered.jspx";
}
else
{
addFacesMessage("User #{user.username} already exists");
return null;
}
}
}
As you can see, its not an earthshattering improvement...
Seam makes it easy to call JBoss Rules (Drools) rulebases from Seam components or jBPM process definitions.
The first step is to make an instance of org.drools.RuleBase
available in a Seam context variable. For testing purposes, Seam provides a built-in component
that compiles a static set of rules from the classpath. You can install
this component via components.xml
:
<drools:rule-base name="policyPricingRules">
<drools:rule-files>
<value>policyPricingRules.drl</value>
</drools:rule-files>
</drools:rule-base>
This component compiles rules from a set of .drl
files and caches an instance of org.drools.RuleBase
in the Seam APPLICATION
context. Note that it is
quite likely that you will need to install multiple rule bases in a
rule-driven application.
If you want to use a Drools DSL, you alse need to specify the DSL definition:
<drools:rule-base name="policyPricingRules" dsl-file="policyPricing.dsl">
<drools:rule-files>
<value>policyPricingRules.drl</value>
</drools:rule-files>
</drools:rule-base>
In most rules-driven applications,
rules need to be dynamically deployable, so a production application will want to use a
Drools RuleAgent to manage the RuleBase. The RuleAgent can connect to a Drools rule server (BRMS)
or hot deploy rules packages from a local file repository. The RulesAgent-managed RuleBase is
also configurable in components.xml
:
<drools:rule-agent name="insuranceRules"
configurationFile="/WEB-INF/deployedrules.properties" />
The properties file contains properties specific to the RulesAgent. Here is an example configuration file from the Drools example distribution.
newInstance=true url=http://localhost:8080/drools-jbrms/org.drools.brms.JBRMS/package/org.acme.insurance/fmeyer localCacheDir=/Users/fernandomeyer/projects/jbossrules/drools-examples/drools-examples-brms/cache poll=30 name=insuranceconfig
It is also possible to configure the options on the component directly, bypassing the configuration file.
<drools:rule-agent name="insuranceRules"
url="http://localhost:8080/drools-jbrms/org.drools.brms.JBRMS/package/org.acme.insurance/fmeyer"
local-cache-dir="/Users/fernandomeyer/projects/jbossrules/drools-examples/drools-examples-brms/cache"
poll="30"
configuration-name="insuranceconfig" />
Next, we need to make an instance of org.drools.WorkingMemory
available to each conversation. (Each WorkingMemory
accumulates facts relating to the current conversation.)
<drools:managed-working-memory name="policyPricingWorkingMemory" auto-create="true" rule-base="#{policyPricingRules}"/>
Notice that we gave the policyPricingWorkingMemory
a
reference back to our rule base via the ruleBase
configuration property.
We can now inject our WorkingMemory
into any Seam component,
assert facts, and fire rules:
@In WorkingMemory policyPricingWorkingMemory;
@In Policy policy;
@In Customer customer;
public void pricePolicy() throws FactException
{
policyPricingWorkingMemory.assertObject(policy);
policyPricingWorkingMemory.assertObject(customer);
policyPricingWorkingMemory.fireAllRules();
}
You can even allow a rule base to act as a jBPM action handler, decision handler, or assignment handler—in either a pageflow or business process definition.
<decision name="approval">
<handler class="org.jboss.seam.drools.DroolsDecisionHandler">
<workingMemoryName>orderApprovalRulesWorkingMemory</workingMemoryName>
<assertObjects>
<element>#{customer}</element>
<element>#{order}</element>
<element>#{order.lineItems}</element>
</assertObjects>
</handler>
<transition name="approved" to="ship">
<action class="org.jboss.seam.drools.DroolsActionHandler">
<workingMemoryName>shippingRulesWorkingMemory</workingMemoryName>
<assertObjects>
<element>#{customer}</element>
<element>#{order}</element>
<element>#{order.lineItems}</element>
</assertObjects>
</action>
</transition>
<transition name="rejected" to="cancelled"/>
</decision>
The <assertObjects>
element specifies EL expressions that
return an object or collection of objects to be asserted as facts into the
WorkingMemory
.
There is also support for using Drools for jBPM task assignments:
<task-node name="review">
<task name="review" description="Review Order">
<assignment handler="org.jboss.seam.drools.DroolsAssignmentHandler">
<workingMemoryName>orderApprovalRulesWorkingMemory</workingMemoryName>
<assertObjects>
<element>#{actor}</element>
<element>#{customer}</element>
<element>#{order}</element>
<element>#{order.lineItems}</element>
</assertObjects>
</assignment>
</task>
<transition name="rejected" to="cancelled"/>
<transition name="approved" to="approved"/>
</task-node>
Certain objects are available to the rules as Drools globals, namely
the jBPM Assignable
, as assignable
and a Seam Decision
object, as decision
.
Rules which handle decisions should call decision.setOutcome("result")
to determine the result of the decision. Rules which perform assignments should
set the actor id using the Assignable
.
package org.jboss.seam.examples.shop import org.jboss.seam.drools.Decision global Decision decision rule "Approve Order For Loyal Customer" when Customer( loyaltyStatus == "GOLD" ) Order( totalAmount <= 10000 ) then decision.setOutcome("approved"); end
package org.jboss.seam.examples.shop import org.jbpm.taskmgmt.exe.Assignable global Assignable assignable rule "Assign Review For Small Order" when Order( totalAmount <= 100 ) then assignable.setPooledActors( new String[] {"reviewers"} ); end
The Seam Security API is an optional Seam feature that provides authentication and authorization features for securing both domain and page resources within your Seam project.
Seam Security provides two different modes of operation:
simplified mode - this mode supports authentication services and simple role-based security checks.
advanced mode - this mode supports all the same features as the simplified mode, plus it offers rule-based security checks using JBoss Rules.
That all depends on the requirements of your application. If you have minimal security requirements, for example if you only wish to restrict certain pages and actions to users who are logged in, or who belong to a certain role, then the simplified mode will probably be sufficient. The advantages of this is a more simplified configuration, significantly less libraries to include, and a smaller memory footprint.
If on the other hand, your application requires security checks based on contextual state or complex business rules, then you will require the features provided by the advanced mode.
If using the advanced mode features of Seam Security, the following jar files are required to be configured as modules in
application.xml
. If you are using Seam Security in simplified mode, these are not
required:
drools-compiler.jar
drools-core.jar
janino.jar
antlr-runtime.jar
mvel14.jar
For web-based security, jboss-seam-ui.jar
must also be included in the application's war file.
In some situations it may be necessary to disable Seam Security, for example during unit tests. This can be done by
calling the static method Identity.setSecurityEnabled(false)
to disable security checks. Doing this
prevents any security checks being performed for the following:
Entity Security
Hibernate Security Interceptor
Seam Security Interceptor
Page restrictions
The authentication features provided by Seam Security are built upon JAAS (Java Authentication and Authorization Service), and as such provide a robust and highly configurable API for handling user authentication. However, for less complex authentication requirements Seam offers a much more simplified method of authentication that hides the complexity of JAAS.
The simplified authentication method uses a built-in JAAS login module, SeamLoginModule
, which
delegates authentication to one of your own Seam components. This login module is already configured inside Seam as
part of a default application policy and as such does not require any additional configuration files. It allows you to
write an authentication method using the entity classes that are provided by your own application. Configuring this
simplified form of authentication requires the identity
component to be configured in
components.xml
:
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:core="http://jboss.com/products/seam/core"
xmlns:security="http://jboss.com/products/seam/security"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation=
"http://jboss.com/products/seam/components http://jboss.com/products/seam/components-2.1.xsd
http://jboss.com/products/seam/security http://jboss.com/products/seam/security-2.1.xsd">
<security:identity authenticate-method="#{authenticator.authenticate}"/>
</components>
If you wish to use the advanced security features such as rule-based permission checks, all you need to do is include the Drools (JBoss Rules) jars in your classpath, and add some additional configuration, described later.
The EL expression #{authenticator.authenticate}
is a method binding indicating that
the authenticate
method of the authenticator
component will be used
to authenticate the user.
The authenticate-method
property specified for identity
in
components.xml
specifies which method will be used by SeamLoginModule
to authenticate users. This method takes no parameters, and is expected to return a boolean indicating
whether authentication is successful or not. The user's username and password can be obtained from
Identity.instance().getUsername()
and Identity.instance().getPassword()
,
respectively. Any roles that the user is a member of should be assigned using
Identity.instance().addRole()
. Here's a complete example of an authentication method
inside a JavaBean component:
@Name("authenticator")
public class Authenticator {
@In EntityManager entityManager;
public boolean authenticate() {
try
{
User user = (User) entityManager.createQuery(
"from User where username = :username and password = :password")
.setParameter("username", Identity.instance().getUsername())
.setParameter("password", Identity.instance().getPassword())
.getSingleResult();
if (user.getRoles() != null)
{
for (UserRole mr : user.getRoles())
Identity.instance().addRole(mr.getName());
}
return true;
}
catch (NoResultException ex)
{
return false;
}
}
}
In the above example, both User
and UserRole
are application-specific
entity beans. The roles
parameter is populated with the roles that the user is a member
of, which should be added to the Set
as literal string values, e.g. "admin", "user".
In this case, if the user record is not found and a NoResultException
thrown, the
authentication method returns false
to indicate the authentication failed.
The Identity.addRole()
method behaves differently depending on whether the current
session is authenticated or not. If the session is not authenticated, then addRole()
should only be called during the authentication process. When called here, the
role name is placed into a temporary list of pre-authenticated roles. Once authentication is successful,
the pre-authenticated roles then become "real" roles, and calling Identity.hasRole()
for those roles will then return true. The following sequence diagram represents the list of pre-authenticated
roles as a first class object to show more clearly how it fits in to the authentication process.
When writing an authenticator method, it is important that it is kept minimal and free from any side-effects. This is because there is no guarantee as to how many times the authenticator method will be called by the security API, and as such it may be invoked multiple times during a single request. Because of this, any special code that should execute upon a successful or failed authentication should be written by implementing an event observer. See the section on Security Events further down in this chapter for more information about which events are raised by Seam Security.
To give an example, let's say that upon a successful login that some user statistics must be
updated. We would do this by writing an event observer for the
org.jboss.seam.security.loginSuccessful
event, like this:
@In UserStats userStats;
@Observer("org.jboss.seam.security.loginSuccessful")
public void updateUserStats()
{
userStats.setLastLoginDate(new Date());
userStats.incrementLoginCount();
}
The Identity
component provides both username
and password
properties, catering for the most common authentication scenario. These properties can be bound directly to the
username and password fields on a login form. Once these properties are set, calling the
identity.login()
method will authenticate the user using the provided credentials.
Here's an example of a simple login form:
<div>
<h:outputLabel for="name" value="Username"/>
<h:inputText id="name" value="#{identity.username}"/>
</div>
<div>
<h:outputLabel for="password" value="Password"/>
<h:inputSecret id="password" value="#{identity.password}"/>
</div>
<div>
<h:commandButton value="Login" action="#{identity.login}"/>
</div>
Similarly, logging out the user is done by calling #{identity.logout}
. Calling this
action will clear the security state of the currently authenticated user.
So to sum up, there are the three easy steps to configure authentication:
Configure an authentication method in components.xml
.
Write an authentication method.
Write a login form so that the user can authenticate.
To prevent users from receiving the default error page in response to a security error, it's recommended that
pages.xml
is configured to redirect security errors to a more "pretty" page. The two
main types of exceptions thrown by the security API are:
NotLoggedInException
- This exception is thrown if the user attempts to access a
restricted action or page when they are not logged in.
AuthorizationException
- This exception is only thrown if the user is already logged in,
and they have attempted to access a restricted action or page for which they do not have the necessary
privileges.
In the case of a NotLoggedInException
, it is recommended that the user is redirected to
either a login or registration page so that they can log in. For an AuthorizationException
,
it may be useful to redirect the user to an error page. Here's an example of a pages.xml
file that redirects both of these security exceptions:
<pages>
...
<exception class="org.jboss.seam.security.NotLoggedInException">
<redirect view-id="/login.xhtml">
<message>You must be logged in to perform this action</message>
</redirect>
</exception>
<exception class="org.jboss.seam.security.AuthorizationException">
<end-conversation/>
<redirect view-id="/security_error.xhtml">
<message>You do not have the necessary security privileges to perform this action.</message>
</redirect>
</exception>
</pages>
Most web applications require even more sophisticated handling of login redirection, so Seam includes some special functionality for handling this problem.
You can ask Seam to redirect the user to a login screen when an unauthenticated user tries to access a particular view (or wildcarded view id) as follows:
<pages login-view-id="/login.xhtml">
<page view-id="/members/*" login-required="true"/>
...
</pages>
(This is less of a blunt instrument than the exception handler shown above, but should probably be used in conjunction with it.)
After the user logs in, we want to automatically send them back where they came from, so
they can retry the action that required logging in. If you add the following event listeners
to components.xml
, attempts to access a restricted view while not logged
in will be remembered, so that upon the user successfully logging in they will be redirected
to the originally requested view, with any page parameters that existed in the original
request.
<event type="org.jboss.seam.security.notLoggedIn">
<action execute="#{redirect.captureCurrentView}"/>
</event>
<event type="org.jboss.seam.security.postAuthenticate">
<action execute="#{redirect.returnToCapturedView}"/>
</event>
Note that login redirection is implemented as a conversation-scoped mechanism, so don't end
the conversation in your authenticate()
method.
Although not recommended for use unless absolutely necessary, Seam provides means for authenticating
using either HTTP Basic or HTTP Digest (RFC 2617) methods. To use either form of authentication,
the authentication-filter
component must be enabled in components.xml:
<web:authentication-filter url-pattern="*.seam" auth-type="basic"/>
To enable the filter for basic authentication, set auth-type
to basic
,
or for digest authentication, set it to digest
. If using digest authentication, the
key
and realm
must also be set:
<web:authentication-filter url-pattern="*.seam" auth-type="digest" key="AA3JK34aSDlkj" realm="My App"/>
The key
can be any String value. The realm
is the name of the
authentication realm that is presented to the user when they authenticate.
If using digest authentication, your authenticator class should extend the abstract class
org.jboss.seam.security.digest.DigestAuthenticator
, and use the
validatePassword()
method to validate the user's plain text password
against the digest request. Here is an example:
public boolean authenticate()
{
try
{
User user = (User) entityManager.createQuery(
"from User where username = :username")
.setParameter("username", identity.getUsername())
.getSingleResult();
return validatePassword(user.getPassword());
}
catch (NoResultException ex)
{
return false;
}
}
This section explores some of the advanced features provided by the security API for addressing more complex security requirements.
If you would rather not use the simplified JAAS configuration provided by the Seam Security API, you may
instead delegate to the default system JAAS configuration by providing a jaas-config-name
property in components.xml
. For example, if you are using JBoss AS and wish to use
the other
policy (which uses the UsersRolesLoginModule
login module
provided by JBoss AS), then the entry in components.xml
would look like this:
<security:identity jaas-config-name="other"/>
Please keep in mind that doing this does not mean that your user will be authenticated in whichever container your Seam application is deployed in. It merely instructs Seam Security to authenticate itself using the configured JAAS security policy.
The security API produces a number of default faces messages for various security-related events.
The following table lists the message keys that can be used to override these messages by specifying
them in a message.properties
resource file. To suppress the message, just put the
key with an empty value in the resource file.
Table 14.1. Security Message Keys
Message Key |
Description |
---|---|
|
This message is produced when a user successfully logs in via the security API. |
|
This message is produced when the login process fails, either because the user provided an incorrect username or password, or because authentication failed in some other way. |
|
This message is produced when a user attempts to perform an action or access a page that requires a security check, and the user is not currently authenticated. |
|
This message is produced when a user that is already authenticated attempts to log in again. |
There are a number of authorization features provided by the Seam Security API for securing access to
components, component methods, and pages. This section describes each of these. An important thing to
note is that if you wish to use any of the advanced features (such as rule-based permissions) then
your components.xml
must be configured to support this - see the Configuration section
above.
Each of the authorization mechanisms provided by the Seam Security API are built upon the concept of a user being granted roles and/or permissions. A role is a group, or type, of user that may have been granted certain privileges for performing one or more specific actions within an application. A permission on the other hand is a privilege (sometimes once-off) for performing a single, specific action. It is entirely possible to build an application using nothing but permissions, however roles offer a higher level of convenience when granting privileges to groups of users.
Roles are simple, consisting of only a name such as "admin", "user", "customer", etc. Permissions consist of
both a name and an action, and are represented within this documentation in the form name:action
,
for example customer:delete
, or customer:insert
.
Let's start by examining the simplest form of authorization, component security, starting with the
@Restrict
annotation.
Seam components may be secured either at the method or the class level, using the @Restrict
annotation. If both a method and it's declaring class are annotated with @Restrict
,
the method restriction will take precedence (and the class restriction will not apply). If a method
invocation fails a security check, then an exception will be thrown as per the contract for
Identity.checkRestriction()
(see Inline Restrictions). A @Restrict
on just the component class itself is equivalent to adding @Restrict
to each of its
methods.
An empty @Restrict
implies a permission check of componentName:methodName
.
Take for example the following component method:
@Name("account")
public class AccountAction {
@Restrict public void delete() {
...
}
}
In this example, the implied permission required to call the delete()
method is
account:delete
. The equivalent of this would be to write
@Restrict("#{s:hasPermission('account','delete',null)}")
. Now let's look at
another example:
@Restrict @Name("account")
public class AccountAction {
public void insert() {
...
}
@Restrict("#{s:hasRole('admin')}")
public void delete() {
...
}
}
This time, the component class itself is annotated with @Restrict
. This means that
any methods without an overriding @Restrict
annotation require an implicit permission check.
In the case of this example, the insert()
method requires a permission of
account:insert
, while the delete()
method requires that the user is a
member of the admin
role.
Before we go any further, let's address the #{s:hasRole()}
expression seen in the above
example. Both s:hasRole
and s:hasPermission
are EL functions, which
delegate to the correspondingly named methods of the Identity
class. These
functions can be used within any EL expression throughout the entirety of the security API.
Being an EL expression, the value of the @Restrict
annotation may reference any objects that
exist within a Seam context. This is extremely useful when performing permission checks for a specific
object instance. Look at this example:
@Name("account")
public class AccountAction {
@In Account selectedAccount;
@Restrict("#{s:hasPermission('account','modify',selectedAccount)}")
public void modify() {
selectedAccount.modify();
}
}
The interesting thing to note from this example is the reference to selectedAccount
seen within the hasPermission()
function call. The value of this variable will be
looked up from within the Seam context, and passed to the hasPermission()
method
in Identity
, which in this case can then determine if the user has the required
permission for modifying the specified Account
object.
Sometimes it might be desirable to perform a security check in code, without using the
@Restrict
annotation. In this situation, simply use
Identity.checkRestriction()
to evaluate a security expression, like this:
public void deleteCustomer() {
Identity.instance().checkRestriction("#{s:hasPermission('customer','delete',selectedCustomer)}");
}
If the expression specified doesn't evaluate to true
, either
if the user is not logged in, a NotLoggedInException
exception is thrown or
if the user is logged in, an AuthorizationException
exception is thrown.
It is also possible to call the hasRole()
and hasPermission()
methods directly from Java code:
if (!Identity.instance().hasRole("admin"))
throw new AuthorizationException("Must be admin to perform this action");
if (!Identity.instance().hasPermission("customer", "create", null))
throw new AuthorizationException("You may not create new customers");
One indication of a well designed user interface is that the user is not presented with options for which they don't have the necessary privileges to use. Seam Security allows conditional rendering of either 1) sections of a page or 2) individual controls, based upon the privileges of the user, using the very same EL expressions that are used for component security.
Let's take a look at some examples of interface security. First of all, let's pretend that we have a
login form that should only be rendered if the user is not already logged in. Using the
identity.isLoggedIn()
property, we can write this:
<h:form class="loginForm" rendered="#{not identity.loggedIn}">
If the user isn't logged in, then the login form will be rendered - very straight forward so far.
Now let's pretend there is a menu on the page that contains some actions which should only be accessible
to users in the manager
role. Here's one way that these could be written:
<h:outputLink action="#{reports.listManagerReports}" rendered="#{s:hasRole('manager')}">
Manager Reports
</h:outputLink>
This is also quite straight forward. If the user is not a member of the manager
role, then the outputLink will not be rendered. The rendered
attribute can
generally be used on the control itself, or on a surrounding <s:div>
or
<s:span>
control.
Now for something more complex. Let's say you have a h:dataTable
control on a
page listing records for which you may or may not wish to render action links depending on the
user's privileges. The s:hasPermission
EL function allows us to pass in an
object parameter which can be used to determine whether the user has the requested permission
for that object or not. Here's how a dataTable with secured links might look:
<h:dataTable value="#{clients}" var="cl">
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">Name</f:facet>
#{cl.name}
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">City</f:facet>
#{cl.city}
</h:column>
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">Action</f:facet>
<s:link value="Modify Client" action="#{clientAction.modify}"
rendered="#{s:hasPermission('client','modify',cl)"/>
<s:link value="Delete Client" action="#{clientAction.delete}"
rendered="#{s:hasPermission('client','delete',cl)"/>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
Page security requires that the application is using a pages.xml
file, however is
extremely simple to configure. Simply include a <restrict/>
element within
the page
elements that you wish to secure. If no explicit restriction is specified
by the restrict
element, an implied permission of /viewId.xhtml:render
will be checked when the page is accessed via a non-faces (GET) request, and a permission of
/viewId.xhtml:restore
will be required when any JSF postback (form submission) originates
from the page. Otherwise, the specified restriction will be evaluated as a standard security expression.
Here's a couple of examples:
<page view-id="/settings.xhtml">
<restrict/>
</page>
This page has an implied permission of /settings.xhtml:render
required for non-faces
requests and an implied permission of /settings.xhtml:restore
for faces requests.
<page view-id="/reports.xhtml">
<restrict>#{s:hasRole('admin')}</restrict>
</page>
Both faces and non-faces requests to this page require that the user is a member of the
admin
role.
Seam security also makes it possible to apply security restrictions to read, insert, update and delete actions for entities.
To secure all actions for an entity class, add a @Restrict
annotation on the class
itself:
@Entity
@Name("customer")
@Restrict
public class Customer {
...
}
If no expression is specified in the @Restrict
annotation, the default security check
that is performed is a permission check of entityName:action
,
where entityName
is the Seam component name of the entity (or the fully-qualified class name if no @Name is
specified), and the action
is either read
,
insert
, update
or delete
.
It is also possible to only restrict certain actions, by placing a @Restrict
annotation
on the relevent entity lifecycle method (annotated as follows):
@PostLoad
- Called after an entity instance is loaded from the database. Use this
method to configure a read
permission.
@PrePersist
- Called before a new instance of the entity is inserted. Use this method
to configure an insert
permission.
@PreUpdate
- Called before an entity is updated. Use this method
to configure an update
permission.
@PreRemove
- Called before an entity is deleted. Use this method
to configure a delete
permission.
Here's an example of how an entity would be configured to perform a security check for any insert
operations. Please note that the method is not required to do anything, the only important thing in regard to
security is how it is annotated:
@PrePersist @Restrict
public void prePersist() {}
/META-INF/orm.xml
You can also specify the call back method in /META-INF/orm.xml
:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<entity-mappings xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm_1_0.xsd"
version="1.0">
<entity class="Customer">
<pre-persist method-name="prePersist" />
</entity>
</entity-mappings>
Of course, you still need to annotate the prePersist()
method on Customer
with @Restrict
And here's an example of an entity permission rule that checks if the authenticated user is allowed to insert
a new MemberBlog
record (from the seamspace example). The entity for which the security
check is being made is automatically inserted into the working memory (in this case MemberBlog
):
rule InsertMemberBlog no-loop activation-group "permissions" when check: PermissionCheck(name == "memberBlog", action == "insert", granted == false) Principal(principalName : name) MemberBlog(member : member -> (member.getUsername().equals(principalName))) then check.grant(); end;
This rule will grant the permission memberBlog:insert
if the currently authenticated
user (indicated by the Principal
fact) has the same name as the member for which the
blog entry is being created. The "principalName : name
" structure that can be seen in the
Principal
fact (and other places) is a variable binding - it binds the name
property of the Principal
to a variable called principalName
. Variable bindings
allow the value to be referred to in other places, such as the following line which compares the member's username
to the Principal
name. For more details, please refer to the JBoss Rules documentation.
Finally, we need to install a listener class that integrates Seam security with your JPA provider.
Security checks for EJB3 entity beans are performed with an EntityListener
.
You can install this listener by using the following META-INF/orm.xml
file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<entity-mappings xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/orm_1_0.xsd"
version="1.0">
<persistence-unit-metadata>
<persistence-unit-defaults>
<entity-listeners>
<entity-listener class="org.jboss.seam.security.EntitySecurityListener"/>
</entity-listeners>
</persistence-unit-defaults>
</persistence-unit-metadata>
</entity-mappings>
Up to this point there has been a lot of mention of permissions, but no information about how permissions are actually defined or granted. This section completes the picture, by explaining how permission checks are processed, and how to implement permission checks for a Seam application.
So how does the security API know whether a user has the customer:modify
permission
for a specific customer? Seam Security provides quite a novel method for determining user permissions,
based on JBoss Rules. A couple of the advantages of using a rule engine are 1) a centralized location
for the business logic that is behind each user permission, and 2) speed - JBoss Rules uses very efficient
algorithms for evaluating large numbers of complex rules involving multiple conditions.
Seam Security expects to find a RuleBase
component called securityRules
which it uses to evaluate permission checks. This is configured in components.xml
as follows:
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:core="http://jboss.com/products/seam/core"
xmlns:security="http://jboss.com/products/seam/security"
xmlns:drools="http://jboss.com/products/seam/drools"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation=
"http://jboss.com/products/seam/core http://jboss.com/products/seam/core-2.1.xsd
http://jboss.com/products/seam/components http://jboss.com/products/seam/components-2.1.xsd
http://jboss.com/products/seam/drools http://jboss.com/products/seam/drools-2.1.xsd"
http://jboss.com/products/seam/security http://jboss.com/products/seam/security-2.1.xsd">
<drools:rule-base name="securityRules">
<drools:rule-files>
<value>/META-INF/security.drl</value>
</drools:rule-files>
</drools:rule-base>
</components>
Once the RuleBase
component is configured, it's time to write the security rules.
For this step you need to create a file called security.drl
in the
/META-INF
directory of your application's jar file. In actual fact this file can be called
anything you want, and exist in any location as long as it is configured appropriately in
components.xml
.
So what should the security rules file contain? At this stage it might be a good idea to at least skim through the JBoss Rules documentation, however to get started here's an extremely simple example:
package MyApplicationPermissions; import org.jboss.seam.security.PermissionCheck; import org.jboss.seam.security.Role; rule CanUserDeleteCustomers when c: PermissionCheck(name == "customer", action == "delete") Role(name == "admin") then c.grant(); end;
Let's break this down. The first thing we see is the package declaration. A package in JBoss Rules is essentially a collection of rules. The package name can be anything you want - it doesn't relate to anything else outside the scope of the rule base.
The next thing we can notice is a couple of import statements for the PermissionCheck
and Role
classes. These imports inform the rules engine that we'll be referencing
these classes within our rules.
Finally we have the code for the rule. Each rule within a package should be given a unique name (usually
describing the purpose of the rule). In this case our rule is called CanUserDeleteCustomers
and will be used to check whether a user is allowed to delete a customer record.
Looking at the body of the rule definition we can notice two distinct sections. Rules have what is known
as a left hand side (LHS) and a right hand side (RHS). The LHS consists of the conditional part of the
rule, i.e. a list of conditions which must be satisfied for the rule to fire. The LHS is represented by
the when
section. The RHS is the consequence, or action section of the rule that will
only be fired if all of the conditions in the LHS are met. The RHS is represented by the
then
section. The end of the rule is denoted by the end;
line.
If we look at the LHS of the rule, we see two conditions listed there. Let's examine the first condition:
c: PermissionCheck(name == "customer", action == "delete")
In plain english, this condition is stating that there must exist a PermissionCheck
object
with a name
property equal to "customer", and an action
property equal
to "delete" within the working memory.
So what is the working memory? Also known as a "stateful session" in Drools terminology, the working memory
is a session-scoped object that contains the contextual information that is required by the rules engine to
make a decision about a permission check. Each time the hasPermission()
method is called,
a temporary PermissionCheck
object, or Fact, is inserted into the
working memory. This PermissionCheck
corresponds exactly to the permission that is being
checked, so for example if you call hasPermission("account", "create", null)
then a
PermissionCheck
object with a name
equal to "account" and
action
equal to "create" will be inserted into the working memory for the duration of the
permission check.
Besides the PermissionCheck
facts, there is also a org.jboss.seam.security.Role
fact for each of the roles that the authenticated user is a member of. These Role
facts
are synchronized with the user's authenticated roles at the beginning of every permission check. As a consequence,
any Role
object that is inserted into the working memory during the course of a permission
check will be removed before the next permission check occurs, if the authenticated user is not a member of
that role. Besides the PermissionCheck
and Role
facts, the working
memory also contains the java.security.Principal
object that was created during
the authentication process.
It is also possible to insert additional long-lived facts into the working memory by calling
((RuleBasedIdentity) RuleBasedIdentity.instance()).getSecurityContext().insert()
,
passing the object as a parameter. The exception to this is Role
objects, which as
already discussed are synchronized at the start of each permission check.
Getting back to our simple example, we can also notice that the first line of our LHS is prefixed with
c:
. This is a variable binding, and is used to refer back to the object that is
matched by the condition. Moving onto the second line of our LHS, we see this:
Role(name == "admin")
This condition simply states that there must be a Role
object with a
name
of "admin" within the working memory. As mentioned, user roles are inserted into
the working memory at the beginning of each permission check. So, putting both conditions together, this
rule is essentially saying "I will fire if you are checking for the customer:delete
permission and the user is a member of the admin
role".
So what is the consequence of the rule firing? Let's take a look at the RHS of the rule:
c.grant()
The RHS consists of Java code, and in this case is invoking the grant()
method of the c
object, which as already mentioned is a variable binding
for the PermissionCheck
object. Besides the name
and
action
properties of the PermissionCheck
object, there
is also a granted
property which is initially set to false
.
Calling grant()
on a PermissionCheck
sets the
granted
property to true
, which means that the permission
check was successful, allowing the user to carry out whatever action the permission check was
intended for.
It is possible to implement a wildcard permission check (which allows all actions for a given permission
name), by omitting the action
constraint for the PermissionCheck
in
your rule, like this:
rule CanDoAnythingToCustomersIfYouAreAnAdmin when c: PermissionCheck(name == "customer") Role(name == "admin") then c.grant(); end;
This rule allows users with the admin
role to perform any action for
any customer
permission check.
Seam includes basic support for serving sensitive pages via the HTTPS protocol. This is easily
configured by specifying a scheme
for the page in pages.xml
.
The following example shows how the view /login.xhtml
is configured to use
HTTPS:
<page view-id="/login.xhtml" scheme="https"/>
This configuration is automatically extended to both s:link
and
s:button
JSF controls, which (when specifying the view
)
will also render the link using the correct protocol. Based on the previous example, the following
link will use the HTTPS protocol because /login.xhtml
is configured to use it:
<s:link view="/login.xhtml" value="Login"/>
Browsing directly to a view when using the incorrect protocol will cause a
redirect to the same view using the correct protocol. For example, browsing
to a page that has scheme="https"
using HTTP will cause a redirect to the same
page using HTTPS.
It is also possible to configure a default scheme for all pages. This is useful
if you wish to use HTTPS for a only few pages. If no default scheme is specified then the normal
behavior is to continue use the current scheme. So once the user accessed a page that required
HTTPS, then HTTPS would continue to be used after the user navigated away to other non-HTTPS pages.
(While this is good for security, it is not so great for performance!). To define HTTP as the
default scheme
, add this line to pages.xml
:
<page view-id="*" scheme="http" />
Of course, if none of the pages in your application use HTTPS then it is not required to specify a default scheme.
You may configure Seam to automatically invalidate the current HTTP session each time the scheme
changes. Just add this line to components.xml
:
<core:servlet-session invalidate-on-scheme-change="true"/>
This option helps make your system less vulnerable to sniffing of the session id or leakage of sensitive data from pages using HTTPS to other pages using HTTP.
Though strictly not part of the security API, Seam provides a built-in CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) algorithm to prevent automated processes from interacting with your application.
To get up and running, it is necessary to configure the Seam Resource Servlet, which will provide the Captcha
challenge images to your pages. This requires the following entry in web.xml
:
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Seam Resource Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamResourceServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Seam Resource Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/seam/resource/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
Adding a CAPTCHA challenge to a form is extremely easy. Here's an example:
<h:graphicImage value="/seam/resource/captcha"/>
<h:inputText id="verifyCaptcha" value="#{captcha.response}" required="true">
<s:validate />
</h:inputText>
<h:message for="verifyCaptcha"/>
That's all there is to it. The graphicImage
control displays the CAPTCHA challenge,
and the inputText
receives the user's response. The response is automatically
validated against the CAPTCHA when the form is submitted.
You may customize the CAPTCHA algorithm by overriding the built-in component:
@Name("org.jboss.seam.captcha")
@Scope(SESSION)
public class HitchhikersCaptcha extends Captcha
{
@Override @Create
public void init()
{
setChallenge("What is the answer to life, the universe and everything?");
setCorrectResponse("42");
}
@Override
public BufferedImage renderChallenge()
{
BufferedImage img = super.renderChallenge();
img.getGraphics().drawOval(5, 3, 60, 14); //add an obscuring decoration
return img;
}
}
The following table describes a number of events (see Chapter 6, Events, interceptors and exception handling) raised by Seam Security.
Table 14.2. Security Events
Event Key |
Description |
---|---|
|
Raised when a login attempt is successful. |
|
Raised when a login attempt fails. |
|
Raised when a user that is already authenticated attempts to log in again. |
|
Raised when a security check fails when the user is not logged in. |
|
Raised when a security check fails when the user is logged in however doesn't have sufficient privileges. |
|
Raised just prior to user authentication. |
|
Raised just after user authentication. |
|
Raised after the user has logged out. |
|
Raised when the user's credentials have been changed. |
|
Raised when the Identity's rememberMe property is changed. |
Sometimes it may be necessary to perform certain operations with elevated privileges, such
as creating a new user account as an unauthenticated user. Seam Security supports such a
mechanism via the RunAsOperation
class. This class allows either the
Principal
or Subject
, or the user's roles to be
overridden for a single set of operations.
The following code example demonstrates how RunAsOperation
is used, by
overriding its getRoles()
method to specify a set of roles to masquerade
as for the duration of the operation. The execute()
method contains the
code that will be executed with the elevated privileges.
new RunAsOperation() {
@Override
public String[] getRoles() {
return new String[] { "admin" };
}
public void execute() {
executePrivilegedOperation();
}
}.run();
In a similar way, the getPrincipal()
or getSubject()
methods can also be overriden to specify the Principal
and
Subject
instances to use for the duration of the operation.
Finally, the run()
method is used to carry out the
RunAsOperation
.
Sometimes it might be necessary to extend the Identity component if your application has special security requirements. For example, users might be required to authenticate using a Company or Department ID, along with their usual username and password. If permission-based security is required then RuleBasedIdentity should be extended, otherwise Identity should be extended.
The following example shows an extended Identity component with an additional
companyCode
field. The install precendence of APPLICATION
ensures that this extended Identity gets installed in preference to the built-in Identity.
@Name("org.jboss.seam.security.identity")
@Scope(SESSION)
@Install(precedence = APPLICATION)
@BypassInterceptors
@Startup
public class CustomIdentity extends Identity
{
private static final LogProvider log = Logging.getLogProvider(CustomIdentity.class);
private String companyCode;
public String getCompanyCode()
{
return companyCode;
}
public void setCompanyCode(String companyCode)
{
this.companyCode = companyCode;
}
@Override
public String login()
{
log.info("###### CUSTOM LOGIN CALLED ######");
return super.login();
}
}
Seam makes it easy to build internationalized applications. First, let's walk through all the stages needed to internationalize and localize your app. Then we'll take a look at the components Seam bundles.
A JEE application consists of many components and all of them must be configured properly for your application to be localized.
Starting at the bottom, the first step is to ensure that your database server and client is using the correct character encoding for your locale. Normally you'll want to use UTF-8. How to do this is outside the scope of this tutorial.
To ensure that the application server receives the request
parameters in the correct encoding from client requests you have to
configure the tomcat connector. If you use Tomcat or JBoss AS, add
the URIEncoding="UTF-8"
attribute to the
connector configuration. For JBoss AS 4.2 change
${JBOSS_HOME}/server/(default)/deploy/jboss-web.deployer/server.xml
:
<Connector port="8080" URIEncoding="UTF-8"/>
There is alternative which is probably better. You can tell JBoss AS that the encoding for the request parameters will be taken from the request:
<Connector port="8080" useBodyEncodingForURI="true"/>
You'll also need localized strings for all the messages in your application (for example field labels on your views). First you need to ensure that your resource bundle is encoded using the desired character encoding. By default ASCII is used. Although ASCII is enough for many languages, it doesn't provide characters for all languages.
Resource bundles must be created in ASCII, or use Unicode escape codes to represent Unicode characters. Since you don't compile a property file to byte code, there is no way to tell the JVM which character set to use. So you must use either ASCII characters or escape characters not in the ASCII character set. You can represent a Unicode character in any Java file using \uXXXX, where XXXX is the hexidecimal representation of the character.
You can write your translation of labels
(<xlink>Labels</xlink>) to your messages resource
bundle in the native encoding and then convert the content of the
file into the escaped format through the tool native2ascii
provided in the JDK. This tool will convert a file written in your
native encoding to one that represents non-ASCII characters as
Unicode escape sequences.
Usage of this tool is described here for Java 5 or here for Java 6. For example, to convert a file from UTF-8:
$ native2ascii -encoding UTF-8 messages_cs.properties > messages_cs_escaped.properties
We need to make sure that the view displays your localized data and messages using the correct character set and also any data submitted uses the correct encoding.
To set the display character encoding, you need to use the
<f:view locale="cs_CZ"/>
tag (here we tell
JSF to use the Czech locale). You may want to change the encoding of
the xml document itself if you want to embed localized strings in the
xml. To do this alter the encoding attribute in xml declaration
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
as
required.
Also JSF/Facelets should submit any requests using the specified
character encoding, but to make sure any requests that don't specify
an encoding you can force the request encoding using a servlet
filter. Configure this in components.xml
:
<web:character-encoding-filter encoding="UTF-8"
override-client="true"
url-pattern="*.seam" />
Each user login session has an associated instance of
java.util.Locale
(available to the application as a
component named locale
). Under normal circumstances,
you won't need to do any special configuration to set the locale. Seam
just delegates to JSF to determine the active locale:
If there is a locale associated with the HTTP request (the
browser locale), and that locale is in the list of supported locales
from faces-config.xml
, use that locale for the rest
of the session.
Otherwise, if a default locale was specified in the
faces-config.xml
, use that locale for the rest of
the session.
Otherwise, use the default locale of the server.
It is possible to set the locale manually via
the Seam configuration properties
org.jboss.seam.international.localeSelector.language
,
org.jboss.seam.international.localeSelector.country
and
org.jboss.seam.international.localeSelector.variant
,
but we can't think of any good reason to ever do this.
It is, however, useful to allow the user to set the locale manually via the application user interface. Seam provides built-in functionality for overriding the locale determined by the algorithm above. All you have to do is add the following fragment to a form in your JSP or Facelets page:
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{localeSelector.language}">
<f:selectItem itemLabel="English" itemValue="en"/>
<f:selectItem itemLabel="Deutsch" itemValue="de"/>
<f:selectItem itemLabel="Francais" itemValue="fr"/>
</h:selectOneMenu>
<h:commandButton action="#{localeSelector.select}" value="#{messages['ChangeLanguage']}"/>
Or, if you want a list of all supported locales from
faces-config.xml
, just use:
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{localeSelector.localeString}">
<f:selectItems value="#{localeSelector.supportedLocales}"/>
</h:selectOneMenu>
<h:commandButton action="#{localeSelector.select}" value="#{messages['ChangeLanguage']}"/>
When this use selects an item from the drop-down, and clicks the button, the Seam and JSF locales will be overridden for the rest of the session.
JSF supports internationalization of user interface labels and
descriptive text via the use of <f:loadBundle />
.
You can use this approach in Seam applications. Alternatively, you can
take advantage of the Seam messages
component to
display templated labels with embedded EL expressions.
Seam provides a java.util.ResourceBundle
(available to the application as a
org.jboss.seam.core.resourceBundle
). You'll need to make your
internationalized labels available via this special resource bundle. By
default, the resource bundle used by Seam is named
messages
and so you'll need to define your labels in
files named messages.properties
,
messages_en.properties
,
messages_en_AU.properties
, etc. These files usually belong in
the WEB-INF/classes
directory.
So, in messages_en.properties
:
Hello=Hello
And in messages_en_AU.properties
:
Hello=G'day
You can select a different name for the resource bundle by setting
the Seam configuration property named
org.jboss.seam.core.resourceLoader.bundleNames
. You can even
specify a list of resource bundle names to be searched (depth first) for
messages.
<core:resource-loader>
<core:bundle-names>
<value>mycompany_messages</value>
<value>standard_messages</value>
</core:bundle-names>
</core:resource-loader>
If you want to define a message just for a particular page, you
can specify it in a resource bundle with the same name as the JSF view
id, with the leading /
and trailing file extension
removed. So we could put our message in
welcome/hello_en.properties
if we only needed to display the
message on /welcome/hello.jsp
.
You can even specify an explicit bundle name in
pages.xml
:
<page view-id="/welcome/hello.jsp" bundle="HelloMessages"/>
Then we could use messages defined in
HelloMessages.properties
on
/welcome/hello.jsp
.
If you define your labels using the Seam resource bundle, you'll
be able to use them without having to type <f:loadBundle
... />
on every page. Instead, you can simply type:
<h:outputText value="#{messages['Hello']}"/>
or:
<h:outputText value="#{messages.Hello}"/>
Even better, the messages themselves may contain EL expressions:
Hello=Hello, #{user.firstName} #{user.lastName}
Hello=G'day, #{user.firstName}
You can even use the messages in your code:
@In private Map<String, String> messages;
@In("#{messages['Hello']}") private String helloMessage;
The facesMessages
component is a
super-convenient way to display success or failure messages to the user.
The functionality we just described also works for faces
messages:
@Name("hello")
@Stateless
public class HelloBean implements Hello {
@In FacesMessages facesMessages;
public String sayIt() {
facesMessages.addFromResourceBundle("Hello");
}
}
This will display Hello, Gavin King
or
G'day, Gavin
, depending upon the user's
locale.
There is also a session-scoped instance of
java.util.Timezone
, named
org.jboss.seam.international.timezone
, and a Seam component for
changing the timezone named
org.jboss.seam.international.timezoneSelector
. By default, the
timezone is the default timezone of the server. Unfortunately, the JSF
specification says that all dates and times should be assumed to be UTC,
and displayed as UTC, unless a timezone is explicitly specified using
<f:convertDateTime>
. This is an extremely
inconvenient default behavior.
Seam overrides this behavior, and defaults all dates and times to
the Seam timezone. In addition, Seam provides the
<s:convertDateTime>
tag which always performs conversions
in the Seam timezone.
Seam applications are also very easily skinnable. The theme API is very similar to the localization API, but of course these two concerns are orthogonal, and some applications support both localization and themes.
First, configure the set of supported themes:
<theme:theme-selector cookie-enabled="true">
<theme:available-themes>
<value>default</value>
<value>accessible</value>
<value>printable</value>
</theme:available-themes>
</theme:theme-selector>
Note that the first theme listed is the default theme.
Themes are defined in a properties file with the same name as the
theme. For example, the default
theme is defined as a
set of entries in default.properties
. For example,
default.properties
might define:
css ../screen.css template /template.xhtml
Usually the entries in a theme resource bundle will be paths to CSS styles or images and names of facelets templates (unlike localization resource bundles which are usually text).
Now we can use these entries in our JSP or facelets pages. For example, to theme the stylesheet in a facelets page:
<link href="#{theme.css}" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
Or, when the page definition resides in a subdirectory:
<link href="#{facesContext.externalContext.requestContextPath}#{theme.css}"
rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
Most powerfully, facelets lets us theme the template used by a
<ui:composition>
:
<ui:composition xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
template="#{theme.template}">
Just like the locale selector, there is a built-in theme selector to allow the user to freely switch themes:
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{themeSelector.theme}">
<f:selectItems value="#{themeSelector.themes}"/>
</h:selectOneMenu>
<h:commandButton action="#{themeSelector.select}" value="Select Theme"/>
The locale selector, theme selector and timezone selector all
support persistence of locale and theme preference to a cookie. Simply set
the cookie-enabled
property in
components.xml
:
<theme:theme-selector cookie-enabled="true">
<theme:available-themes>
<value>default</value>
<value>accessible</value>
<value>printable</value>
</theme:available-themes>
</theme:theme-selector>
<international:locale-selector cookie-enabled="true"/>
Collaboration-oriented websites require a human-friendly markup language for easy entry
of formatted text in forum posts, wiki pages, blogs, comments, etc. Seam provides the
<s:formattedText/>
control for display of formatted text that
conforms to the Seam Text language. Seam Text is implemented using
an ANTLR-based parser. You don't need to know anything about ANTLR to use it, however.
Here is a simple example:
It's easy to make *emphasis*, |monospace|, ~deleted text~, super^scripts^ or _underlines_.
If we display this using <s:formattedText/>
, we will get
the following HTML produced:
<p>
It's easy to make <i>emphasis</i>, <tt>monospace</tt>
<del>deleted text</del>, super<sup>scripts</sup> or <u>underlines</u>.
</p>
We can use a blank line to indicate a new paragraph, and +
to
indicate a heading:
+This is a big heading You /must/ have some text following a heading! ++This is a smaller heading This is the first paragraph. We can split it across multiple lines, but we must end it with a blank line. This is the second paragraph.
(Note that a simple newline is ignored, you need an additional blank line to wrap text into a new paragraph.) This is the HTML that results:
<h1>This is a big heading</h1>
<p>
You <i>must</i> have some text following a heading!
</p>
<h2>This is a smaller heading</h2>
<p>
This is the first paragraph. We can split it across multiple
lines, but we must end it with a blank line.
</p>
<p>
This is the second paragraph.
</p>
Ordered lists are created using the #
character. Unordered lists
use the =
character:
An ordered list: #first item #second item #and even the /third/ item An unordered list: =an item =another item
<p>
An ordered list:
</p>
<ol>
<li>first item</li>
<li>second item</li>
<li>and even the <i>third</i> item</li>
</ol>
<p>
An unordered list:
</p>
<ul>
<li>an item</li>
<li>another item</li>
</ul>
Quoted sections should be surrounded in double quotes:
The other guy said: "Nyeah nyeah-nee /nyeah/ nyeah!" But what do you think he means by "nyeah-nee"?
<p>
The other guy said:
</p>
<q>Nyeah nyeah-nee
<i>nyeah</i> nyeah!</q>
<p>
But what do you think he means by <q>nyeah-nee</q>?
</p>
Special characters such as *
, |
and #
, along with HTML characters such as
<
, >
and &
may be escaped using \
:
You can write down equations like 2\*3\=6 and HTML tags like \<body\> using the escape character: \\.
<p>
You can write down equations like 2*3=6 and HTML tags
like <body> using the escape character: \.
</p>
And we can quote code blocks using backticks:
My code doesn't work: `for (int i=0; i<100; i--) { doSomething(); }` Any ideas?
<p>
My code doesn't work:
</p>
<pre>for (int i=0; i<100; i--)
{
doSomething();
}</pre>
<p>
Any ideas?
</p>
Note that inline monospace formatting always escapes (most monospace formatted text is in fact code or tags with many special characters). So you can, for example, write:
This is a |<tag attribute="value"/>| example.
without escaping any of the characters inside the monospace bars. The downside is that you can't format inline monospace text in any other way (italics, underscore, and so on).
A link may be created using the following syntax:
Go to the Seam website at [=>http://jboss.com/products/seam].
Or, if you want to specify the text of the link:
Go to [the Seam website=>http://jboss.com/products/seam].
For advanced users, it is even possible to customize the Seam Text parser to understand wikiword links written using this syntax.
Text may even include a certain limited subset of HTML (don't worry, the subset is chosen to be safe from cross-site scripting attacks). This is useful for creating links:
You might want to link to <a href="http://jboss.com/products/seam">something
cool</a>, or even include an image: <img src="/logo.jpg"/>
And for creating tables:
<table>
<tr><td>First name:</td><td>Gavin</td></tr>
<tr><td>Last name:</td><td>King</td></tr>
</table>
But you can do much more if you want!
Seam now includes a component set for generating documents using iText. The primary focus of Seam's iText document support is for the generation of PDF doucuments, but Seam also offers basic support for RTF document generation.
iText support is provided by jboss-seam-pdf.jar
. This JAR contains the iText JSF
controls, which are used to construct views that can render to PDF, and the DocumentStore component, which
serves the rendered documents to the user. To include PDF support in your application, included
jboss-seam-pdf.jar
in your WEB-INF/lib
directory along with the
iText JAR file. There is no further configuration needed to use Seam's ciText supportfon.
The Seam iText module requires the use of Facelets as the view technology. Future versions of the library may also support the use of JSP. Additionally, it requires the use of the seam-ui package.
The examples/itext
project contains an example of the PDF support in action. It
demonstrates proper deployment packaging, and it contains a number examples that demonstrate the key PDF
generation features current supported.
|
Description Documents are generated by facelet XHTML files using tags in the
Attributes
Metadata Attributes
Usage <p:document xmlns:p="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pdf"> |
Useful documents will need to contain more than just text; however, the standard UI components are
geared towards HTML generation and are not useful for generating PDF content. Instead, Seam provides a
special UI components for generating suitable PDF content. Tags like
<p:image>
and <p:paragraph>
are the
basic foundations of simple documents. Tags like <p:font>
provide style
information to all the content surrounging them.
|
Description Most uses of text should be sectioned into paragraphs so that text fragments can be flowed, formatted and styled in logical groups. Attributes
Usage <p:paragraph alignment="justify"> |
|
Description The Attributes
Usage <p:paragraph> |
|
Description The Attributes
Usage
|
|
Description The font tag defines the default font to be used for all text inside of it. Attributes
Usage <p:font name="courier" style="bold" size="24"> |
|
Description
Usage <p:newPage /> |
|
Description
Resources can also be dynamically generated by application code. The
Attributes
Usage <p:image value="/jboss.jpg" /> <p:image value="#{images.chart}" /> |
|
Description
Attributes
Usage <p:listItem><p:anchor reference="#reason1">Reason 1</p:anchor></p:listItem> |
|
Description The Attributes
Usage <p:facet name="header"> |
|
Description The current page number can be placed inside of a header or footer using the
Usage <p:footer borderWidthTop="1" borderColorTop="blue" |
|
Description If the generated document follows a book/article structure, the
Attributes
Usage <p:document xmlns:p="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pdf" |
|
Description Any chapter or section can contain a |
List structures can be displayed using the p:list
and p:listItem
tags. Lists may contain arbitrarily-nested sublists. List items may not be used outside of a list. he
following document uses the ui:repeat
tag to to display a list of values retrieved
from a Seam component.
<p:document xmlns:p="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pdf"
xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
title="Hello">
<p:list style="numbered">
<ui:repeat value="#{documents}" var="doc">
<p:listItem>#{doc.name}</p:listItem>
</ui:repeat>
</p:list>
</p:document>
|
Attributes
Usage <p:list style="numbered"> |
|
Description
Attributes
Usage ... |
Table structures can be created using the p:table
and p:cell
tags. Unlike many table structures, there is no explicit row declaration. If a table has 3 columns, then
every 3 cells will automatically form a row. Header and footer rows can be declared, and the headers and
footers will be repeated in the event a table structure spans multiple pages.
|
Description
Attributes
Usage <p:table columns="3" headerRows="1"> |
|
Description
Attributes
Usage <p:cell>...</p:cell> |
This section documents some of the constants shared by attributes on multiple tags.
Seam documents do not yet support a full color specification. Currently, only named colors are
supported. They are: white
, gray
,
lightgray
, darkgray
, black
,
red
, pink
, yellow
,
green
, magenta
, cyan
and
blue
.
Document generation works out of the box with no additional configuration needed. However, there are a few points of configuration that are needed for more serious applications.
The default implementation serves PDF documents from a generic URL,
/seam-doc.seam
. Many browsers (and users) would prefer to see URLs that contain the
actual PDF name like /myDocument.pdf
. This capability requires some configuration. To
serve PDF files, all *.pdf resources should be mapped to the DocumentStoreServlet:
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Document Store Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.jboss.seam.pdf.DocumentStoreServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Document Store Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.pdf</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
The use-extensions
option on the document store component completes the
functionality by instructing the document store to generate URLs with the correct filename extension for
the document type being generated.
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:pdf="http://jboss.com/products/seam/pdf">
<pdf:document-store use-extensions="true" />
</components>
Generated documents are stored in conversation scope and will expire when the conversation ends. At
that point, references to the document will be invalid. To You can specify a default view to be shown
when a document does not exist using the error-page
property of the documentStore.
<pdf:document-store use-extensions="true" error-page="/pdfMissing.seam" />
Charting support is also provided with jboss-seam-pdf.jar
. Charts can be used in PDF
documents or can be used as images in an HTML page. Charting requires the JFreeChart library
(jfreechart.jar
and jcommon.jar
) to be added to the
WEB-INF/lib
directory. Three types of charts are currently supported: pie charts, bar
charts and line charts.
|
Description Displays a bar chart. Attributes
Usage <p:barchart title="Bar Chart" legend="true" |
|
Description Displays a line chart. Attributes
Usage <p:linechart title="Line Chart" |
|
Description Displays a pie chart. Attributes
Usage <p:piechart title="Pie Chart" circular="false" direction="anticlockwise" |
|
Description Category data can be broken down into series. The series tag is used to categorize a set of data with a series and apply styling to the entire series. Attributes
Usage <p:series key="data1"> |
|
Description The data tag describes each data point to be displayed in the graph. Attributes
Usage <p:data key="foo" value="20" sectionPaint="#111111" |
|
Description The color component declares a color or gradient than can be referenced when drawing filled shapes. Attributes
Usage <p:color id="foo" color="#0ff00f"/> |
|
Description Describes a stroke used to draw lines in a chart. Attributes
Usage <p:stroke id="dot2" width="2" cap="round" join="bevel" dash="2 3" /> |
Seam can use iText to generate barcodes in a wide variety of formats. These barcodes can be embedded in a PDF document or displayed as an image on a web page. Note that when used with HTML images, barcodes can not currently display barcode text in the barcode.
|
Description Displays a barcode image. Attributes
Usage <p:barCode type="code128" |
Seam now provides experimental support for rendering Swing components to into a PDF image. Some Swing look and feels supports, notably ones that use native widgets, will not render correctly.
|
Description Renders a Swing component into a PDF document. Attributes
Usage <p:swing width="310" height="120" component="#{aButton}" /> |
Seam now includes an optional components for templating and sending emails.
Email support is provided by jboss-seam-mail.jar
. This
JAR contains the mail JSF controls, which are used to construct emails,
and the mailSession
manager component.
The examples/mail project contains an example of the email support in action. It demonstrates proper packaging, and it contains a number of example that demonstrate the key features currently supported.
You can also test your mail's using Seam's integration testing environment. See Section 31.3.4, “Integration Testing Seam Mail”.
You don't need to learn a whole new templating language to use Seam Mail — an email is just facelet!
<m:message xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:m="http://jboss.com/products/seam/mail"
xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html">
<m:from name="Peter" address="peter@example.com" />
<m:to name="#{person.firstname} #{person.lastname}">#{person.address}</m:to>
<m:subject>Try out Seam!</m:subject>
<m:body>
<p><h:outputText value="Dear #{person.firstname}" />,</p>
<p>You can try out Seam by visiting
<a href="http://labs.jboss.com/jbossseam">http://labs.jboss.com/jbossseam</a>.</p>
<p>Regards,</p>
<p>Pete</p>
</m:body>
</m:message>
The <m:message>
tag wraps the whole message,
and tells Seam to start rendering an email. Inside the <m:message>
tag we use an <m:from>
tag to set who the
message is from, a <m:to>
tag to specify a
sender (notice how we use EL as we would in a normal facelet), and a
<m:subject>
tag.
The <m:body>
tag wraps the body of the email.
You can use regular HTML tags inside the body as well as JSF components.
So, now you have your email template, how do you go about sending it?
Well, at the end of rendering the m:message
the
mailSession
is called to send the email, so all you
have to do is ask Seam to render the view:
@In(create=true)
private Renderer renderer;
public void send() {
try {
renderer.render("/simple.xhtml");
facesMessages.add("Email sent successfully");
}
catch (Exception e) {
facesMessages.add("Email sending failed: " + e.getMessage());
}
}
If, for example, you entered an invalid email address, then an exception would be thrown, which is caught and then displayed to the user.
Seam makes it easy to attach files to an email. It supports most of the standard java types used when working with files.
If you wanted to email the jboss-seam-mail.jar
:
<m:attachment value="/WEB-INF/lib/jboss-seam-mail.jar"/>
Seam will load the file from the classpath, and attach it to the email.
By default it would be attached as jboss-seam-mail.jar
;
if you wanted it to have another name you would just add the fileName
attribute:
<m:attachment value="/WEB-INF/lib/jboss-seam-mail.jar" fileName="this-is-so-cool.jar"/>
You could also attach a java.io.File
, a java.net.URL
:
<m:attachment value="#{numbers}"/>
Or a byte[]
or a java.io.InputStream
:
<m:attachment value="#{person.photo}" contentType="image/png"/>
You'll notice that for a byte[]
and a java.io.InputStream
you need to specify the MIME type of the attachment (as that
information is not carried as part of the file).
And it gets even better, you can attach a Seam generated PDF, or any
standard JSF view, just by wrapping a <m:attachment>
around the normal tags you would use:
<m:attachment fileName="tiny.pdf">
<p:document>
A very tiny PDF
</p:document>
</m:attachment>
If you had a set of files you wanted to attach (for example a set of
pictures loaded from a database) you can just use a <ui:repeat>
:
<ui:repeat value="#{people}" var="person">
<m:attachment value="#{person.photo}" contentType="image/jpeg" fileName="#{person.firstname}_#{person.lastname}.jpg"/>
</ui:repeat>
And if you want to display an attached image inline:
<m:attachment
value="#{person.photo}"
contentType="image/jpeg"
fileName="#{person.firstname}_#{person.lastname}.jpg"
status="personPhoto"
disposition="inline" />
<img src="cid:#{personPhoto.contentId}" />
You may be wondering what cid:#{...}
does. Well, the
IETF specified that by putting this as the src for your image, the
attachments will be looked at when trying to locate the image (the
Content-ID
's must match) — magic!
You must declare the attachment before trying to access the status object.
Whilst most mail readers nowadays support HTML, some don't, so you can add a plain text alternative to your email body:
<m:body>
<f:facet name="alternative">Sorry, your email reader can't show our fancy email,
please go to http://labs.jboss.com/jbossseam to explore Seam.</f:facet>
</m:body>
Often you'll want to send an email to a group of recipients (for
example your users). All of the recipient mail tags can be placed
inside a <ui:repeat>
:
<ui:repeat value="#{allUsers} var="user">
<m:to name="#{user.firstname} #{user.lastname}" address="#{user.emailAddress}" />
</ui:repeat>
Sometimes, however, you need to send a slightly different message to
each recipient (e.g. a password reset). The best way to do this is to
place the whole message inside a <ui:repeat>
:
<ui:repeat value="#{people}" var="p">
<m:message>
<m:from name="#{person.firstname} #{person.lastname}">#{person.address}</m:from>
<m:to name="#{p.firstname}">#{p.address}</m:to>
...
</m:message>
</ui:repeat>
The mail templating example shows that facelets templating Just Works with the Seam mail tags.
Our template.xhtml
contains:
<m:message>
<m:from name="Seam" address="do-not-reply@jboss.com" />
<m:to name="#{person.firstname} #{person.lastname}">#{person.address}</m:to>
<m:subject>#{subject}</m:subject>
<m:body>
<html>
<body>
<ui:insert name="body">This is the default body, specified by the template.</ui:insert>
</body>
</html>
</m:body>
</m:message>
Our templating.xhtml
contains:
<ui:param name="subject" value="Templating with Seam Mail"/>
<ui:define name="body">
<p>This example demonstrates that you can easily use <i>facelets templating</i> in email!</p>
</ui:define>
You can also use facelets source tags in your email, but you must place
them in a jar in WEB-INF/lib
- referencing the
.taglib.xml
from web.xml
isn't
reliable when using Seam Mail (if you send your mail asynchrounously
Seam Mail doesn't have access to the full JSF or Servlet context, and
so doesn't know about web.xml
configuration
parameters).
If you do need more configure Facelets or JSF when sending mail, you'll need to override the Renderer component and do the configuration programmatically - only for advanced users!
Seam supports sending internationalised messages. By default, the encoding provided by JSF is used, but this can be overridden on the template:
<m:message charset="UTF-8">
...
</m:message>
The body, subject and recipient (and from) name will be encoded. You'll need to make sure facelets uses the correct charset for parsing your pages by setting encoding of the template:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
Sometimes you'll want to add other headers to your email. Seam provides support for some (see Section 18.5, “Tags”). For example, we can set the importance of the email, and ask for a read receipt:
<m:message xmlns:m="http://jboss.com/products/seam/mail"
importance="low"
requestReadReceipt="true"/>
Otherise you can add any header to the message using the
<m:header>
tag:
<m:header name="X-Sent-From" value="JBoss Seam"/>
If you are using EJB then you can use a MDB (Message Driven Bean) to
receive email. JBoss provides a JCA adaptor —
mail-ra.rar
— but the version distributed with
JBoss AS has a number of limitations (and isn't bundled in some versions)
therefore we recommend using the mail-ra.rar
distributed with Seam is recommended (it's in the extras/
directory in the Seam bundle). mail-ra.rar
should
be placed in $JBOSS_HOME/server/default/deploy
; if the
version of JBoss AS you use already has this file, replace it.
You can configure it like this:
@MessageDriven(activationConfig={
@ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName="mailServer", propertyValue="localhost"),
@ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName="mailFolder", propertyValue="INBOX"),
@ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName="storeProtocol", propertyValue="pop3"),
@ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName="userName", propertyValue="seam"),
@ActivationConfigProperty(propertyName="password", propertyValue="seam")
})
@ResourceAdapter("mail-ra.rar")
@Name("mailListener")
public class MailListenerMDB implements MailListener {
@In(create=true)
private OrderProcessor orderProcessor;
public void onMessage(Message message) {
// Process the message
orderProcessor.process(message.getSubject());
}
}
Each message received will cause onMessage(Message message)
to be called. Most Seam annotations will work inside a MDB but you
musn't access the persistence context.
You can find more information onmail-ra.rar
at http://wiki.jboss.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=InboundJavaMail.
If you aren't using JBoss AS you can still use mail-ra.rar
or you may find your application server includes a similar adapter.
To include Email support in your application, include jboss-seam-mail.jar
in your WEB-INF/lib
directory. If you are using JBoss
AS there is no further configuration needed to use Seam's email support.
Otherwise you need to make sure you have the JavaMail API, an
implementation of the JavaMail API present (the API and impl used in
JBoss AS are distributed with seam as lib/mail.jar
),
and a copy of the Java Activation Framework (distributed with Seam as
lib/activation.jar
.
The Seam Email module requires the use of Facelets as the view technology. Future versions of the library may also support the use of JSP. Additionally, it requires the use of the seam-ui package.
The mailSession
component uses JavaMail to talk to a
'real' SMTP server.
A JavaMail Session may be available via a JNDI lookup if you are working in an JEE environment or you can use a Seam configured Session.
The mailSession component's properties are described in more detail in Section 28.8, “Mail-related components”.
The JBossAS deploy/mail-service.xml
configures a
JavaMail session binding into JNDI. The default service
configuration will need altering for your network.
http://wiki.jboss.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=JavaMail
describes the service in more detail.
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:core="http://jboss.com/products/seam/core"
xmlns:mail="http://jboss.com/products/seam/mail">
<mail:mail-session session-jndi-name="java:/Mail"/>
</components>
Here we tell Seam to get the mail session bound to
java:/Mail
from JNDI.
A mail session can be configured via components.xml
.
Here we tell Seam to use smtp.example.com
as the
smtp server:
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:core="http://jboss.com/products/seam/core"
xmlns:mail="http://jboss.com/products/seam/mail">
<mail:mail-session host="smtp.example.com"/>
</components>
Seam's mail examples use Meldware (from buni.org)
as a mail server. Meldware is a groupware package that provides
SMTP
, POP3
, IMAP
,
webmail, a shared calendar and an graphical admin tool; it's written as a
JEE application so can be deployed onto JBoss AS alongside your Seam
application.
The version of Meldware distributed with Seam (in the mail/buni-meldware
folder) is specially tailored for development - mailboxes, users and
aliases (email addresses) are created every time the application
deploys. If you want to use Meldware in production you should install
the latest release from buni.org.
To create mailboxes, users and aliases, you can use the
meldware
component:
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:core="http://jboss.com/products/seam/core"
xmlns:mail="http://jboss.com/products/seam/mail">
<mail:mail-session host="smtp.example.com"/>
<mail:meldware>
<mail:users>
<value>#{duke}</value>
<value>#{root}</value>
</mail:users>
</mail:meldware>
<mail:meldware-user name="duke" username="duke" password="duke">
<mail:aliases>
<value>duke@jboss.org</value>
<value>duke@jboss.com</value>
</mail:aliases>
<mail:meldware-user name="root" username="root" password="root" administrator="true" />
</components>
Here we've created two users, duke
, who has two email
addresses and an administrator with the username root
.
Emails are generated using tags in the http://jboss.com/products/seam/mail
namespace. Documents should always have the message
tag at the root of the message. The message tag prepares Seam to generate
an email.
The standard templating tags of facelets can be used as normal. Inside
the body you can use any JSF tag; if it requires access to external
resources (stylesheets, javascript) then be sure to set the
urlBase
.
Root tag of a mail message
importance
— low, normal or high. By
default normal, this sets the importance of the mail message.
precedence
— sets the precedence of
the message (e.g. bulk).
requestReadReceipt
— by default false,
if set, a read receipt request will be will be added, with the
read receipt being sent to the From:
address.
urlBase
— If set, the value is
prepended to the requestContextPath
allowing
you to use components such as
<h:graphicImage>
in your emails.
Set's the From: address for the email. You can only have one of these per email.
name
— the name the email should come
from.
address
— the email address the email
should come from.
Set's the Reply-to: address for the email. You can only have one of these per email.
address
— the email address the email
should come from.
Add a recipient to the email. Use multiple <m:to> tags for multiple recipients. This tag can be safely placed inside a repeat tag such as <ui:repeat>.
name
— the name of the recipient.
address
— the email address of the recipient.
Add a cc recipient to the email. Use multiple <m:cc> tags for multiple ccs. This tag can be safely placed inside a iterator tag such as <ui:repeat>.
name
— the name of the recipient.
address
— the email address of the
recipient.
Add a bcc recipient to the email. Use multiple <m:bcc> tags for multiple bccs. This tag can be safely placed inside a repeat tag such as <ui:repeat>.
name
— the name of the recipient.
address
— the email address of the
recipient.
Add a header to the email (e.g. X-Sent-From: JBoss Seam
)
name
— The name of the header to
add (e.g. X-Sent-From
).
value
— The value of the header to
add (e.g. JBoss Seam
).
Add an attachment to the email.
value
— The file to attach:
String
— A String
is interpreted as a path to file within the classpath
java.io.File
— An EL expression
can reference a File
object
java.net.URL
— An EL expression
can reference a URL
object
java.io.InputStream
— An EL
expression can reference an InputStream
.
In this case both a fileName
and a
contentType
must be specified.
byte[]
— An EL expression can
reference an byte[]
. In this case both
a fileName
and a
contentType
must be specified.
If the value attribute is ommitted:
If this tag contains a <p:document>
tag, the document described will be generated and
attached to the email. A fileName
should be specfied.
If this tag contains other JSF tags a HTML document will
be generated from them and attached to the email. A
fileName
should be specfied.
fileName
— Specify the file name to
use for the attached file.
contentType
— Specify the MIME type
of the attached file
Set's the subject for the email.
Set's the body for the email. Supports an alternative
facet which, if an HTML email is generated can contain
alternative text for a mail reader which doesn't support html.
type
— If set to plain
then a plain text email will be generated otherwise an HTML
email is generated.
Seam makes it very easy to perform work asynchronously from a web request. When most people think of asynchronicity in Java EE, they think of using JMS. This is certainly one way to approach the problem in Seam, and is the right way when you have strict and well-defined quality of service requirements. Seam makes it easy to send and recieve JMS messages using Seam components.
But for many usecases, JMS is overkill. Seam layers a simple asynchronous method and event facility over your choice of dispatchers:
java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor
(by default)
the EJB timer service (for EJB 3.0 environments)
Quartz
Asynchronous events and method calls have the same quality of service expectations as
the underlying dispatcher mechanism. The default dispatcher, based upon a
ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor
performs efficiently but provides no
support for persistent asynchronous tasks, and hence no guarantee that a task
will ever actually be executed. If you're working in an environment that supports
EJB 3.0, and add the following line to components.xml
:
<async:timer-service-dispatcher/>
then your asynchronous tasks will be processed by the container's EJB timer service. If you're not familiar with the Timer service, don't worry, you don't need to interact with it directly if you want to use asynchronous methods in Seam. The important thing to know is that any good EJB 3.0 implementation will have the option of using persistent timers, which gives some guarantee that the tasks will eventually be processed.
Another alternative is to use the open source Quartz library to manage asynchronous method.
You need to bundle the Quartz library JAR (found in the lib
directory)
in your EAR and declare it as a Java module in application.xml
. In addition,
you need to add the following line to components.xml
to install the Quartz
dispatcher.
<async:quartz-dispatcher/>
The Seam API for the default ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor
, the EJB3
Timer
, and the Quartz Scheduler
are largely the
same. They can just "plug and play" by adding a line to components.xml
.
In simplest form, an asynchronous call just lets a method call be processed asynchronously (in a different thread) from the caller. We usually use an asynchronous call when we want to return an immediate response to the client, and let some expensive work be processed in the background. This pattern works very well in applications which use AJAX, where the client can automatically poll the server for the result of the work.
For EJB components, we annotate the local interface to specify that a method is processed asynchronously.
@Local
public interface PaymentHandler
{
@Asynchronous
public void processPayment(Payment payment);
}
(For JavaBean components we can annotate the component implementation class if we like.)
The use of asynchronicity is transparent to the bean class:
@Stateless
@Name("paymentHandler")
public class PaymentHandlerBean implements PaymentHandler
{
public void processPayment(Payment payment)
{
//do some work!
}
}
And also transparent to the client:
@Stateful
@Name("paymentAction")
public class CreatePaymentAction
{
@In(create=true) PaymentHandler paymentHandler;
@In Bill bill;
public String pay()
{
paymentHandler.processPayment( new Payment(bill) );
return "success";
}
}
The asynchronous method is processed in a completely new event context and does not have access to the session or conversation context state of the caller. However, the business process context is propagated.
Asynchronous method calls may be scheduled for later execution using the
@Duration
, @Expiration
and
@IntervalDuration
annotations.
@Local
public interface PaymentHandler
{
@Asynchronous
public void processScheduledPayment(Payment payment, @Expiration Date date);
@Asynchronous
public void processRecurringPayment(Payment payment,
@Expiration Date date,
@IntervalDuration Long interval)'
}
@Stateful
@Name("paymentAction")
public class CreatePaymentAction
{
@In(create=true) PaymentHandler paymentHandler;
@In Bill bill;
public String schedulePayment()
{
paymentHandler.processScheduledPayment( new Payment(bill), bill.getDueDate() );
return "success";
}
public String scheduleRecurringPayment()
{
paymentHandler.processRecurringPayment( new Payment(bill), bill.getDueDate(),
ONE_MONTH );
return "success";
}
}
Both client and server may access the Timer
object associated with
the invocation. The Timer
object shown below is the EJB3 timer when you use the EJB3 dispatcher. For the default ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor
, the returned object is Future
from the JDK. For the Quartz dispatcher, it returns QuartzTriggerHandle
, which we will discuss in the next section.
@Local
public interface PaymentHandler
{
@Asynchronous
public Timer processScheduledPayment(Payment payment, @Expiration Date date);
}
@Stateless
@Name("paymentHandler")
public class PaymentHandlerBean implements PaymentHandler
{
@In Timer timer;
public Timer processScheduledPayment(Payment payment, @Expiration Date date)
{
//do some work!
return timer; //note that return value is completely ignored
}
}
@Stateful
@Name("paymentAction")
public class CreatePaymentAction
{
@In(create=true) PaymentHandler paymentHandler;
@In Bill bill;
public String schedulePayment()
{
Timer timer = paymentHandler.processScheduledPayment( new Payment(bill),
bill.getDueDate() );
return "success";
}
}
Asynchronous methods cannot return any other value to the caller.
The Quartz dispatcher (see earlier on how to install it) allows you to use the @Asynchronous
, @Duration
, @Expiration
, and @IntervalDuration
annotations as above. But it has some powerful additional features. The Quartz dispatcher supports three new annotations.
The @FinalExpiration
annotation specifies an end date for the recurring task.
// Defines the method in the "processor" component
@Asynchronous
public QuartzTriggerHandle schedulePayment(@Expiration Date when,
@IntervalDuration Long interval,
@FinalExpiration Date endDate,
Payment payment)
{
// do the repeating or long running task until endDate
}
... ...
// Schedule the task in the business logic processing code
// Starts now, repeats every hour, and ends on May 10th, 2010
Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance ();
cal.set (2010, Calendar.MAY, 10);
processor.schedulePayment(new Date(), 60*60*1000, cal.getTime(), payment);
Note that the method returns the QuartzTriggerHandle
object, which you can use later to stop, pause, and resume the scheduler. The QuartzTriggerHandle
object is serializable, so you can save it into the database if you need to keep it around for extended period of time.
QuartzTriggerHandle handle =
processor.schedulePayment(payment.getPaymentDate(),
payment.getPaymentCron(),
payment);
payment.setQuartzTriggerHandle( handle );
// Save payment to DB
// later ...
// Retrieve payment from DB
// Cancel the remaining scheduled tasks
payment.getQuartzTriggerHandle().cancel();
The @IntervalCron
annotation supports Unix cron job syntax for task scheduling. For instance, the following asynchronous method runs at 2:10pm and at 2:44pm every Wednesday in the month of March.
// Define the method
@Asynchronous
public QuartzTriggerHandle schedulePayment(@Expiration Date when,
@IntervalCron String cron,
Payment payment)
{
// do the repeating or long running task
}
... ...
// Schedule the task in the business logic processing code
QuartzTriggerHandle handle =
processor.schedulePayment(new Date(), "0 10,44 14 ? 3 WED", payment);
The @IntervalBusinessDay
annotation supports invocation on the "nth Business Day" scenario. For instance, the following asynchronous method runs at 14:00 on the 2nd business day of each month. By default, it excludes all weekends and US federal holidays until 2010 from the business days.
// Define the method
@Asynchronous
public QuartzTriggerHandle schedulePayment(@Expiration Date when,
@IntervalBusinessDay NthBusinessDay nth,
Payment payment)
{
// do the repeating or long running task
}
... ...
// Schedule the task in the business logic processing code
QuartzTriggerHandle handle =
processor.schedulePayment(new Date(),
new NthBusinessDay(2, "14:00", WEEKLY), payment);
The NthBusinessDay
object contains the configuration of the invocation trigger. You can specify more holidays (e.g., company holidays, non-US holidays etc.) via the additionalHolidays
property.
public class NthBusinessDay implements Serializable
{
int n;
String fireAtTime;
List <Date> additionalHolidays;
BusinessDayIntervalType interval;
boolean excludeWeekends;
boolean excludeUsFederalHolidays;
public enum BusinessDayIntervalType { WEEKLY, MONTHLY, YEARLY }
public NthBusinessDay ()
{
n = 1;
fireAtTime = "12:00";
additionalHolidays = new ArrayList <Date> ();
interval = BusinessDayIntervalType.WEEKLY;
excludeWeekends = true;
excludeUsFederalHolidays = true;
}
... ...
}
The @IntervalDuration
, @IntervalCron
, and @IntervalNthBusinessDay
annotations are mutually exclusive. If they are used in the same method, a RuntimeException
will be thrown.
Component-driven events may also be asynchronous. To raise an event for asynchronous
processing, simply call the raiseAsynchronousEvent()
method of
the Events
class. To schedule a timed event, call the
raiseTimedEvent()
method, passing a schedule
object (for the default dispatcher or timer service dispatcher, use TimerSchedule
).
Components may observe asynchronous events in the usual way, but remember that only the
business process context is propagated to the asynchronous thread.
Seam makes it easy to send and receive JMS messages to and from Seam components.
To configure Seam's infrastructure for sending JMS messages,
you need to tell Seam about any topics and queues you want to
send messages to, and also tell Seam where to find the
QueueConnectionFactory
and/or
TopicConnectionFactory
.
Seam defaults to using UIL2ConnectionFactory
which is the usual connection factory for use with JBossMQ. If
you are using some other JMS provider, you need to set one or
both of queueConnection.queueConnectionFactoryJndiName
and topicConnection.topicConnectionFactoryJndiName
in seam.properties
, web.xml
or components.xml
.
You also need to list topics and queues in components.xml
to install Seam managed TopicPublisher
s and
QueueSender
s:
<jms:managed-topic-publisher name="stockTickerPublisher"
auto-create="true"
topic-jndi-name="topic/stockTickerTopic"/>
<jms:managed-queue-sender name="paymentQueueSender"
auto-create="true"
queue-jndi-name="queue/paymentQueue"/>
Now, you can inject a JMS TopicPublisher
and
TopicSession
into any component:
@In
private TopicPublisher stockTickerPublisher;
@In
private TopicSession topicSession;
public void publish(StockPrice price) {
try
{
stockTickerPublisher.publish( topicSession.createObjectMessage(price) );
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw new RuntimeException(ex);
}
}
Or, for working with a queue:
@In
private QueueSender paymentQueueSender;
@In
private QueueSession queueSession;
public void publish(Payment payment) {
try
{
paymentQueueSender.send( queueSession.createObjectMessage(payment) );
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw new RuntimeException(ex);
}
}
You can process messages using any EJB3 message driven bean. Message-driven beans may even be Seam components, in which case it is possible to inject other event and application scoped Seam components.
Seam Remoting lets you subscribe to a JMS topic from client-side JavaScript. This is described in Chapter 22, Remoting.
In almost all enterprise applications, the database is the primary bottleneck, and the least scalable tier of the runtime environment. People from a PHP/Ruby environment will try to tell you that so-called "shared nothing" architectures scale well. While that may be literally true, I don't know of many interesting multi-user applications which can be implemented with no sharing of resources between different nodes of the cluster. What these silly people are really thinking of is a "share nothing except for the database" architecture. Of course, sharing the database is the primary problem with scaling a multi-user application—so the claim that this architecture is highly scalable is absurd, and tells you a lot about the kind of applications that these folks spend most of their time working on.
Almost anything we can possibly do to share the database less often is worth doing.
This calls for a cache. Well, not just one cache. A well designed Seam application will feature a rich, multi-layered caching strategy that impacts every layer of the application:
The database, of course, has its own cache. This is super-important, but can't scale like a cache in the application tier.
Your ORM solution (Hibernate, or some other JPA implementation) has a second-level cache of data from the database. This is a very powerful capability, but is often misused. In a clustered environment, keeping the data in the cache transactionally consistent across the whole cluster, and with the database, is quite expensive. It makes most sense for data which is shared between many users, and is updated rarely. In traditional stateless architectures, people often try to use the second-level cache for conversational state. This is always bad, and is especially wrong in Seam.
The Seam conversation context is a cache of conversational state. Components you put into the conversation context can hold and cache state relating to the current user interaction.
In particular, the Seam-managed persistence context (or an extended EJB container-managed persistence context associated with a conversation-scoped stateful session bean) acts as a cache of data that has been read in the current conversation. This cache tends to have a pretty high hitrate! Seam optimizes the replication of Seam-managed persistence contexts in a clustered environment, and there is no requirement for transactional consistency with the database (optimistic locking is sufficient) so you don't need to worry too much about the performance implications of this cache, unless you read thousands of objects into a single persistence context.
The application can cache non-transactional state in the Seam application context. State kept in the application context is of course not visible to other nodes in the cluster.
The application can cache transactional state using the Seam
pojoCache
component, which integrates
JBossCache into the Seam environment. This state will be visible
to other nodes if you run JBoss cache in a clustered mode.
Finally, Seam lets you cache rendered fragments of a JSF page. Unlike the ORM second-level cache, this cache is not automatically invalidated when data changes, so you need to write application code to perform explicit invalidation, or set appropriate expiration policies.
For more information about the second-level cache, you'll need to refer to
the documentation of your ORM solution, since this is an extremely complex
topic. In this section we'll discuss the use of JBossCache directly, via
the pojoCache
component, or as the page fragment cache,
via the <s:cache>
control.
The built-in pojoCache
component manages an instance
of org.jboss.cache.aop.PojoCache
. You can safely put
any immutable Java object in the cache, and it will be replicated across
the cluster (assuming that replication is enabled). If you want to
keep mutable objects in the cache, you'll need to run the JBossCache
bytecode preprocessor to ensure that changes to the objects will be
automatically detected and replicated.
To use pojoCache
, all you need to do is put the
JBossCache jars in the classpath, and provide a resource named
treecache.xml
with an appropriate cache configuration.
JBossCache has many scary and confusing configuration settings, so
we won't discuss them here. Please refer to the JBossCache documentation
for more information.
You can find a sample treecache.xml
in
examples/blog/resources/treecache.xml
.
For an EAR depoyment of Seam, we recommend that the JBossCache jars and
configuration go directly into the EAR. Make sure you place both
jboss-cache.jar
and jgroups.jar
in your EAR's lib folder.
Now you can inject the cache into any Seam component:
@Name("chatroom")
public class Chatroom {
@In PojoCache pojoCache;
public void join(String username) {
try
{
Set<String> userList = (Set<String>) pojoCache.get("chatroom", "userList");
if (userList==null)
{
userList = new HashSet<String>();
pojoCache.put("chatroom", "userList", userList);
}
userList.put(username);
}
catch (CacheException ce)
{
throw new RuntimeException(ce);
}
}
}
If you want to have multiple JBossCache configurations in your application,
use components.xml
:
<core:pojo-cache name="myCache" cfg-resource-name="myown/cache.xml"/>
The most interesting user of JBossCache is the <s:cache>
tag, Seam's solution to the problem of page fragment caching in JSF.
<s:cache>
uses pojoCache
internally,
so you need to follow the steps listed above before you can use it. (Put the jars
in the EAR, wade through the scary configuration options, etc.)
<s:cache>
is used for caching some rendered content which
changes rarely. For example, the welcome page of our blog displays the recent
blog entries:
<s:cache key="recentEntries-#{blog.id}" region="welcomePageFragments">
<h:dataTable value="#{blog.recentEntries}" var="blogEntry">
<h:column>
<h3>#{blogEntry.title}</h3>
<div>
<s:formattedText value="#{blogEntry.body}"/>
</div>
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
</s:cache>
The key
let's you have multiple cached versions of each page
fragment. In this case, there is one cached version per blog. The
region
determines the JBossCache node that all version will
be stored in. Different nodes may have different expiry policies. (That's the
stuff you set up using the aforementioned scary configuration options.)
Of course, the big problem with <s:cache>
is that it
is too stupid to know when the underlying data changes (for example, when the
blogger posts a new entry). So you need to evict the cached fragment manually:
public void post() {
...
entityManager.persist(blogEntry);
pojoCache.remove("welcomePageFragments", "recentEntries-" + blog.getId() );
}
Alternatively, if it is not critical that changes are immediately visible to the user, you could set a short expiry time on the JbossCache node.
Seam integrates with JBossWS to allow standard JEE web services to take full advantage of Seam's contextual framework, including support for conversational web services. This chapter walks through the steps required to allow web services to run within a Seam environment.
To allow Seam to intercept web service requests so that the necessary Seam contexts can be created for the request,
a special SOAP handler must be configured; org.jboss.seam.webservice.SOAPRequestHandler
is a SOAPHandler
implementation that does the work of managing Seam's lifecycle during the scope
of a web service request.
A special configuration file, standard-jaxws-endpoint-config.xml
should be placed
into the META-INF
directory of the jar
file that contains the
web service classes. This file contains the following SOAP handler configuration:
<jaxws-config xmlns="urn:jboss:jaxws-config:2.0"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:javaee="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xsi:schemaLocation="urn:jboss:jaxws-config:2.0 jaxws-config_2_0.xsd">
<endpoint-config>
<config-name>Seam WebService Endpoint</config-name>
<pre-handler-chains>
<javaee:handler-chain>
<javaee:protocol-bindings>##SOAP11_HTTP</javaee:protocol-bindings>
<javaee:handler>
<javaee:handler-name>SOAP Request Handler</javaee:handler-name>
<javaee:handler-class>org.jboss.seam.webservice.SOAPRequestHandler</javaee:handler-class>
</javaee:handler>
</javaee:handler-chain>
</pre-handler-chains>
</endpoint-config>
</jaxws-config>
So how are conversations propagated between web service requests? Seam uses a SOAP header element present in both the SOAP request and response messages to carry the conversation ID from the consumer to the service, and back again. Here's an example of a web service request that contains a conversation ID:
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
xmlns:seam="http://seambay.example.seam.jboss.org/">
<soapenv:Header>
<seam:conversationId xmlns:seam='http://www.jboss.org/seam/webservice'>2</seam:conversationId>
</soapenv:Header>
<soapenv:Body>
<seam:confirmAuction/>
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>
As you can see in the above SOAP message, there is a conversationId
element within the
SOAP header that contains the conversation ID for the request, in this case 2
.
Unfortunately, because web services may be consumed by a variety of web service clients written in a
variety of languages, it is up to the developer to implement conversation ID propagation between individual
web services that are intended to be used within the scope of a single conversation.
An important thing to note is that the conversationId
header element must be qualified
with a namespace of http://www.jboss.org/seam/webservice
, otherwise Seam will not be
able to read the conversation ID from the request. Here's an example of a response to the above request message:
<env:Envelope xmlns:env='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'>
<env:Header>
<seam:conversationId xmlns:seam='http://www.jboss.org/seam/webservice'>2</seam:conversationId>
</env:Header>
<env:Body>
<confirmAuctionResponse xmlns="http://seambay.example.seam.jboss.org/"/>
</env:Body>
</env:Envelope>
As you can see, the response message contains the same conversationId
element as the request.
As web services must be implemented as either a stateless session bean or POJO, it is recommended that for conversational web services, the web service acts as a facade to a conversational Seam component.
If the web service is written as a stateless session bean, then it is also possible to make it a Seam
component by giving it a @Name
. Doing this allows Seam's bijection (and other)
features to be used in the web service class itself.
Let's walk through an example web service. The code in this section all comes from the seamBay example
application in Seam's /examples
directory, and follows the recommended strategy as
described in the previous section. Let's first take a look at the web service class and one of its web
service methods:
@Stateless
@WebService(name = "AuctionService", serviceName = "AuctionService")
public class AuctionService implements AuctionServiceRemote
{
@WebMethod
public boolean login(String username, String password)
{
Identity.instance().setUsername(username);
Identity.instance().setPassword(password);
Identity.instance().login();
return Identity.instance().isLoggedIn();
}
// snip
}
As you can see, our web service is a stateless session bean, and is annotated using the JWS annotations
from the javax.jws
package, as defined by JSR-181. The @WebService
annotation tells the container that this class implements a web service, and the @WebMethod
annotation on the login()
method identifies the method as a web service method.
The name
and serviceName
attributes in the @WebService
annotation are optional.
As is required by the specification, each method that is to be exposed as a web service method must also be
declared in the remote interface of the web service class (when the web service is a stateless session bean).
In the above example, the AuctionServiceRemote
interface must declare the login()
method as it is annotated as a @WebMethod
.
As you can see in the above code, the web service implements a login()
method that
delegates to Seam's built-in Identity
component. In keeping with our recommended strategy,
the web service is written as a simple facade, passing off the real work to a Seam component. This allows
for the greatest reuse of business logic between web services and other clients.
Let's look at another example. This web service method begins a new conversation by delegating to the
AuctionAction.createAuction()
method:
@WebMethod
public void createAuction(String title, String description, int categoryId)
{
AuctionAction action = (AuctionAction) Component.getInstance(AuctionAction.class, true);
action.createAuction();
action.setDetails(title, description, categoryId);
}
And here's the code from AuctionAction
:
@Begin
public void createAuction()
{
auction = new Auction();
auction.setAccount(authenticatedAccount);
auction.setStatus(Auction.STATUS_UNLISTED);
durationDays = DEFAULT_AUCTION_DURATION;
}
From this we can see how web services can participate in long running conversations, by acting as a facade and delegating the real work to a conversational Seam component.
Seam provides a convenient method of remotely accessing components from a web page, using AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML). The framework for this functionality is provided with almost no up-front development effort - your components only require simple annotating to become accessible via AJAX. This chapter describes the steps required to build an AJAX-enabled web page, then goes on to explain the features of the Seam Remoting framework in more detail.
To use remoting, the Seam Resource servlet must first be configured in your web.xml
file:
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Seam Resource Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamResourceServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Seam Resource Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/seam/resource/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
The next step is to import the necessary Javascript into your web page. There are a minimum of two scripts that must be imported. The first one contains all the client-side framework code that enables remoting functionality:
<script type="text/javascript" src="seam/resource/remoting/resource/remote.js"></script>
The second script contains the stubs and type definitions for the components you wish to call. It is
generated dynamically based on the local interface of your components, and includes type definitions for all of
the classes that can be used to call the remotable methods of the interface. The name of the script reflects the
name of your component. For example, if you have a stateless session bean annotated with
@Name("customerAction")
, then your script tag should look like this:
<script type="text/javascript"
src="seam/resource/remoting/interface.js?customerAction"></script>
If you wish to access more than one component from the same page, then include them all as parameters of your script tag:
<script type="text/javascript"
src="seam/resource/remoting/interface.js?customerAction&accountAction"></script>
Alternatively, you may use the s:remote
tag to import the required Javascript. Separate each
component or class name you wish to import with a comma:
<s:remote include="customerAction,accountAction"/>
Client-side interaction with your components is all performed via the Seam
Javascript
object. This object is defined in remote.js
, and you'll be using it to make asynchronous calls
against your component. It is split into two areas of functionality; Seam.Component
contains
methods for working with components and Seam.Remoting
contains methods for executing remote
requests. The easiest way to become familiar with this object is to start with a simple example.
Let's step through a simple example to see how the Seam
object works. First of all,
let's create a new Seam component called helloAction
.
@Stateless
@Name("helloAction")
public class HelloAction implements HelloLocal {
public String sayHello(String name) {
return "Hello, " + name;
}
}
You also need to create a local interface for our new component - take special note of the
@WebRemote
annotation, as it's required to make our method accessible via remoting:
@Local
public interface HelloLocal {
@WebRemote
public String sayHello(String name);
}
That's all the server-side code we need to write. Now for our web page - create a new page and import the
helloAction
component:
<s:remote include="helloAction"/>
To make this a fully interactive user experience, let's add a button to our page:
<button onclick="javascript:sayHello()">Say Hello</button>
We'll also need to add some more script to make our button actually do something when it's clicked:
<script type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[
function sayHello() {
var name = prompt("What is your name?");
Seam.Component.getInstance("helloAction").sayHello(name, sayHelloCallback);
}
function sayHelloCallback(result) {
alert(result);
}
// ]]>
</script>
We're done! Deploy your application and browse to your page. Click the button, and enter a name when
prompted. A message box will display the hello message confirming that the call was successful. If you want to
save some time, you'll find the full source code for this Hello World example in Seam's
/examples/remoting/helloworld
directory.
So what does the code of our script actually do? Let's break it down into smaller pieces. To start with, you can see from the Javascript code listing that we have implemented two methods - the first method is responsible for prompting the user for their name and then making a remote request. Take a look at the following line:
Seam.Component.getInstance("helloAction").sayHello(name, sayHelloCallback);
The first section of this line, Seam.Component.getInstance("helloAction")
returns a
proxy, or "stub" for our helloAction
component. We can invoke the methods of our component
against this stub, which is exactly what happens with the remainder of the line: sayHello(name,
sayHelloCallback);
.
What this line of code in its completeness does, is invoke the sayHello
method of our
component, passing in name
as a parameter. The second parameter,
sayHelloCallback
isn't a parameter of our component's sayHello
method,
instead it tells the Seam Remoting framework that once it receives the response to our request, it should pass
it to the sayHelloCallback
Javascript method. This callback parameter is entirely optional,
so feel free to leave it out if you're calling a method with a void
return type or if you
don't care about the result.
The sayHelloCallback
method, once receiving the response to our remote request then pops
up an alert message displaying the result of our method call.
The Seam.Component
Javascript object provides a number of client-side methods for
working with your Seam components. The two main methods, newInstance()
and
getInstance()
are documented in the following sections however their main difference is
that newInstance()
will always create a new instance of a component type, and
getInstance()
will return a singleton instance.
Use this method to create a new instance of an entity or Javabean component. The object returned by this method will have the same getter/setter methods as its server-side counterpart, or alternatively if you wish you can access its fields directly. Take the following Seam entity component for example:
@Name("customer")
@Entity
public class Customer implements Serializable
{
private Integer customerId;
private String firstName;
private String lastName;
@Column public Integer getCustomerId() {
return customerId;
}
public void setCustomerId(Integer customerId} {
this.customerId = customerId;
}
@Column public String getFirstName() {
return firstName;
}
public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
this.firstName = firstName;
}
@Column public String getLastName() {
return lastName;
}
public void setLastName(String lastName) {
this.lastName = lastName;
}
}
To create a client-side Customer you would write the following code:
var customer = Seam.Component.newInstance("customer");
Then from here you can set the fields of the customer object:
customer.setFirstName("John");
// Or you can set the fields directly
customer.lastName = "Smith";
The getInstance()
method is used to get a reference to a Seam session bean component
stub, which can then be used to remotely execute methods against your component. This method returns a
singleton for the specified component, so calling it twice in a row with the same component name will return
the same instance of the component.
To continue our example from before, if we have created a new customer
and we now wish
to save it, we would pass it to the saveCustomer()
method of our
customerAction
component:
Seam.Component.getInstance("customerAction").saveCustomer(customer);
Passing an object into this method will return its component name if it is a component, or
null
if it is not.
if (Seam.Component.getComponentName(instance) == "customer")
alert("Customer");
else if (Seam.Component.getComponentName(instance) == "staff")
alert("Staff member");
Most of the client side functionality for Seam Remoting is contained within the
Seam.Remoting
object. While you shouldn't need to directly call most of its methods, there
are a couple of important ones worth mentioning.
If your application contains or uses Javabean classes that aren't Seam components, you may need to create
these types on the client side to pass as parameters into your component method. Use the
createType()
method to create an instance of your type. Pass in the fully qualified Java
class name as a parameter:
var widget = Seam.Remoting.createType("com.acme.widgets.MyWidget");
Seam Remoting also supports the evaluation of EL expressions, which provides another convenient method for retrieving
data from the server. Using the Seam.Remoting.eval()
function, an EL expression can be remotely
evaluated on the server and the resulting value returned to a client-side callback method. This function accepts two
parameters, the first being the EL expression to evaluate, and the second being the callback method to invoke with the
value of the expression. Here's an example:
function customersCallback(customers) {
for (var i = 0; i < customers.length; i++) {
alert("Got customer: " + customers[i].getName());
}
}
Seam.Remoting.eval("#{customers}", customersCallback);
In this example, the expression #{customers}
is evaluated by Seam, and the value of the expression
(in this case a list of Customer objects) is returned to the customersCallback()
method. It is
important to remember that the objects returned this way must have their types imported (via s:remote
)
to be able to work with them in Javascript. So to work with a list of customer
objects,
it is required to import the customer
type:
<s:remote include="customer"/>
In the configuration section above, the interface, or "stub" for our component is imported into our page
either via seam/resource/remoting/interface.js
: or using the s:remote
tag:
<script type="text/javascript"
src="seam/resource/remoting/interface.js?customerAction"></script>
<s:remote include="customerAction"/>
By including this script in our page, the interface definitions for our component, plus any other components or types that are required to execute the methods of our component are generated and made available for the remoting framework to use.
There are two types of client stub that can be generated, "executable" stubs and "type" stubs. Executable stubs are behavioural, and are used to execute methods against your session bean components, while type stubs contain state and represent the types that can be passed in as parameters or returned as a result.
The type of client stub that is generated depends on the type of your Seam component. If the component is a session bean, then an executable stub will be generated, otherwise if it's an entity or JavaBean, then a type stub will be generated. There is one exception to this rule; if your component is a JavaBean (ie it is not a session bean nor an entity bean) and any of its methods are annotated with @WebRemote, then an executable stub will be generated for it instead of a type stub. This allows you to use remoting to call methods of your JavaBean components in a non-EJB environment where you don't have access to session beans.
The Seam Remoting Context contains additional information which is sent and received as part of a remoting request/response cycle. At this stage it only contains the conversation ID but may be expanded in the future.
If you intend on using remote calls within the scope of a conversation then you need to be able to read or
set the conversation ID in the Seam Remoting Context. To read the conversation ID after making a remote request
call Seam.Remoting.getContext().getConversationId()
. To set the conversation ID before making a
request, call Seam.Remoting.getContext().setConversationId()
.
If the conversation ID hasn't been explicitly set with
Seam.Remoting.getContext().setConversationId()
, then it will be automatically assigned the
first valid conversation ID that is returned by any remoting call. If you are working with multiple conversations
within your page, then you may need to explicitly set the conversation ID before each call. If you are working
with just a single conversation, then you don't need to do anything special.
In some circumstances it may be required to make a remote call within the scope of the current view's conversation. To do this, you must explicitly set the conversation ID to that of the view before making the remote call. This small snippet of JavaScript will set the conversation ID that is used for remoting calls to the current view's conversation ID:
Seam.Remoting.getContext().setConversationId( #{conversation.id} );
Seam Remoting allows multiple component calls to be executed within a single request. It is recommended that this feature is used wherever it is appropriate to reduce network traffic.
The method Seam.Remoting.startBatch()
will start a new batch, and any component calls
executed after starting a batch are queued, rather than being sent immediately. When all the desired component
calls have been added to the batch, the Seam.Remoting.executeBatch()
method will send a single
request containing all of the queued calls to the server, where they will be executed in order. After the calls
have been executed, a single response containining all return values will be returned to the client and the
callback functions (if provided) triggered in the same order as execution.
If you start a new batch via the startBatch()
method but then decide you don't want to
send it, the Seam.Remoting.cancelBatch()
method will discard any calls that were queued and
exit the batch mode.
To see an example of a batch being used, take a look at /examples/remoting/chatroom
.
This section describes the support for basic data types. On the server side these values are generally compatible with either their primitive type or their corresponding wrapper class.
There is support for all number types supported by Java. On the client side, number values are always
serialized as their String representation and then on the server side they are converted to the correct
destination type. Conversion into either a primitive or wrapper type is supported for Byte
,
Double
, Float
, Integer
, Long
and
Short
types.
In general these will be either Seam entity or JavaBean components, or some other non-component class. Use
the appropriate method (either Seam.Component.newInstance()
for Seam components or
Seam.Remoting.createType()
for everything else) to create a new instance of the object.
It is important to note that only objects that are created by either of these two methods should be used as parameter values, where the parameter is not one of the other valid types mentioned anywhere else in this section. In some situations you may have a component method where the exact parameter type cannot be determined, such as:
@Name("myAction")
public class MyAction implements MyActionLocal {
public void doSomethingWithObject(Object obj) {
// code
}
}
In this case you might want to pass in an instance of your myWidget
component, however
the interface for myAction
won't include myWidget
as it is not directly
referenced by any of its methods. To get around this, MyWidget
needs to be explicitly
imported:
<s:remote include="myAction,myWidget"/>
This will then allow a myWidget
object to be created with
Seam.Component.newInstance("myWidget")
, which can then be passed to
myAction.doSomethingWithObject()
.
Date values are serialized into a String representation that is accurate to the millisecond. On the client
side, use a Javascript Date object to work with date values. On the server side, use any
java.util.Date
(or descendent, such as java.sql.Date
or
java.sql.Timestamp
class.
On the client side, enums are treated the same as Strings. When setting the value for an enum parameter, simply use the String representation of the enum. Take the following component as an example:
@Name("paintAction")
public class paintAction implements paintLocal {
public enum Color {red, green, blue, yellow, orange, purple};
public void paint(Color color) {
// code
}
}
To call the paint()
method with the color red
, pass the parameter
value as a String literal:
Seam.Component.getInstance("paintAction").paint("red");
The inverse is also true - that is, if a component method returns an enum parameter (or contains an enum field anywhere in the returned object graph) then on the client-side it will be represented as a String.
Bags cover all collection types including arrays, collections, lists, sets, (but excluding Maps - see the next section for those), and are implemented client-side as a Javascript array. When calling a component method that accepts one of these types as a parameter, your parameter should be a Javascript array. If a component method returns one of these types, then the return value will also be a Javascript array. The remoting framework is clever enough on the server side to convert the bag to an appropriate type for the component method call.
As there is no native support for Maps within Javascript, a simple Map implementation is provided with
the Seam Remoting framework. To create a Map which can be used as a parameter to a remote call, create a new
Seam.Remoting.Map
object:
var map = new Seam.Remoting.Map();
This Javascript implementation provides basic methods for working with Maps: size()
,
isEmpty()
, keySet()
, values()
,
get(key)
, put(key, value)
, remove(key)
and
contains(key)
. Each of these methods are equivalent to their Java counterpart. Where the
method returns a collection, such as keySet()
and values()
, a Javascript
Array object will be returned that contains the key or value objects (respectively).
To aid in tracking down bugs, it is possible to enable a debug mode which will display the contents of all
the packets send back and forth between the client and server in a popup window. To enable debug mode, either
execute the setDebug()
method in Javascript:
Seam.Remoting.setDebug(true);
Or configure it via components.xml:
<remoting:remoting debug="true"/>
To turn off debugging, call setDebug(false)
. If you want to write your own messages to the
debug log, call Seam.Remoting.log(message)
.
The default loading message that appears in the top right corner of the screen can be modified, its rendering customised or even turned off completely.
To change the message from the default "Please Wait..." to something different, set the value of
Seam.Remoting.loadingMessage
:
Seam.Remoting.loadingMessage = "Loading...";
To completely suppress the display of the loading message, override the implementation of
displayLoadingMessage()
and hideLoadingMessage()
with functions that
instead do nothing:
// don't display the loading indicator
Seam.Remoting.displayLoadingMessage = function() {};
Seam.Remoting.hideLoadingMessage = function() {};
It is also possible to override the loading indicator to display an animated icon, or anything else that
you want. To do this override the displayLoadingMessage()
and
hideLoadingMessage()
messages with your own implementation:
Seam.Remoting.displayLoadingMessage = function() {
// Write code here to display the indicator
};
Seam.Remoting.hideLoadingMessage = function() {
// Write code here to hide the indicator
};
When a remote method is executed, the result is serialized into an XML response that is returned to the client. This response is then unmarshaled by the client into a Javascript object. For complex types (i.e. Javabeans) that include references to other objects, all of these referenced objects are also serialized as part of the response. These objects may reference other objects, which may reference other objects, and so forth. If left unchecked, this object "graph" could potentially be enormous, depending on what relationships exist between your objects. And as a side issue (besides the potential verbosity of the response), you might also wish to prevent sensitive information from being exposed to the client.
Seam Remoting provides a simple means to "constrain" the object graph, by specifying the
exclude
field of the remote method's @WebRemote
annotation. This field
accepts a String array containing one or more paths specified using dot notation. When invoking a remote method,
the objects in the result's object graph that match these paths are excluded from the serialized result packet.
For all our examples, we'll use the following Widget
class:
@Name("widget")
public class Widget
{
private String value;
private String secret;
private Widget child;
private Map<String,Widget> widgetMap;
private List<Widget> widgetList;
// getters and setters for all fields
}
If your remote method returns an instance of Widget
, but you don't want to expose the
secret
field because it contains sensitive information, you would constrain it like this:
@WebRemote(exclude = {"secret"})
public Widget getWidget();
The value "secret" refers to the secret
field of the returned object. Now, suppose that
we don't care about exposing this particular field to the client. Instead, notice that the
Widget
value that is returned has a field child
that is also a
Widget
. What if we want to hide the child
's secret
value instead? We can do this by using dot notation to specify this field's path within the result's object
graph:
@WebRemote(exclude = {"child.secret"})
public Widget getWidget();
The other place that objects can exist within an object graph are within a Map
or some
kind of collection (List
, Set
, Array
, etc). Collections
are easy, and are treated like any other field. For example, if our Widget
contained a list
of other Widget
s in its widgetList
field, to constrain the
secret
field of the Widget
s in this list the annotation would look like
this:
@WebRemote(exclude = {"widgetList.secret"})
public Widget getWidget();
To constrain a Map
's key or value, the notation is slightly different. Appending
[key]
after the Map
's field name will constrain the
Map
's key object values, while [value]
will constrain the value object
values. The following example demonstrates how the values of the widgetMap
field have their
secret
field constrained:
@WebRemote(exclude = {"widgetMap[value].secret"})
public Widget getWidget();
There is one last notation that can be used to constrain the fields of a type of object no matter where in the result's object graph it appears. This notation uses either the name of the component (if the object is a Seam component) or the fully qualified class name (only if the object is not a Seam component) and is expressed using square brackets:
@WebRemote(exclude = {"[widget].secret"})
public Widget getWidget();
Seam Remoting provides experimental support for JMS Messaging. This section describes the JMS support that is currently implemented, but please note that this may change in the future. It is currently not recommended that this feature is used within a production environment.
Before you can subscribe to a JMS topic, you must first configure a list of the topics that can be
subscribed to by Seam Remoting. List the topics under
org.jboss.seam.remoting.messaging.subscriptionRegistry.allowedTopics
in
seam.properties
, web.xml
or components.xml
.
<remoting:remoting poll-timeout="5" poll-interval="1"/>
The following example demonstrates how to subscribe to a JMS Topic:
function subscriptionCallback(message)
{
if (message instanceof Seam.Remoting.TextMessage)
alert("Received message: " + message.getText());
}
Seam.Remoting.subscribe("topicName", subscriptionCallback);
The Seam.Remoting.subscribe()
method accepts two parameters, the first being the name of
the JMS Topic to subscribe to, the second being the callback function to invoke when a message is received.
There are two types of messages supported, Text messages and Object messages. If you need to test for the
type of message that is passed to your callback function you can use the instanceof
operator
to test whether the message is a Seam.Remoting.TextMessage
or
Seam.Remoting.ObjectMessage
. A TextMessage
contains the text value in
its text
field (or alternatively call getText()
on it), while an
ObjectMessage
contains its object value in its value
field (or call its
getValue()
method).
To unsubscribe from a topic, call Seam.Remoting.unsubscribe()
and pass in the topic
name:
Seam.Remoting.unsubscribe("topicName");
There are two parameters which you can modify to control how polling occurs. The first one is
Seam.Remoting.pollInterval
, which controls how long to wait between subsequent polls for
new messages. This parameter is expressed in seconds, and its default setting is 10.
The second parameter is Seam.Remoting.pollTimeout
, and is also expressed as seconds. It
controls how long a request to the server should wait for a new message before timing out and sending an empty
response. Its default is 0 seconds, which means that when the server is polled, if there are no messages ready
for delivery then an empty response will be immediately returned.
Caution should be used when setting a high pollTimeout
value; each request that has to
wait for a message means that a server thread is tied up until a message is received, or until the request times
out. If many such requests are being served simultaneously, it could mean a large number of threads become tied
up because of this reason.
It is recommended that you set these options via components.xml, however they can be overridden via Javascript if desired. The following example demonstrates how to configure the polling to occur much more aggressively. You should set these parameters to suitable values for your application:
Via components.xml:
<remoting:remoting poll-timeout="5" poll-interval="1"/>
Via JavaScript:
// Only wait 1 second between receiving a poll response and sending the next poll request.
Seam.Remoting.pollInterval = 1;
// Wait up to 5 seconds on the server for new messages
Seam.Remoting.pollTimeout = 5;
For those that prefer to use the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) to develop dynamic AJAX applications, Seam provides an integration layer that allows GWT widgets to interact directly with Seam components.
To use GWT, we assume that you are already familiar with the GWT tools - more information can be found at http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/. This chapter does not attempt to explain how GWT works or how to use it.
There is no special configuration required to use GWT in a Seam application, however the Seam resource servlet must be installed. See Chapter 26, Configuring Seam and packaging Seam applications for details.
The first step in preparing a Seam component to be called via GWT, is to create both synchronous and
asynchronous service interfaces for the methods you wish to call. Both of these interfaces should extend the
GWT interface com.google.gwt.user.client.rpc.RemoteService
:
public interface MyService extends RemoteService {
public String askIt(String question);
}
The asynchronous interface should be identical, except that it also contains an additional
AsyncCallback
parameter for each of the methods it declares:
public interface MyServiceAsync extends RemoteService {
public void askIt(String question, AsyncCallback callback);
}
The asynchronous interface, in this example MyServiceAsync
, will be implemented by GWT and
should never be implemented directly.
The next step, is to create a Seam component that implements the synchronous interface:
@Name("org.jboss.seam.example.remoting.gwt.client.MyService")
public class ServiceImpl implements MyService {
@WebRemote
public String askIt(String question) {
if (!validate(question)) {
throw new IllegalStateException("Hey, this shouldn't happen, I checked on the client, " +
"but its always good to double check.");
}
return "42. Its the real question that you seek now.";
}
public boolean validate(String q) {
ValidationUtility util = new ValidationUtility();
return util.isValid(q);
}
}
The methods that should be made accessible via GWT need to be annotated with the
@WebRemote
annotation, which is required for all web-remoteable methods.
The next step, is to write a method that returns the asynchronous interface to the component. This method can be located inside the widget class, and will be used by the widget to obtain a reference to the asynchronous client stub:
private MyServiceAsync getService() {
String endpointURL = GWT.getModuleBaseURL() + "seam/resource/gwt";
MyServiceAsync svc = (MyServiceAsync) GWT.create(MyService.class);
((ServiceDefTarget) svc).setServiceEntryPoint(endpointURL);
return svc;
}
The final step is to write the widget code that invokes the method on the client stub. The following example creates a simple user interface with a label, text input and a button:
public class AskQuestionWidget extends Composite {
private AbsolutePanel panel = new AbsolutePanel();
public AskQuestionWidget() {
Label lbl = new Label("OK, what do you want to know?");
panel.add(lbl);
final TextBox box = new TextBox();
box.setText("What is the meaning of life?");
panel.add(box);
Button ok = new Button("Ask");
ok.addClickListener(new ClickListener() {
public void onClick(Widget w) {
ValidationUtility valid = new ValidationUtility();
if (!valid.isValid(box.getText())) {
Window.alert("A question has to end with a '?'");
} else {
askServer(box.getText());
}
}
});
panel.add(ok);
initWidget(panel);
}
private void askServer(String text) {
getService().askIt(text, new AsyncCallback() {
public void onFailure(Throwable t) {
Window.alert(t.getMessage());
}
public void onSuccess(Object data) {
Window.alert((String) data);
}
});
}
...
When clicked, the button invokes the askServer()
method passing the contents of the input text (in this
example, validation is also performed to ensure that the input is a valid question). The askServer()
method acquires a reference to the asynchronous client stub (returned by the getService()
method)
and invokes the askIt()
method. The result (or error message if the call fails) is shown in an alert window.
The complete code for this example can be found in the Seam distribution in the examples/remoting/gwt
directory.
For deployment of GWT apps, there is a compile-to-Javascript step (which compacts and obfuscates the code). There is an ant utility which can be used instead of the command line or GUI utility that GWT provides. To use this, you will need to have the ant task jar in your ant classpath, as well as GWT downloaded (which you will need for hosted mode anyway).
Then, in your ant file, place (near the top of your ant file):
<taskdef uri="antlib:de.samaflost.gwttasks"
resource="de/samaflost/gwttasks/antlib.xml"
classpath="./lib/gwttasks.jar"/>
<property file="build.properties"/>
Create a build.properties
file, which has the contents:
gwt.home=/gwt_home_dir
This of course should point to the directory where GWT is installed. Then to use it, create a target:
<!-- the following are are handy utilities for doing GWT development.
To use GWT, you will of course need to download GWT seperately -->
<target name="gwt-compile">
<!-- in this case, we are "re homing" the gwt generated stuff, so in this case
we can only have one GWT module - we are doing this deliberately to keep the URL short -->
<delete>
<fileset dir="view"/>
</delete>
<gwt:compile outDir="build/gwt"
gwtHome="${gwt.home}"
classBase="${gwt.module.name}"
sourceclasspath="src"/>
<copy todir="view">
<fileset dir="build/gwt/${gwt.module.name}"/>
</copy>
</target>
This target when called will compile the GWT application, and copy it to the specified directory (which would be
in the webapp
part of your war - remember GWT generates HTML and Javascript artifacts). You
never edit the resulting code that gwt-compile
generates - you always edit in the GWT source
directory.
Remember that GWT comes with a hosted mode browser - you should be using that if you are developing with GWT. If you aren't using that, and are just compiling it each time, you aren't getting the most out of the toolkit (in fact, if you can't or won't use the hosted mode browser, I would go far as to say you should NOT be using GWT at all - it's that valuable!).
The Spring integration module allows easy migration of Spring-based projects to Seam and allows Spring applications to take advantage of key Seam features like conversations and Seam's more sophisticated persistence context management.
Note! The Spring integration code is included in the jboss-seam-ioc library. This dependency is required for all seam-spring integration techniques covered in this chapter.
Seam's support for Spring provides the ability to:
inject Seam component instances into Spring beans
inject Spring beans into Seam components
turn Spring beans into Seam components
allow Spring beans to live in any Seam context
start a spring WebApplicationContext with a Seam component
Support for Spring PlatformTransactionManagement
provides a Seam managed replacement for Spring's OpenEntityManagerInViewFilter
and OpenSessionInViewFilter
Support for Spring TaskExecutors
to back @Asynchronous
calls
Injecting Seam component instances into Spring beans is accomplished using the
<seam:instance/>
namespace handler. To enable the Seam namespace
handler, the Seam namespace must be added to the Spring beans definition file:
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:seam="http://jboss.com/products/seam/spring-seam"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.0.xsd
http://jboss.com/products/seam/spring-seam
http://jboss.com/products/seam/spring-seam-2.1.xsd">
Now any Seam component may be injected into any Spring bean:
<bean id="someSpringBean" class="SomeSpringBeanClass" scope="prototype">
<property name="someProperty">
<seam:instance name="someComponent"/>
</property>
</bean>
An EL expression may be used instead of a component name:
<bean id="someSpringBean" class="SomeSpringBeanClass" scope="prototype">
<property name="someProperty">
<seam:instance name="#{someExpression}"/>
</property>
</bean>
Seam component instances may even be made available for injection into Spring beans by a Spring bean id.
<seam:instance name="someComponent" id="someSeamComponentInstance"/>
<bean id="someSpringBean" class="SomeSpringBeanClass" scope="prototype">
<property name="someProperty" ref="someSeamComponentInstance">
</bean>
Now for the caveat!
Seam was designed from the ground up to support a stateful component model with multiple contexts. Spring
was not. Unlike Seam bijection, Spring injection does not occur at method invocation time. Instead,
injection happens only when the Spring bean is instantiated. So the instance available when the bean is
instantiated will be the same instance that the bean uses for the entire life of the bean. For example, if a
Seam CONVERSATION
-scoped component instance is directly injected into a singleton Spring
bean, that singleton will hold a reference to the same instance long after the conversation is over! We call
this problem scope impedance. Seam bijection ensures that scope impedance is maintained
naturally as an invocation flows through the system. In Spring, we need to inject a proxy of the Seam
component, and resolve the reference when the proxy is invoked.
The <seam:instance/>
tag lets us automatically proxy the Seam component.
<seam:instance id="seamManagedEM" name="someManagedEMComponent" proxy="true"/>
<bean id="someSpringBean" class="SomeSpringBeanClass">
<property name="entityManager" ref="seamManagedEM">
</bean>
This example shows one way to use a Seam-managed persistence context from a Spring bean. (For a more robust
way to use Seam-managed persistence contexts as a replacement for the Spring
OpenEntityManagerInView
filter see section on
Using a Seam Managed Persistence Context in Spring)
It is even easier to inject Spring beans into Seam component instances. Actually, there are two possible approaches:
inject a Spring bean using an EL expression
make the Spring bean a Seam component
We'll discuss the second option in the next section. The easiest approach is to access the Spring beans via EL.
The Spring DelegatingVariableResolver
is an integration point Spring provides for
integrating Spring with JSF. This VariableResolver
makes all Spring beans available in EL
by their bean id. You'll need to add the DelegatingVariableResolver
to
faces-config.xml
:
<application>
<variable-resolver>
org.springframework.web.jsf.DelegatingVariableResolver
</variable-resolver>
</application>
Then you can inject Spring beans using @In
:
@In("#{bookingService}")
private BookingService bookingService;
The use of Spring beans in EL is not limited to injection. Spring beans may be used anywhere that EL expressions are used in Seam: process and pageflow definitions, working memory assertions, etc...
The <seam:component/>
namespace handler can be used to make any Spring
bean a Seam component. Just place the <seam:component/>
tag within the
declaration of the bean that you wish to be a Seam component:
<bean id="someSpringBean" class="SomeSpringBeanClass" scope="prototype">
<seam:component/>
</bean>
By default, <seam:component/>
will create a STATELESS
Seam component with class and name provided in the bean definition. Occasionally, such as when a
FactoryBean
is used, the class of the Spring bean may not be the class appearing in
the bean definition. In such cases the class
should be explicitly specified. A Seam
component name may be explicitly specified in cases where there is potential for a naming conflict.
The scope
attribute of <seam:component/>
may be used
if you wish the Spring bean to be managed in a particular Seam scope. The Spring bean must be scoped to
prototype
if the Seam scope specified is anything other than
STATELESS
. Pre-existing Spring beans usually have a fundamentally stateless character, so
this attribute is not usually needed.
The Seam integration package also lets you use Seam's contexts as Spring 2.0 style custom scopes. This lets you declare any Spring bean in any of Seam's contexts. However, note once again that Spring's component model was never architected to support statefulness, so please use this feature with great care. In particular, clustering of session or conversation scoped Spring beans is deeply problematic, and care must be taken when injecting a bean or component from a wider scope into a bean of a narrower scope.
By specifying <seam:configure-scopes/>
once in a Spring bean factory
configuration, all of the Seam scopes will be available to Spring beans as custom scopes. To associate a
Spring bean with a particular Seam scope, specify the Seam scope in the scope
attribute
of the bean definition.
<!-- Only needs to be specified once per bean factory-->
<seam:configure-scopes/>
...
<bean id="someSpringBean" class="SomeSpringBeanClass" scope="seam.CONVERSATION"/>
The prefix of the scope name may be changed by specifying the prefix
attribute in the
configure-scopes
definition. (The default prefix is seam.
)
By default an instance of a Spring Component registered in this way is not automatically created when
referenced using @In
. To have an instance auto-created you must either specify @In(create=true)
at the injection point to identify a specific bean to be auto created or you can use the default-auto-create
attribute of configure-scopes
to make all spring beans who use a seam scope auto created.
Seam-scoped Spring beans defined this way can be injected into other Spring beans without the use of
<seam:instance/>
. However, care must be taken to ensure scope impedance
is maintained. The normal approach used in Spring is to specify
<aop:scoped-proxy/>
in the bean definition. However, Seam-scoped Spring
beans are not compatible with <aop:scoped-proxy/>
. So
if you need to inject a Seam-scoped Spring bean into a singleton,
<seam:instance/>
must be used:
<bean id="someSpringBean" class="SomeSpringBeanClass" scope="seam.CONVERSATION"/>
...
<bean id="someSingleton">
<property name="someSeamScopedSpringBean">
<seam:instance name="someSpringBean" proxy="true"/>
</property>
</bean>
Spring provides an extensible transaction management abstraction with support for many transaction APIs (JPA, Hibernate, JDO, and JTA) Spring also provides tight integrations with many application server TransactionManagers such as Websphere and Weblogic. Spring transaction management exposes support for many advanced features such as nested transactions and supports full Java EE transaction propagation rules like REQUIRES_NEW and NOT_SUPPORTED. For more information see the spring documentation here.
To configure Seam to use Spring transactions enable the SpringTransaction component like so:
<spring:spring-transaction platform-transaction-manager="#{transactionManager}"/>
The spring:spring-transaction
component will utilize Springs transaction synchronization
capabilities for synchronization callbacks.
One of the most powerful features of Seam is its conversation scope and the ability to
have an EntityManager open for the life of a conversation. This eliminates many
of the problems associated with the detachment and re-attachment of entities as well as mitigates occurrences
of the dreaded LazyInitializationException
. Spring does not provide a way to manage
an persistence context beyond the scope of a single web request
(OpenEntityManagerInViewFilter
). So, it would be nice if Spring developers
could have access to a Seam managed persistence context using all of the same tools Spring provides
for integration with JPA(e.g. PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor
,
JpaTemplate
, etc.)
Seam provides a way for Spring to access a Seam managed persistence context with Spring's provided JPA tools bringing conversation scoped persistence context capabilities to Spring applications.
This integration work provides the following functionality:
transparent access to a Seam managed persistence context using Spring provided tools
access to Seam conversation scoped persistence contexts in a non web request (e.g. asynchronous quartz job)
allows for using Seam managed persistence contexts with Spring managed transactions (will need to flush the persistence context manually)
Spring's persistence context propagation model allows only one open EntityManager per EntityManagerFactory so the Seam integration works by wrapping an EntityManagerFactory around a Seam managed persistence context.
<bean id="seamEntityManagerFactory" class="org.jboss.seam.ioc.spring.SeamManagedEntityManagerFactoryBean">
<property name="persistenceContextName" value="entityManager"/>
</bean>
Where 'persistenceContextName' is the name of the Seam managed persistence context component. By default this EntityManagerFactory has a unitName equal to the Seam component name or in this case 'entityManager'. If you wish to provide a different unitName you can do so by providing a persistenceUnitName like so:
<bean id="seamEntityManagerFactory" class="org.jboss.seam.ioc.spring.SeamManagedEntityManagerFactoryBean">
<property name="persistenceContextName" value="entityManager"/>
<property name="persistenceUnitName" value="bookingDatabase:extended"/>
</bean>
This EntityManagerFactory can then be used in any Spring provided tools. For example,
using Spring's PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor
is the exact same as before.
<bean class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor"/>
If you define your real EntityManagerFactory in Spring but wish to use a Seam managed persistence context
you can tell the PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor
which persistenctUnitName you wish
to use by default by specifying the defaultPersistenceUnitName
property.
The applicationContext.xml
might look like:
<bean id="entityManagerFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalEntityManagerFactoryBean">
<property name="persistenceUnitName" value="bookingDatabase"/>
</bean>
<bean id="seamEntityManagerFactory" class="org.jboss.seam.ioc.spring.SeamManagedEntityManagerFactoryBean">
<property name="persistenceContextName" value="entityManager"/>
<property name="persistenceUnitName" value="bookingDatabase:extended"/>
</bean>
<bean class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor">
<property name="defaultPersistenceUnitName" value="bookingDatabase:extended"/>
</bean>
The component.xml
might look like:
<persistence:managed-persistence-context name="entityManager"
auto-create="true" entity-manager-factory="#{entityManagerFactory}"/>
JpaTemplate
and JpaDaoSupport
are configured the same way for a
Seam managed persistence context as they would be fore a Seam managed persistence context.
<bean id="bookingService" class="org.jboss.seam.example.spring.BookingService">
<property name="entityManagerFactory" ref="seamEntityManagerFactory"/>
</bean>
The Seam Spring integration also provides support for complete access to a Seam managed Hibernate session using spring's tools. This integration is very similar to the JPA integration.
Like Spring's JPA integration spring's propagation model allows only one open EntityManager per EntityManagerFactory per transaction??? to be available to spring tools. So, the Seam Session integration works by wrapping a proxy SessionFactory around a Seam managed Hibernate session context.
<bean id="seamSessionFactory" class="org.jboss.seam.ioc.spring.SeamManagedSessionFactoryBean">
<property name="sessionName" value="hibernateSession"/>
</bean>
Where 'sessionName' is the name of the persistence:managed-hibernate-session
component.
This SessionFactory can then be used in any Spring provided tools. The integration
also provides support for calls to SessionFactory.getCurrentInstance()
as long as you call
getCurrentInstance() on the SeamManagedSessionFactory
.
Although it is possible to use the Spring ContextLoaderListener
to start your
application's Spring ApplicationContext there are a couple of limitations.
the Spring ApplicationContext must be started after the
SeamListener
it can be tricky starting a Spring ApplicationContext for use in Seam unit and integration tests
To overcome these two limitations the Spring integration includes a Seam component that will start a
Spring ApplicationContext. To use this Seam component place the
<spring:context-loader/>
definition in the components.xml
.
Specify your Spring context file location in the config-locations
attribute. If more
than one config file is needed you can place them in the nested
<spring:config-locations/>
element following standard
components.xml
multi value practices.
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:spring="http://jboss.com/products/seam/spring"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components
http://jboss.com/products/seam/components-2.1.xsd
http://jboss.com/products/seam/spring
http://jboss.com/products/seam/spring-2.1.xsd">
<spring:context-loader config-locations="/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml"/>
</components>
Spring provides an abstraction for executing code asynchronously called a TaskExecutor
.
The Spring Seam integration allows for the use of a Spring TaskExecutor
for executing
immediate @Asynchronous
method calls. To enable this functionality install the
SpringTaskExecutorDispatchor
and provide a spring bean defined taskExecutor like so:
<spring:task-executor-dispatcher task-executor="#{springThreadPoolTaskExecutor}"/>
Because a Spring TaskExecutor
does not support scheduling of an asynchronous event
a fallback Seam Dispatcher
can be provided to handle scheduled asynchronous event like so:
<!-- Install a ThreadPoolDispatcher to handle scheduled asynchronous event -->
<core:thread-pool-dispatcher name="threadPoolDispatcher"/>
<!-- Install the SpringDispatcher as default -->
<spring:task-executor-dispatcher task-executor="#{springThreadPoolTaskExecutor}" schedule-dispatcher="#{threadPoolDispatcher}"/>
Full text search engines like Apache Lucene™ are a very powerful technology that bring full text and efficient queries to applications. Hibernate Search, which uses Apache Lucene under the covers, indexes your domain model with the addition of a few annotations, takes care of the database / index synchronization and returns regular managed objects that are matched by full text queries. Keep in mind, thought, that there are mismatches that arise when dealing with an object domain model over a text index (keeping the index up to date, mismatch between the index structure and the domain model, and querying mismatch). But the benefits of speed and efficiency far outweigh these limitations.
Hibernate Search has been designed to integrates nicely and as naturally as possible with JPA and Hibernate. As a natural extension, JBoss Seam provides an Hibernate Search integration.
Please refer to the Hibernate Search documentation for information specific to the Hibernate Search project.
Hibernate Search is configured either in the
META-INF/persistence.xml
or
hibernate.cfg.xml
file.
Hibernate Search configuration has sensible defaults for most configuration parameters. Here is a minimal persistence unit configuration to get started.
<persistence-unit name="sample">
<jta-data-source>java:/DefaultDS</jta-data-source>
<properties>
[...]
<!-- use a file system based index -->
<property name="hibernate.search.default.directory_provider"
value="org.hibernate.search.store.FSDirectoryProvider"/>
<!-- directory where the indexes will be stored -->
<property name="hibernate.search.default.indexBase"
value="/Users/prod/apps/dvdstore/dvdindexes"/>
</properties>
</persistence-unit>
If you plan to target Hibernate Annotations or EntityManager 3.2.x (embedded into JBoss AS 4.2.GA), you also need to configure the appropriate event listeners.
<persistence-unit name="sample">
<jta-data-source>java:/DefaultDS</jta-data-source>
<properties>
[...]
<!-- use a file system based index -->
<property name="hibernate.search.default.directory_provider"
value="org.hibernate.search.store.FSDirectoryProvider"/>
<!-- directory where the indexes will be stored -->
<property name="hibernate.search.default.indexBase"
value="/Users/prod/apps/dvdstore/dvdindexes"/>
<property name="hibernate.ejb.event.post-insert"
value="org.hibernate.search.event.FullTextIndexEventListener"/>
<property name="hibernate.ejb.event.post-update"
value="org.hibernate.search.event.FullTextIndexEventListener"/>
<property name="hibernate.ejb.event.post-delete"
value="org.hibernate.search.event.FullTextIndexEventListener"/>
</properties>
</persistence-unit>
This step is no longer necessary if Hibernate Annotation or EntityManager 3.3.x are used.
In addition to the configuration file, the following jars have to be deployed:
hibernate-search.jar
hibernate-commons-annotations.jar
lucene-core.jar
If you deploy those in a EAR, don't forget to update
application.xml
Hibernate Search uses annotations to map entities to a Lucene index, check the reference documentation for more informations.
Hibernate Search is fully integrated with the API and semantic of
JPA / Hibernate. Switching from a HQL or Criteria based query requires
just a few lines of code. The main API the application interacts with is
the FullTextSession
API (subclass of Hibernate's
Session
).
When Hibernate Search is present, JBoss Seam injects a
FullTextSession
.
@Stateful
@Name("search")
public class FullTextSearchAction implements FullTextSearch, Serializable {
@In FullTextSession session;
public void search(String searchString) {
org.apache.lucene.query.Query luceneQuery = getLuceneQuery();
org.hibernate.Query query session.createFullTextQuery(luceneQuery, Product.class);
searchResults = query
.setMaxResults(pageSize + 1)
.setFirstResult(pageSize * currentPage)
.list();
}
[...]
}
FullTextSession
extends
org.hibernate.Session
so that it can be used as a
regular Hibernate Session
If the Java Persistence API is used, a smoother integration is proposed.
@Stateful
@Name("search")
public class FullTextSearchAction implements FullTextSearch, Serializable {
@In FullTextEntityManager em;
public void search(String searchString) {
org.apache.lucene.query.Query luceneQuery = getLuceneQuery();
javax.persistence.Query query = em.createFullTextQuery(luceneQuery, Product.class);
searchResults = query
.setMaxResults(pageSize + 1)
.setFirstResult(pageSize * currentPage)
.getResultList();
}
[...]
}
When Hibernate Search is present, a
FulltextEntityManager
is injected.
FullTextEntityManager
extends
EntityManager
with search specific methods, the
same way FullTextSession
extends
Session
.
When an EJB 3.0 Session or Message Driven Bean injection is used (i.e.
via the @PersistenceContext annotation), it is not possible to replace the
EntityManager
interface by the
FullTextEntityManager
interface in the declaration
statement. However, the implementation injected will be a
FullTextEntityManager
implementation: downcasting
is then possible.
@Stateful
@Name("search")
public class FullTextSearchAction implements FullTextSearch, Serializable {
@PersistenceContext EntityManager em;
public void search(String searchString) {
org.apache.lucene.query.Query luceneQuery = getLuceneQuery();
FullTextEntityManager ftEm = (FullTextEntityManager) em;
javax.persistence.Query query = ftEm.createFullTextQuery(luceneQuery, Product.class);
searchResults = query
.setMaxResults(pageSize + 1)
.setFirstResult(pageSize * currentPage)
.getResultList();
}
[...]
}
For people accustomed to Hibernate Search out of Seam, note that
using Search.createFullTextSession
is not
necessary.
Check the DVDStore or the blog examples of the JBoss Seam distribution for a concrete use of Hibernate Search.
Configuration is a very boring topic and an extremely tedious pastime. Unfortunately, several lines of XML are required to integrate Seam into your JSF implementation and servlet container. There's no need to be too put off by the following sections; you'll never need to type any of this stuff yourself, since you can just copy and paste from the example applications!
First, let's look at the basic configuration that is needed whenever we use Seam with JSF.
Of course, you need a faces servlet!
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.seam</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
(You can adjust the URL pattern to suit your taste.)
In addition, Seam requires the following entry in your web.xml
file:
<listener>
<listener-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamListener</listener-class>
</listener>
This listener is responsible for bootstrapping Seam, and for destroying session and application contexts.
Some JSF implementations have a broken implementation of server-side state saving that interferes
with Seam's conversation propagation. If you have problems with conversation propagation during form
submissions, try switching to client-side state saving. You'll need this in web.xml
:
<context-param>
<param-name>javax.faces.STATE_SAVING_METHOD</param-name>
<param-value>client</param-value>
</context-param>
If you want follow our advice and use facelets instead of JSP, add the following lines to
faces-config.xml
:
<application>
<view-handler>com.sun.facelets.FaceletViewHandler</view-handler>
</application>
And the following lines to web.xml
:
<context-param>
<param-name>javax.faces.DEFAULT_SUFFIX</param-name>
<param-value>.xhtml</param-value>
</context-param>
The Seam Resource Servlet provides resources used by Seam Remoting, captchas (see the security
chapter) and some JSF UI controls. Configuring the Seam Resource Servlet requires the following entry in
web.xml
:
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Seam Resource Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamResourceServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Seam Resource Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/seam/resource/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
Seam doesn't need any servlet filters for basic operation. However, there are several features which
depend upon the use of filters. To make things easier, Seam lets you add and configure
servlet filters just like you would configure other built-in Seam components. To take advantage of this
feature, we must first install a master filter in web.xml
:
<filter>
<filter-name>Seam Filter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>Seam Filter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
The Seam master filter must be the first filter specified in
web.xml
. This ensures it is run first.
The Seam filters share a number of common attributes, you can set these in
components.xml
in addition to any parameters discussed
below:
url-pattern
— Used to specify which requests are filtered, the
default is all requests. url-pattern
is a Tomcat style pattern
which allows a wildcard suffix.
regex-url-pattern
— Used to specify which requests are filtered, the
default is all requests. regex-url-pattern
is a true regular expression
match for request path. It's worth noting when composing the regular expression that the request path does not contain
the server or request context path.
disabled
— Used to disable a built in filter.
Adding the master filter enables the following built-in filters.
This filter provides the exception mapping functionality in pages.xml
(almost
all applications will need this). It also takes care of rolling back uncommitted transactions when
uncaught exceptions occur. (According to the Java EE specification, the web container should do this
automatically, but we've found that this behavior cannot be relied upon in all application servers.
And it is certainly not required of plain servlet engines like Tomcat.)
By default, the exception handling filter will process all requests, however this behavior may be
adjusted by adding a <web:exception-filter>
entry to
components.xml
, as shown in this example:
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:web="http://jboss.com/products/seam/web">
<web:exception-filter url-pattern="*.seam"/>
</components>
This filter allows Seam to propagate the conversation context across browser redirects. It intercepts any browser redirects and adds a request parameter that specifies the Seam conversation identifier.
The redirect filter will process all requests by default, but this behavior can also be adjusted
in components.xml
:
<web:redirect-filter url-pattern="*.seam"/>
This feature is necessary when using the Seam file upload JSF control. It detects multipart form
requests and processes them according to the multipart/form-data specification (RFC-2388). To
override the default settings, add the following entry to components.xml
:
<web:multipart-filter create-temp-files="true"
max-request-size="1000000"
url-pattern="*.seam"/>
create-temp-files
— If set to true
, uploaded
files are written to a temporary file (instead of held in memory). This may be an important
consideration if large file uploads are expected. The default setting is
false
.
max-request-size
— If the size of a file upload request
(determined by reading the Content-Length
header in the request) exceeds
this value, the request will be aborted. The default setting is 0 (no size limit).
Sets the character encoding of submitted form data.
This filter is not installed by default and requires an entry in
components.xml
to enable it:
<web:character-encoding-filter encoding="UTF-16"
override-client="true"
url-pattern="*.seam"/>
encoding
— The encoding to use.
override-client
— If this is set to true
,
the request encoding will be set to whatever is specified by encoding
no
matter whether the request already specifies an encoding or not. If set to
false
, the request encoding will only be set if the request doesn't
already specify an encoding. The default setting is false
.
If RichFaces is used in your project, Seam will install the
RichFaces Ajax filter for you, making sure to install it
before all other built-in filters. You don't need to install
the RichFaces Ajax filter in web.xml
yourself.
The RichFaces Ajax filter is only installed if the RichFaces jars are present in your project.
To override the default settings, add the following entry to components.xml
.
The options are the same as those specified in the RichFaces Developer Guide:
<web:ajax4jsf-filter force-parser="true"
enable-cache="true"
log4j-init-file="custom-log4j.xml"
url-pattern="*.seam"/>
force-parser
— forces all JSF pages to be validated by
Richfaces's XML syntax checker. If false
, only AJAX responses are
validated and converted to well-formed XML. Setting force-parser
to
false
improves performance, but can provide visual artifacts on AJAX
updates.
enable-cache
— enables caching of framework-generated resources
(e.g. javascript, CSS, images, etc). When developing custom javascript or CSS, setting to
true prevents the browser from caching the resource.
log4j-init-file
— is used to setup per-application logging. A
path, relative to web application context, to the log4j.xml configuration file should be
provided.
This filter adds the authenticated user name to the log4j mapped diagnostic context so that it can be included in formatted log output if desired, by adding %X{username} to the pattern.
By default, the logging filter will process all requests, however this behavior may be
adjusted by adding a <web:logging-filter>
entry to
components.xml
, as shown in this example:
<components xmlns="http://jboss.com/products/seam/components"
xmlns:web="http://jboss.com/products/seam/web">
<web:logging-filter url-pattern="*.seam"/>
</components>
Requests sent direct to some servlet other than the JSF servlet are not processed through the JSF lifecycle, so Seam provides a servlet filter that can be applied to any other servlet that needs access to Seam components.
This filter allows custom servlets to interact with the Seam contexts. It sets up the Seam
contexts at the beginning of each request, and tears them down at the end of the request. You should
make sure that this filter is never applied to the JSF
FacesServlet
. Seam uses the phase listener for context management in a JSF
request.
This filter is not installed by default and requires an entry in
components.xml
to enable it:
<web:context-filter url-pattern="/media/*"/>
The context filter expects to find the conversation id of any conversation context in a request
parameter named conversationId
. You are responsible for ensuring that it gets
sent in the request.
You are also responsible for ensuring propagation of any new conversation id back to the client.
Seam exposes the conversation id as a property of the built in component
conversation
.
Seam can install your filters for you, allowing you to specify where in the
chain your filter is placed (the servlet specification doesn't provide a well defined order if you
specify your filters in a web.xml
). Just add the @Filter
annotation to your Seam component (which must implement javax.servlet.Filter
):
@Startup
@Scope(APPLICATION)
@Name("org.jboss.seam.web.multipartFilter")
@BypassInterceptors
@Filter(within="org.jboss.seam.web.ajax4jsfFilter")
public class MultipartFilter extends AbstractFilter {
Adding the @Startup
annotation means thar the component is available during
Seam startup; bijection isn't available here (@BypassInterceptors
); and the filter
should be further down the chain than the RichFaces filter
(@Filter(within="org.jboss.seam.web.ajax4jsfFilter")
).
We need to apply the SeamInterceptor
to our Seam components. The simplest way to
do this across an entire application is to add the following interceptor configuration in
ejb-jar.xml
:
<interceptors>
<interceptor>
<interceptor-class>org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class>
</interceptor>
</interceptors>
<assembly-descriptor>
<interceptor-binding>
<ejb-name>*</ejb-name>
<interceptor-class>org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class>
</interceptor-binding>
</assembly-descriptor>
Seam needs to know where to go to find session beans in JNDI. One way to do this is specify the
@JndiName
annotation on every session bean Seam component. However, this is quite
tedious. A better approach is to specify a pattern that Seam can use to calculate the JNDI name from the
EJB name. Unfortunately, there is no standard mapping to global JNDI defined in the EJB3 specification,
so this mapping is vendor-specific. We usually specify this option in components.xml
.
For JBoss AS, the following pattern is correct:
<core:init jndi-name="myEarName/#{ejbName}/local" />
Where myEarName
is the name of the EAR in which the bean is deployed.
Outside the context of an EAR (when using the JBoss Embeddable EJB3 container), the following pattern is the one to use:
<core:init jndi-name="#{ejbName}/local" />
You'll have to experiment to find the right setting for other application servers. Note that some servers (such as GlassFish) require you to specify JNDI names for all EJB components explicitly (and tediously). In this case, you can pick your own pattern ;-)
In an EJB3 environment, we recommend the use of a special built-in component for transaction management,
that is fully aware of container transactions, and can correctly process transaction success events
registered with the Events
component. If you don't add this line to your
components.xml
file, Seam won't know when container-managed transactions end:
<transaction:ejb-transaction/>
There is one final item you need to know about. You must place a seam.properties
,
META-INF/seam.properties
or META-INF/components.xml
file in
any archive in which your Seam components are deployed (even an empty properties file will do). At
startup, Seam will scan any archives with seam.properties
files for seam components.
In a web archive (WAR) file, you must place a seam.properties
file in the
WEB-INF/classes
directory if you have any Seam components included here.
That's why all the Seam examples have an empty seam.properties
file. You can't
just delete this file and expect everything to still work!
You might think this is silly and what kind of idiot framework designers would make an empty file
affect the behavior of their software?? Well, this is a workaround for a limitation of the
JVM—if we didn't use this mechanism, our next best option would be to force you to list every
component explicitly in components.xml
, just like some other competing frameworks do!
I think you'll like our way better.
Seam comes packaged and configured with Hibernate as the default JPA provider.
If you require using a different JPA provider you must tell seam
about it.
Configuration of the JPA provider will be easier in the future and will not require configuration changes, unless you are adding a custom persistence provider implementation.
Telling seam about a different JPA provider can be be done in one of two ways:
Update your application's components.xml
so that the generic PersistenceProvider
takes
precedence over the hibernate version. Simply add the following
to the file:
<component name="org.jboss.seam.persistence.persistenceProvider"
class="org.jboss.seam.persistence.PersistenceProvider"
scope="stateless">
</component>
If you want to take advantage of your JPA provider's
non-standard features you will need to write you own implementation of
the PersistenceProvider
. Use
HibernatePersistenceProvider
as a starting
point (don't forget to give back to the community :). Then you
will need to tell seam
to use it as before.
<component name="org.jboss.seam.persistence.persistenceProvider"
class="org.your.package.YourPersistenceProvider">
</component>
All that is left is updating the persistence.xml
file with the correct provider class, and what ever properties your
provider needs. Don't forget to package your new provider's jar files in the
application if they are needed.
If you're running in a Java EE 5 environment, this is all the configuration required to start using Seam!
Once you've packaged all this stuff together into an EAR, the archive structure will look something like this:
my-application.ear/ jboss-seam.jar lib/ jboss-el.jar META-INF/ MANIFEST.MF application.xml my-application.war/ META-INF/ MANIFEST.MF WEB-INF/ web.xml components.xml faces-config.xml lib/ jsf-facelets.jar jboss-seam-ui.jar login.jsp register.jsp ... my-application.jar/ META-INF/ MANIFEST.MF persistence.xml seam.properties org/ jboss/ myapplication/ User.class Login.class LoginBean.class Register.class RegisterBean.class ...
You should declare jboss-seam.jar
as an ejb module in META-INF/application.xml
;
jboss-el.jar
should be placed in the EAR's lib directory (putting it in the EAR classpath.
If you want to use jBPM or Drools, you must include the needed jars in the EAR's lib directory.
If you want to use facelets (our recommendation), you must include
jsf-facelets.jar
in the WEB-INF/lib
directory of the WAR.
If you want to use the Seam tag library (most Seam applications do), you must include
jboss-seam-ui.jar
in the WEB-INF/lib
directory of the WAR. If
you want to use the PDF or email tag libraries, you need to put jboss-seam-pdf.jar
or
jboss-seam-mail.jar
in WEB-INF/lib
.
If you want to use the Seam debug page (only works for applications using facelets), you must include
jboss-seam-debug.jar
in the WEB-INF/lib
directory of the WAR.
Seam ships with several example applications that are deployable in any Java EE container that supports EJB 3.0.
I really wish that was all there was to say on the topic of configuration but unfortunately we're only about a third of the way there. If you're too overwhelmed by all this tedious configuration stuff, feel free to skip over the rest of this section and come back to it later.
Seam is useful even if you're not yet ready to take the plunge into EJB 3.0. In this case you would use Hibernate3 or JPA instead of EJB 3.0 persistence, and plain JavaBeans instead of session beans. You'll miss out on some of the nice features of session beans but it will be very easy to migrate to EJB 3.0 when you're ready and, in the meantime, you'll be able to take advantage of Seam's unique declarative state management architecture.
Seam JavaBean components do not provide declarative transaction demarcation like session beans do. You
could manage your transactions manually using the JTA
UserTransaction
or declaratively using Seam's @Transactional
annotation. But most applications will just use Seam managed transactions when using Hibernate with
JavaBeans.
The Seam distribution includes a version of the booking example application that uses Hibernate3 and JavaBeans instead of EJB3, and another version that uses JPA and JavaBeans. These example applications are ready to deploy into any J2EE application server.
Seam will bootstrap a Hibernate SessionFactory
from your
hibernate.cfg.xml
file if you install a built-in component:
<persistence:hibernate-session-factory name="hibernateSessionFactory"/>
You will also need to configure a managed session if you want a Seam managed
Hibernate Session
to be available via injection.
<persistence:managed-hibernate-session name="hibernateSession"
session-factory="#{hibernateSessionFactory}"/>
Seam will bootstrap a JPA EntityManagerFactory
from your
persistence.xml
file if you install this built-in component:
<persistence:entity-manager-factory name="entityManagerFactory"/>
You will also need to configure a managed persistence context if you want a
Seam managed JPA EntityManager
to be available via injection.
<persistence:managed-persistence-context name="entityManager"
entity-manager-factory="#{entityManagerFactory}"/>
We can package our application as a WAR, in the following structure:
my-application.war/ META-INF/ MANIFEST.MF WEB-INF/ web.xml components.xml faces-config.xml lib/ jboss-seam.jar jboss-seam-ui.jar jboss-el.jar jsf-facelets.jar hibernate3.jar hibernate-annotations.jar hibernate-validator.jar ... my-application.jar/ META-INF/ MANIFEST.MF seam.properties hibernate.cfg.xml org/ jboss/ myapplication/ User.class Login.class Register.class ... login.jsp register.jsp ...
If we want to deploy Hibernate in a non-EE environment like Tomcat or TestNG, we need to do a little bit more work.
It is possible to use Seam completely outside of an EE environment. In this case, you need to tell Seam
how to manage transactions, since there will be no JTA available. If you're using JPA, you can tell
Seam to use JPA resource-local transactions, ie. EntityTransaction
, like so:
<transaction:entity-transaction entity-manager="#{entityManager}"/>
If you're using Hibernate, you can tell Seam to use the Hibernate transaction API like this:
<transaction:hibernate-transaction session="#{session}"/>
Of course, you'll also need to define a datasource.
A better alternative is to use JBoss Embedded to get access to the EE APIs.
JBoss Embedded lets you run EJB3 components outside the context of the Java EE 5 application server. This is especially, but not only, useful for testing.
The Seam booking example application includes a TestNG integration test suite that runs on JBoss Embedded
via SeamTest
.
The booking example application may even be deployed to Tomcat.
Embedded JBoss must by installed into Tomcat for Seam applications to run correctly on it. Embedded JBoss only runs on JDK 1.5 (not JDK 1.6). Embedded JBoss can be downloaded here. The process for installing Embedded JBoss into Tomcat 6 is quite simple. First, you should copy the Embedded JBoss JARs and configuration files into Tomcat.
Copy all files and directories under the Embedded JBoss bootstrap
and
lib
directories, except for the jndi.properties
file,
into the Tomcat lib
directory.
Remove the annotations-api.jar
file from the Tomcat lib
directory.
Next, two configuration files need to be updated to add Embedded JBoss-specific functionality.
Add the Embedded JBoss listener to conf/server.xml
. It should appear after
all other listeners in the file.
<Listener className="org.jboss.embedded.tomcat.EmbeddedJBossBootstrapListener"/>
WAR file scanning should be enabled by adding a listener to
conf/context.xml
.
<Listener className="org.jboss.embedded.tomcat.WebinfScanner"/>
For more configuration options, please see the Embedded JBoss Tomcat integration wiki entry.
The archive structure of a WAR-based deployment on an servlet engine like Tomcat will look something like this:
my-application.war/ META-INF/ MANIFEST.MF WEB-INF/ web.xml components.xml faces-config.xml lib/ jboss-seam.jar jboss-seam-ui.jar jboss-el.jar jsf-facelets.jar jsf-api.jar jsf-impl.jar ... my-application.jar/ META-INF/ MANIFEST.MF persistence.xml seam.properties org/ jboss/ myapplication/ User.class Login.class LoginBean.class Register.class RegisterBean.class ... login.jsp register.jsp ...
Most of the Seam example applications may be deployed to Tomcat by running ant
deploy.tomcat
.
Seam's jBPM integration is not installed by default, so you'll need to enable jBPM by installing a
built-in component. You'll also need to explicitly list your process and pageflow definitions. In
components.xml
:
<bpm:jbpm>
<bpm:pageflow-definitions>
<value>createDocument.jpdl.xml</value>
<value>editDocument.jpdl.xml</value>
<value>approveDocument.jpdl.xml</value>
</bpm:pageflow-definitions>
<bpm:process-definitions>
<value>documentLifecycle.jpdl.xml</value>
</bpm:process-definitions>
</bpm:jbpm>
No further special configuration is needed if you only have pageflows. If you do have business process
definitions, you need to provide a jBPM configuration, and a Hibernate configuration for jBPM. The Seam DVD
Store demo includes example jbpm.cfg.xml
and hibernate.cfg.xml
files
that will work with Seam:
<jbpm-configuration>
<jbpm-context>
<service name="persistence">
<factory>
<bean class="org.jbpm.persistence.db.DbPersistenceServiceFactory">
<field name="isTransactionEnabled"><false/></field>
</bean>
</factory>
</service>
<service name="tx" factory="org.jbpm.tx.TxServiceFactory" />
<service name="message" factory="org.jbpm.msg.db.DbMessageServiceFactory" />
<service name="scheduler" factory="org.jbpm.scheduler.db.DbSchedulerServiceFactory" />
<service name="logging" factory="org.jbpm.logging.db.DbLoggingServiceFactory" />
<service name="authentication"
factory="org.jbpm.security.authentication.DefaultAuthenticationServiceFactory" />
</jbpm-context>
</jbpm-configuration>
The most important thing to notice here is that jBPM transaction control is disabled. Seam or EJB3 should control the JTA transactions.
There is not yet any well-defined packaging format for jBPM configuration and process/pageflow definition files. In the Seam examples we've decided to simply package all these files into the root of the EAR. In future, we will probably design some other standard packaging format. So the EAR looks something like this:
my-application.ear/ jboss-seam.jar lib/ jboss-el.jar jbpm-3.1.jar META-INF/ MANIFEST.MF application.xml my-application.war/ META-INF/ MANIFEST.MF WEB-INF/ web.xml components.xml faces-config.xml lib/ jsf-facelets.jar jboss-seam-ui.jar login.jsp register.jsp ... my-application.jar/ META-INF/ MANIFEST.MF persistence.xml seam.properties org/ jboss/ myapplication/ User.class Login.class LoginBean.class Register.class RegisterBean.class ... jbpm.cfg.xml hibernate.cfg.xml createDocument.jpdl.xml editDocument.jpdl.xml approveDocument.jpdl.xml documentLifecycle.jpdl.xml
It is very important that the timeout for Stateful Session Beans is set higher than the timeout for HTTP
Sessions, otherwise SFSB's may time out before the user's HTTP session has ended. JBoss Application Server
has a default session bean timeout of 30 minutes, which is configured in
server/default/conf/standardjboss.xml
(replace default with your
own configuration).
The default SFSB timeout can be adjusted by modifying the value of max-bean-life
in
the LRUStatefulContextCachePolicy
cache configuration:
<container-cache-conf>
<cache-policy>org.jboss.ejb.plugins.LRUStatefulContextCachePolicy</cache-policy>
<cache-policy-conf>
<min-capacity>50</min-capacity>
<max-capacity>1000000</max-capacity>
<remover-period>1800</remover-period>
<!-- SFSB timeout in seconds; 1800 seconds == 30 minutes -->
<max-bean-life>1800</max-bean-life>
<overager-period>300</overager-period>
<max-bean-age>600</max-bean-age>
<resizer-period>400</resizer-period>
<max-cache-miss-period>60</max-cache-miss-period>
<min-cache-miss-period>1</min-cache-miss-period>
<cache-load-factor>0.75</cache-load-factor>
</cache-policy-conf>
</container-cache-conf>
The default HTTP session timeout can be modified in
server/default/deploy/jbossweb-tomcat55.sar/conf/web.xml
for JBoss 4.0.x, or in
server/default/deploy/jboss-web.deployer/conf/web.xml
for JBoss 4.2.x. The following
entry in this file controls the default session timeout for all web applications:
<session-config>
<!-- HTTP Session timeout, in minutes -->
<session-timeout>30</session-timeout>
</session-config>
To override this value for your own application, simply include this entry in your application's own
web.xml
.
If you want to run your Seam application in a portlet, take a look at the JBoss Portlet Bridge, an implementation of JSR-301 that supports JSF within a portlet, with extensions for Seam and RichFaces. See http://labs.jboss.com/portletbridge for more.
When you write a Seam application, you'll use a lot of annotations. Seam lets you use annotations to achieve a declarative style of programming. Most of the annotations you'll use are defined by the EJB 3.0 specification. The annotations for data validation are defined by the Hibernate Validator package. Finally, Seam defines its own set of annotations, which we'll describe in this chapter.
All of these annotations are defined in the package
org.jboss.seam.annotations
.
The first group of annotations lets you define a Seam component. These annotations appear on the component class.
@Name
@Name("componentName")
Defines the Seam component name for a class. This annotation is required for all Seam components.
@Scope
@Scope(ScopeType.CONVERSATION)
Defines the default context of the component. The possible
values are defined by the ScopeType
enumeration: EVENT, PAGE, CONVERSATION, SESSION, BUSINESS_PROCESS, APPLICATION, STATELESS
.
When no scope is explicitly specified, the default depends
upon the component type. For stateless session beans, the
default is STATELESS
. For entity beans and
stateful session beans, the default is
CONVERSATION
. For JavaBeans, the default is
EVENT
.
@Role
@Role(name="roleName", scope=ScopeType.SESSION)
Allows a Seam component to be bound to multiple contexts
variables. The @Name
/@Scope
annotations define a "default role". Each @Role
annotation defines an additional role.
name
— the context variable
name.
scope
— the context variable
scope. When no scope is explicitly specified, the
default depends upon the component type, as above.
@Roles
@Roles({
@Role(name="user", scope=ScopeType.CONVERSATION),
@Role(name="currentUser", scope=ScopeType.SESSION)
})
Allows specification of multiple additional roles.
@BypassInterceptors
@BypassInterceptors
Disables Seam all interceptors on a particular component or method of a component.
@JndiName
@JndiName("my/jndi/name")
Specifies the JNDI name that Seam will use to look up the EJB
component. If no JNDI name is explicitly specified, Seam will
use the JNDI pattern specified by
org.jboss.seam.core.init.jndiPattern
.
@Conversational
@Conversational
Specifies that a conversation scope component is conversational, meaning that no method of the component may be called unless a long-running conversation is active.
@PerNestedConversation
@PerNestedConversation
Limits the scope of a CONVERSATION-scoped component to just the parent conversation in which it was instantiated. The component instance will not be visible to nested child conversations, which will get their own instance.
Warning: this is ill-defined, since it implies that a component will be visible for some part of a request cycle, and invisible after that. It is not recommended that applications use this feature!
@Startup
@Scope(APPLICATION) @Startup(depends="org.jboss.seam.bpm.jbpm")
Specifies that an application scope component is started immediately at initialization time. This is mainly used for certain built-in components that bootstrap critical infrastructure such as JNDI, datasources, etc.
@Scope(SESSION) @Startup
Specifies that a session scope component is started immediately at session creation time.
depends
— specifies that the
named components must be started first, if they are
installed.
@Install
@Install(false)
Specifies whether or not a component should be installed by
default. The lack of an @Install
annotation
indicates a component should be installed.
@Install(dependencies="org.jboss.seam.bpm.jbpm")
Specifies that a component should only be stalled if the components listed as dependencies are also installed.
@Install(genericDependencies=ManagedQueueSender.class)
Specifies that a component should only be installed if a component that is implemented by a certain class is installed. This is useful when the dependency doesn't have a single well-known name.
@Install(classDependencies="org.hibernate.Session")
Specifies that a component should only be installed if the named class is in the classpath.
@Install(precedence=BUILT_IN)
Specifies the precedence of the component. If multiple components with the same name exist, the one with the higher precedence will be installed. The defined precendence values are (in ascending order):
BUILT_IN
— Precedence of all
built-in Seam components
FRAMEWORK
— Precedence to use
for components of frameworks which extend Seam
APPLICATION
— Predence of
application components (the default precedence)
DEPLOYMENT
— Precedence to use
for components which override application components in
a particular deployment
MOCK
— Precedence for mock
objects used in testing
@Synchronized
@Synchronized(timeout=1000)
Specifies that a component is accessed concurrently by multiple clients, and that Seam should serialize requests. If a request is not able to obtain its lock on the component in the given timeout period, an exception will be raised.
@ReadOnly
@ReadOnly
Specifies that a JavaBean component or component method does not require state replication at the end of the invocation.
@AutoCreate
@AutoCreate
Specifies that a component will be automatically created, even
if the client does not specify create=true
.
The next two annotations control bijection. These attributes occur on component instance variables or property accessor methods.
@In
@In
Specifies that a component attribute is to be injected from a context variable at the beginning of each component invocation. If the context variable is null, an exception will be thrown.
@In(required=false)
Specifies that a component attribute is to be injected from a context variable at the beginning of each component invocation. The context variable may be null.
@In(create=true)
Specifies that a component attribute is to be injected from a context variable at the beginning of each component invocation. If the context variable is null, an instance of the component is instantiated by Seam.
@In(value="contextVariableName")
Specifies the name of the context variable explicitly, instead of using the annotated instance variable name.
@In(value="#{customer.addresses['shipping']}")
Specifies that a component attribute is to be injected by evaluating a JSF EL expression at the beginning of each component invocation.
value
— specifies the name of
the context variable. Default to the name of the
component attribute. Alternatively, specifies a JSF EL
expression, surrounded by #{...}
.
create
— specifies that Seam
should instantiate the component with the same name as
the context variable if the context variable is
undefined (null) in all contexts. Default to false.
required
— specifies Seam
should throw an exception if the context variable is
undefined in all contexts.
@Out
@Out
Specifies that a component attribute that is a Seam component is to be outjected to its context variable at the end of the invocation. If the attribute is null, an exception is thrown.
@Out(required=false)
Specifies that a component attribute that is a Seam component is to be outjected to its context variable at the end of the invocation. The attribute may be null.
@Out(scope=ScopeType.SESSION)
Specifies that a component attribute that is not a Seam component type is to be outjected to a specific scope at the end of the invocation.
Alternatively, if no scope is explicitly specified, the scope
of the component with the @Out
attribute is
used (or the EVENT
scope if the component
is stateless).
@Out(value="contextVariableName")
Specifies the name of the context variable explicitly, instead of using the annotated instance variable name.
value
— specifies the name of
the context variable. Default to the name of the
component attribute.
required
— specifies Seam
should throw an exception if the component attribute is
null during outjection.
Note that it is quite common for these annotations to occur together, for example:
@In(create=true) @Out private User currentUser;
The next annotation supports the manager component pattern, where a Seam component that manages the lifecycle of an instance of some other class that is to be injected. It appears on a component getter method.
The next annotation supports the factory component pattern, where a Seam component is responsible for initializing the value of a context variable. This is especially useful for initializing any state needed for rendering the response to a non-faces request. It appears on a component method.
@Factory
@Factory("processInstance") public void createProcessInstance() { ... }
Specifies that the method of the component is used to
initialize the value of the named context variable, when the
context variable has no value. This style is used with methods
that return void
.
@Factory("processInstance", scope=CONVERSATION) public ProcessInstance createProcessInstance() { ... }
Specifies that the method returns a value that Seam should use
to initialize the value of the named context variable, when
the context variable has no value. This style is used with
methods that return a value. If no scope is explicitly
specified, the scope of the component with the
@Factory
method is used (unless the
component is stateless, in which case the EVENT
context is used).
value
— specifies the name of
the context variable. If the method is a getter method,
default to the JavaBeans property name.
scope
— specifies the scope
that Seam should bind the returned value to. Only
meaningful for factory methods which return a value.
autoCreate
— specifies that
this factory method should be automatically called
whenever the variable is asked for, even if
@In
does not specify
create=true
.
This annotation lets you inject a Log
:
The last annotation lets you inject a request parameter value:
These annotations allow a component to react to its own lifecycle events. They occur on methods of the component. There may be only one of each per component class.
@Create
@Create
Specifies that the method should be called when an instance of the component is instantiated by Seam. Note that create methods are only supported for JavaBeans and stateful session beans.
@Destroy
@Destroy
Specifies that the method should be called when the context ends and its context variables are destroyed. Note that destroy methods are only supported for JavaBeans and stateful session beans.
Destroy methods should be used only for cleanup. Seam catches, logs and swallows any exception that propagates out of a destroy method.
@Observer
@Observer("somethingChanged")
Specifies that the method should be called when a component-driven event of the specified type occurs.
@Observer(value="somethingChanged",create=false)
Specifies that the method should be called when an event of the specified type occurs but that an instance should not be created if one doesn't exist. If an instance does not exist and create is false, the event will not be observed. The default value for create is true.
These annotations provide declarative conversation demarcation. They appear on methods of Seam components, usually action listener methods.
Every web request has a conversation context associated with it. Most
of these conversations end at the end of the request. If you want a
conversation that span multiple requests, you must "promote" the
current conversation to a long-running conversation
by calling a method marked with @Begin
.
@Begin
@Begin
Specifies that a long-running conversation begins when this method returns a non-null outcome without exception.
@Begin(join=true)
Specifies that if a long-running conversation is already in progress, the conversation context is simply propagated.
@Begin(nested=true)
Specifies that if a long-running conversation is already in
progress, a new nested conversation
context begins. The nested conversation will end when the next
@End
is encountered, and the outer
conversation will resume. It is perfectly legal for multiple
nested conversations to exist concurrently in the same outer
conversation.
@Begin(pageflow="process definition name")
Specifies a jBPM process definition name that defines the pageflow for this conversation.
@Begin(flushMode=FlushModeType.MANUAL)
Specify the flush mode of any Seam-managed persistence
contexts. flushMode=FlushModeType.MANUAL
supports the use of atomic conversations
where all write operations are queued in the conversation
context until an explicit call to flush()
(which usually occurs at the end of the conversation).
join
— determines the behavior
when a long-running conversation is already in progress.
If true
, the context is propagated.
If false
, an exception is thrown.
Default to false
. This setting is
ignored when nested=true
is
specified.
nested
— specifies that a
nested conversation should be started if a long-running
conversation is already in progress.
flushMode
— set the flush mode
of any Seam-managed Hibernate sessions or JPA
persistence contexts that are created during this
conversation.
pageflow
— a process definition
name of a jBPM process definition deployed via
org.jboss.seam.bpm.jbpm.pageflowDefinitions.
@End
@End
Specifies that a long-running conversation ends when this method returns a non-null outcome without exception.
beforeRedirect
— by default,
the conversation will not actually be destroyed until
after any redirect has occurred. Setting
beforeRedirect=true
specifies that
the conversation should be destroyed at the end of
the current request, and that the redirect will be
processed in a new temporary conversation context.
@StartTask
@StartTask
"Starts" a jBPM task. Specifies that a long-running conversation begins when this method returns a non-null outcome without exception. This conversation is associated with the jBPM task specified in the named request parameter. Within the context of this conversation, a business process context is also defined, for the business process instance of the task instance.
The jBPM TaskInstance
will be
available in a request context variable named
taskInstance
. The jPBM
ProcessInstance
will be available
in a request context variable named
processInstance
. (Of course, these
objects are available for injection via
@In
.)
taskIdParameter
— the name
of a request parameter which holds the id of the
task. Default to "taskId"
, which
is also the default used by the Seam
taskList
JSF component.
flushMode
— set the flush
mode of any Seam-managed Hibernate sessions or JPA
persistence contexts that are created during this
conversation.
@BeginTask
@BeginTask
Resumes work on an incomplete jBPM task. Specifies that a long-running conversation begins when this method returns a non-null outcome without exception. This conversation is associated with the jBPM task specified in the named request parameter. Within the context of this conversation, a business process context is also defined, for the business process instance of the task instance.
The jBPM org.jbpm.taskmgmt.exe.TaskInstance
will be available in a request context variable named
taskInstance
. The jPBM
org.jbpm.graph.exe.ProcessInstance
will be available in a request context variable named
processInstance
.
taskIdParameter
— the name
of a request parameter which holds the id of the
task. Default to "taskId"
, which
is also the default used by the Seam
taskList
JSF component.
flushMode
— set the flush
mode of any Seam-managed Hibernate sessions or JPA
persistence contexts that are created during this
conversation.
@EndTask
@EndTask
"Ends" a jBPM task. Specifies that a long-running
conversation ends when this method returns a non-null
outcome, and that the current task is complete. Triggers a
jBPM transition. The actual transition triggered will be
the default transition unless the application has called
Transition.setName()
on the built-in
component named transition
.
@EndTask(transition="transitionName")
Triggers the given jBPM transition.
transition
— the name of the
jBPM transition to be triggered when ending the task.
Defaults to the default transition.
beforeRedirect
— by default,
the conversation will not actually be destroyed until
after any redirect has occurred. Setting
beforeRedirect=true
specifies that
the conversation should be destroyed at the end of
the current request, and that the redirect will be
processed in a new temporary conversation context.
@CreateProcess
@CreateProcess(definition="process definition name")
Creates a new jBPM process instance when the method returns
a non-null outcome without exception. The
ProcessInstance
object will be available
in a context variable named
processInstance
.
definition
— the name of the
jBPM process definition deployed via
org.jboss.seam.bpm.jbpm.processDefinitions
.
@ResumeProcess
@ResumeProcess(processIdParameter="processId")
Re-enters the scope of an existing jBPM process instance
when the method returns a non-null outcome without
exception. The ProcessInstance
object
will be available in a context variable named
processInstance
.
processIdParameter
— the name
a request parameter holding the process id. Default to
"processId"
.
@Transition
@Transition("cancel")
Marks a method as signalling a transition in the current jBPM process instance whenever the method returns a non-null result.
Seam provides an annotation that lets you force a rollback of the JTA transaction for certain action listener outcomes.
@Transactional
@Transactional
Specifies that a JavaBean component should have a similar transactional behavior to the default behavior of a session bean component. ie. method invocations should take place in a transaction, and if no transaction exists when the method is called, a transaction will be started just for that method. This annotation may be applied at either class or method level.
Do not use this annotation on EJB 3.0 components,
use @TransactionAttribute
!
@ApplicationException
@ApplicationException
Synonym for javax.ejb.ApplicationException, for use in a pre Java EE 5 environment. Applied to an exception to denote that it is an application exception and should be reported to the client directly(i.e., unwrapped).
Do not use this annotation on EJB 3.0 components,
use @javax.ejb.ApplicationException
instead.
rollback
— by default
false
, if true
this exception should set the transaction to rollback
only
end
— by default
false
, if true
this
exception should end the current long-running
conversation
@Interceptors
@Interceptors({DVDInterceptor, CDInterceptor})
Synonym for javax.interceptors.Interceptors, for use in a pre Java EE 5 environment. Note that this may only be used as a meta-annotation. Declares an ordered list of interceptors for a class or method.
Do not use this annotations on EJB 3.0 components,
use @javax.interceptor.Interceptors
instead.
These annotations are mostly useful for JavaBean Seam components. If you use EJB 3.0 components, you should use the standard Java EE5 annotation.
These annotations let you specify how Seam should handle an exception that propagates out of a Seam component.
@Redirect
@Redirect(viewId="error.jsp")
Specifies that the annotated exception causes a browser redirect to a specified view id.
viewId
— specifies the JSF view
id to redirect to. You can use EL here.
message
— a message to be
displayed, default to the exception message.
end
— specifies that the
long-running conversation should end, default to
false
.
@HttpError
@HttpError(errorCode=404)
Specifies that the annotated exception causes a HTTP error to be sent.
errorCode
— the HTTP error
code, default to 500
.
message
— a message to be sent
with the HTTP error, default to the exception message.
end
— specifies that the
long-running conversation should end, default to
false
.
Seam Remoting requires that the local interface of a session bean be annotated with the following annotation:
The following annotations appear on Seam interceptor classes.
Please refer to the documentation for the EJB 3.0 specification for information about the annotations required for EJB interceptor definition.
@Interceptor
@Interceptor(stateless=true)
Specifies that this interceptor is stateless and Seam may optimize replication.
@Interceptor(type=CLIENT)
Specifies that this interceptor is a "client-side" interceptor that is called before the EJB container.
@Interceptor(around={SomeInterceptor.class, OtherInterceptor.class})
Specifies that this interceptor is positioned higher in the stack than the given interceptors.
@Interceptor(within={SomeInterceptor.class, OtherInterceptor.class})
Specifies that this interceptor is positioned deeper in the stack than the given interceptors.
The following annotations are used to declare an asynchronous method, for example:
@Asynchronous public void scheduleAlert(Alert alert, @Expiration Date date) { ... }
@Asynchronous public Timer scheduleAlerts(Alert alert,
@Expiration Date date,
@IntervalDuration long interval) { ... }
@Asynchronous
@Asynchronous
Specifies that the method call is processed asynchronously.
@Duration
@Duration
Specifies that a parameter of the asynchronous call is the duration before the call is processed (or first processed for recurring calls).
@Expiration
@Expiration
Specifies that a parameter of the asynchronous call is the datetime at which the call is processed (or first processed for recurring calls).
@IntervalDuration
@IntervalDuration
Specifies that an asynchronous method call recurs, and that the annotationed parameter is duration between recurrences.
The following annotations make working with JSF easier.
@Converter
Allows a Seam component to act as a JSF converter. The
annotated class must be a Seam component, and must
implement javax.faces.convert.Converter
.
id
— the JSF converter id.
Defaults to the component name.
forClass
— if specified,
register this component as the default converter for
a type.
@Validator
Allows a Seam component to act as a JSF validator. The
annotated class must be a Seam component, and must
implement javax.faces.validator.Validator
.
id
— the JSF validator id.
Defaults to the component name.
The following annotations make it easy to implement clickable lists backed by a stateful session bean. They appear on attributes.
@DataModel
@DataModel("variableName")
Outjects a property of type List
,
Map
, Set
or
Object[]
as a JSF
DataModel
into the scope of the owning
component (or the EVENT
scope if the
owning component is STATELESS
). In the
case of Map
, each row of the
DataModel
is a
Map.Entry
.
value
— name of the
conversation context variable. Default to the
attribute name.
scope
— if
scope=ScopeType.PAGE
is explicitly
specified, the DataModel
will be
kept in the PAGE
context.
@DataModelSelection
@DataModelSelection
Injects the selected value from the JSF
DataModel
(this is the element of the
underlying collection, or the map value). If only one
@DataModel
attribute is defined for a
component, the selected value from that
DataModel
will be injected. Otherwise,
the component name of each
@DataModel
must be specified in the
value attribute for each
@DataModelSelection
.
If PAGE
scope is specified on the
associated @DataModel
, then, in addition
to the DataModel Selection being injected, the associated
DataModel will also be injected. In this case, if the
property annotated with @DataModel
is
a getter method, then a setter method for the property must
also be part of the Business API of the containing Seam
Component.
value
— name of the
conversation context variable. Not needed if there is
exactly one @DataModel
in the
component.
@DataModelSelectionIndex
@DataModelSelectionIndex
Exposes the selection index of the JSF
DataModel
as an attribute of the
component (this is the row number of the underlying
collection, or the map key). If only one
@DataModel
attribute is defined for a
component, the selected value from that
DataModel
will be injected. Otherwise,
the component name of each @DataModel
must be specified in the value attribute for each
@DataModelSelectionIndex
.
value
— name of the
conversation context variable. Not needed if there
is exactly one @DataModel
in the
component.
These meta-annotations make it possible to implement similar
functionality to @DataModel
and
@DataModelSelection
for other datastructures apart
from lists.
This annotation provides a mechanism for declaring information about a set of components that are packaged together. It can be applied to any Java package.
@Namespace
@Namespace(value="http://jboss.com/products/seam/example/seampay")
Specifies that components in the current package are associated
with the given namespace. The declared namespace can be used as
an XML namespace in a components.xml
file to
simplify application configuration.
@Namespace(value="http://jboss.com/products/seam/core", prefix="org.jboss.seam.core")
Specifies a namespace to associate with a given package.
Additionally, it specifies a component name prefix to be
applied to component names specified in the XML file. For
example, an XML element named init
that is
associated with this namespace would be understood to actually
refer to a component named
org.jboss.seam.core.init
.
These annotations allow you to integrate your Seam components with the servlet container.
@Filter
Use the Seam component (which implements
javax.servlet.Filter
) annotated with
@Filter
as a servlet filter. It will be
executed by Seam's master filter.
@Filter(around={"seamComponent", "otherSeamComponent"})
Specifies that this filter is positioned higher in the stack than the given filters.
@Filter(within={"seamComponent", "otherSeamComponent"})
Specifies that this filter is positioned deeper in the stack than the given filters.
This chapter describes Seam's built-in components, and their
configuration properties. The built-in components will be created even if they
are not listed in your components.xml
file, but if you need to
override default properties or specify more than one component of a certain type,
components.xml
is used.
Note that you can replace any of the built in components with
your own implementations simply by specifying the name of one
of the built in components on your own class using
@Name
.
Note also that even though all the built in components use a
qualified name, most of them are aliased to unqualified names by
default. These aliases specify auto-create="true"
,
so you do not need to use create=true
when
injecting built-in components by their unqualified name.
The first set of built in components exist purely to support injection of various contextual objects. For example, the following component instance variable would have the Seam session context object injected:
@In private Context sessionContext;
org.jboss.seam.core.contexts
Component that provides access to Seam Context objects, for
example org.jboss.seam.core.contexts.sessionContext['user']
.
org.jboss.seam.faces.facesContext
Manager component for the FacesContext
context
object (not a true Seam context)
All of these components are always installed.
These components are merely useful.
org.jboss.seam.faces.facesMessages
Allows faces success messages to propagate across a browser redirect.
add(FacesMessage facesMessage)
— add
a faces message, which will be displayed during the next render
response phase that occurs in the current conversation.
add(String messageTemplate)
— add
a faces message, rendered from the given message template
which may contain EL expressions.
add(Severity severity, String messageTemplate)
—
add a faces message, rendered from the given message template
which may contain EL expressions.
addFromResourceBundle(String key)
—
add a faces message, rendered from a message template defined
in the Seam resource bundle which may contain EL expressions.
addFromResourceBundle(Severity severity, String key)
—
add a faces message, rendered from a message template defined
in the Seam resource bundle which may contain EL expressions.
clear()
— clear all messages.
org.jboss.seam.faces.redirect
A convenient API for performing redirects with parameters (this is especially useful for bookmarkable search results screens).
redirect.viewId
— the JSF view id
to redirect to.
redirect.conversationPropagationEnabled
—
determines whether the conversation will propagate across the
redirect.
redirect.parameters
— a map of
request parameter name to value, to be passed in the redirect
request.
execute()
— perform the redirect
immediately.
captureCurrentRequest()
— stores
the view id and request parameters of the current GET
request (in the conversation context), for later use
by calling execute()
.
org.jboss.seam.faces.httpError
A convenient API for sending HTTP errors.
org.jboss.seam.core.events
An API for raising events that can be observed via
@Observer
methods, or method
bindings in components.xml
.
raiseEvent(String type)
— raise
an event of a particular type and distribute to all
observers.
raiseAsynchronousEvent(String type)
—
raise an event to be processed asynchronously by the EJB3
timer service.
raiseTimedEvent(String type, ....)
—
schedule an event to be processed asynchronously by the EJB3
timer service.
addListener(String type, String methodBinding)
— add an observer for a particular event type.
org.jboss.seam.core.interpolator
An API for interpolating the values of JSF EL expressions in Strings.
interpolate(String template)
— scan
the template for JSF EL expressions of the form #{...}
and replace them with their evaluated values.
org.jboss.seam.core.expressions
An API for creating value and method bindings.
createValueBinding(String expression)
— create
a value binding object.
createMethodBinding(String expression)
— create
a method binding object.
org.jboss.seam.core.pojoCache
Manager component for a JBoss Cache PojoCache
instance.
pojoCache.cfgResourceName
— the name of
the configuration file. Default to treecache.xml
.
All of these components are always installed.
The next group of components make it easy to build internationalized user interfaces using Seam.
org.jboss.seam.core.locale
The Seam locale.
org.jboss.seam.international.timezone
The Seam timezone. The timezone is session scoped.
org.jboss.seam.core.resourceBundle
The Seam resource bundle. The resource bundle is stateless. The Seam resource bundle performs a depth-first search for keys in a list of Java resource bundles.
org.jboss.seam.core.resourceLoader
The resource loader provides access to application resources and resource bundles.
resourceLoader.bundleNames
— the names of
the Java resource bundles to search when the Seam resource bundle is
used. Default to messages
.
org.jboss.seam.international.localeSelector
Supports selection of the locale either at configuration time, or by the user at runtime.
select()
— select the specified locale.
localeSelector.locale
— the actual
java.util.Locale
.
localeSelector.localeString
— the
stringified representation of the locale.
localeSelector.language
— the language for
the specified locale.
localeSelector.country
— the country for
the specified locale.
localeSelector.variant
— the variant for
the specified locale.
localeSelector.supportedLocales
— a list
of SelectItem
s representing the supported locales
listed in jsf-config.xml
.
localeSelector.cookieEnabled
— specifies
that the locale selection should be persisted via a cookie.
org.jboss.seam.international.timezoneSelector
Supports selection of the timezone either at configuration time, or by the user at runtime.
select()
— select the specified locale.
timezoneSelector.timezone
— the actual
java.util.TimeZone
.
timezoneSelector.timeZoneId
— the
stringified representation of the timezone.
timezoneSelector.cookieEnabled
— specifies
that the timezone selection should be persisted via a cookie.
org.jboss.seam.international.messages
A map containing internationalized messages rendered from message templates defined in the Seam resource bundle.
org.jboss.seam.theme.themeSelector
Supports selection of the theme either at configuration time, or by the user at runtime.
select()
— select the specified theme.
theme.availableThemes
— the list of
defined themes.
themeSelector.theme
— the selected
theme.
themeSelector.themes
— a list
of SelectItem
s representing the defined
themes.
themeSelector.cookieEnabled
— specifies
that the theme selection should be persisted via a cookie.
org.jboss.seam.theme.theme
A map containing theme entries.
All of these components are always installed.
The next group of components allow control of conversations by the application or user interface.
org.jboss.seam.core.conversation
API for application control of attributes of the current Seam conversation.
getId()
— returns the current conversation id
isNested()
— is the current conversation a
nested conversation?
isLongRunning()
— is the current conversation a
long-running conversation?
getId()
— returns the current conversation id
getParentId()
— returns the conversation id
of the parent conversation
getRootId()
— returns the conversation id
of the root conversation
setTimeout(int timeout)
— sets the timeout
for the current conversation
setViewId(String outcome)
— sets the view id
to be used when switching back to the current conversation from the
conversation switcher, conversation list, or breadcrumbs.
setDescription(String description)
— sets the
description of the current conversation to be displayed in the
conversation switcher, conversation list, or breadcrumbs.
redirect()
— redirect to the last well-defined
view id for this conversation (useful after login challenges).
leave()
— exit the scope of this conversation,
without actually ending the conversation.
begin()
— begin a long-running conversation
(equivalent to @Begin
).
beginPageflow(String pageflowName)
— begin a
long-running conversation with a pageflow (equivalent to
@Begin(pageflow="...")
).
end()
— end a long-running conversation
(equivalent to @End
).
pop()
— pop the conversation stack, returning
to the parent conversation.
root()
— return to the root conversation of
the conversation stack.
changeFlushMode(FlushModeType flushMode)
— change
the flush mode of the conversation.
org.jboss.seam.core.conversationList
Manager component for the conversation list.
org.jboss.seam.core.conversationStack
Manager component for the conversation stack (breadcrumbs).
org.jboss.seam.faces.switcher
The conversation switcher.
All of these components are always installed.
These components are for use with jBPM.
org.jboss.seam.pageflow.pageflow
API control of Seam pageflows.
isInProcess()
— returns true
if there is currently a pageflow in process
getProcessInstance()
— returns jBPM
ProcessInstance
for the current pageflow
begin(String pageflowName)
— begin a pageflow
in the context of the current conversation
reposition(String nodeName)
— reposition the
current pageflow to a particular node
org.jboss.seam.bpm.actor
API for application control of attributes of the jBPM actor associated with the current session.
setId(String actorId)
— sets the jBPM
actor id of the current user.
getGroupActorIds()
— returns a
Set
to which jBPM actor ids for the
current users groups may be added.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.transition
API for application control of the jBPM transition for the current task.
setName(String transitionName)
— sets the
jBPM transition name to be used when the current task is ended
via @EndTask
.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.businessProcess
API for programmatic control of the association between the conversation and business process.
businessProcess.taskId
— the id of the task
associated with the current conversation.
businessProcess.processId
— the id of the process
associated with the current conversation.
businessProcess.hasCurrentTask()
— is a task
instance associated with the current conversation?
businessProcess.hasCurrentProcess()
— is a process
instance associated with the current conversation.
createProcess(String name)
— create an
instance of the named process definition and associate it with
the current conversation.
startTask()
— start the task
associated with the current conversation.
endTask(String transitionName)
— end the task
associated with the current conversation.
resumeTask(Long id)
— associate the task with
the given id with the current conversation.
resumeProcess(Long id)
— associate the process
with the given id with the current conversation.
transition(String transitionName)
— trigger
the transition.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.taskInstance
Manager component for the jBPM TaskInstance
.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.processInstance
Manager component for the jBPM ProcessInstance
.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.jbpmContext
Manager component for an event-scoped JbpmContext
.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.taskInstanceList
Manager component for the jBPM task list.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.pooledTaskInstanceList
Manager component for the jBPM pooled task list.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.taskInstanceListForType
Manager component for the jBPM task lists.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.pooledTask
Action handler for pooled task assignment.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.processInstanceFinder
Manager for the process instance task list.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.processInstanceList
The process instance task list.
All of these components are installed whenever the component
org.jboss.seam.bpm.jbpm
is installed.
These components relate to web-tier security.
org.jboss.seam.web.userPrincipal
Manager component for the current user Principal
.
org.jboss.seam.web.isUserInRole
Allows JSF pages to choose to render a control, depending upon
the roles available to the current principal.
<h:commandButton value="edit" rendered="#{isUserInRole['admin']}"/>
.
These components are for use with managed TopicPublisher
s
and QueueSender
s (see below).
org.jboss.seam.jms.queueSession
Manager component for a JMS QueueSession
.
org.jboss.seam.jms.topicSession
Manager component for a JMS TopicSession
.
These components are for use with Seam's Email support
org.jboss.seam.mail.mailSession
Manager component for a JavaMail Session
. The
session can be either looked up in the JNDI context (by setting the
sessionJndiName
property) or it can created from the
configuration options in which case the host
is
mandatory.
org.jboss.seam.mail.mailSession.host
— the hostname of the SMTP server to use
org.jboss.seam.mail.mailSession.port
— the port of the SMTP server to use
org.jboss.seam.mail.mailSession.username
— the username to use to connect to the SMTP server.
org.jboss.seam.mail.mailSession.password
— the password to use to connect to the SMTP server
org.jboss.seam.mail.mailSession.debug
— enable JavaMail debugging (very verbose)
org.jboss.seam.mail.mailSession.ssl
— enable SSL connection to SMTP (will default to port 465)
org.jboss.seam.mail.mailSession.tls
— by default true, enable TLS support in the mail session
org.jboss.seam.mail.mailSession.sessionJndiName
— name under which a javax.mail.Session is bound to JNDI.
If supplied, all other properties will be ignored.
These components provide critical platform infrastructure. You can install a component
which isn't installed by default by setting install="true"
on the
component in components.xml
.
org.jboss.seam.core.init
Initialization settings for Seam. Always installed.
org.jboss.seam.core.init.jndiPattern
— the JNDI
pattern used for looking up session beans
org.jboss.seam.core.init.debug
— enable Seam
debug mode. This should be set to false when in production. You may see
errors if the system is placed under any load and debug is enabled.
org.jboss.seam.core.init.clientSideConversations
—
if set to true
, Seam will save conversation context
variables in the client instead of in the HttpSession
.
org.jboss.seam.core.init.userTransactionName
— the JNDI
name to use when looking up the JTA UserTransaction
object.
org.jboss.seam.core.manager
Internal component for Seam page and conversation context management. Always installed.
org.jboss.seam.core.manager.conversationTimeout
—
the conversation context timeout in milliseconds.
org.jboss.seam.core.manager.concurrentRequestTimeout
—
maximum wait time for a thread attempting to gain a lock on the long-running
conversation context.
org.jboss.seam.core.manager.conversationIdParameter
—
the request parameter used to propagate the conversation id, default
to conversationId
.
org.jboss.seam.core.manager.conversationIsLongRunningParameter
—
the request parameter used to propagate information about whether the conversation
is long-running, default to conversationIsLongRunning
.
org.jboss.seam.navigation.pages
Internal component for Seam workspace management. Always installed.
org.jboss.seam.navigation.pages.noConversationViewId
— global setting for the view id to redirect to when a
conversation entry is not found on the server side.
org.jboss.seam.navigation.pages.loginViewId
— global setting for the view id to redirect to when an
unauthenticated user tries to access a protected view.
org.jboss.seam.navigation.pages.httpPort
— global setting for the port to use when the http scheme
is requested.
org.jboss.seam.navigation.pages.httpsPort
— global setting for the port to use when the https scheme
is requested.
org.jboss.seam.navigation.pages.resources
— a list of resources to search for pages.xml
style resources. Defaults to WEB-INF/pages.xml
.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.jbpm
Bootstraps a JbpmConfiguration
. Install as class
org.jboss.seam.bpm.Jbpm
.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.jbpm.processDefinitions
—
a list of resource names of jPDL files to be used for orchestration
of business processes.
org.jboss.seam.bpm.jbpm.pageflowDefinitions
—
a list of resource names of jPDL files to be used for orchestration
of conversation page flows.
org.jboss.seam.core.conversationEntries
Internal session-scoped component recording the active long-running conversations between requests.
org.jboss.seam.faces.facesPage
Internal page-scoped component recording the conversation context associated with a page.
org.jboss.seam.persistence.persistenceContexts
Internal component recording the persistence contexts which were used in the current conversation.
org.jboss.seam.jms.queueConnection
Manages a JMS QueueConnection
. Installed whenever
managed managed QueueSender
is installed.
org.jboss.seam.jms.queueConnection.queueConnectionFactoryJndiName
— the JNDI name of a JMS QueueConnectionFactory
. Default
to UIL2ConnectionFactory
org.jboss.seam.jms.topicConnection
Manages a JMS TopicConnection
. Installed whenever
managed managed TopicPublisher
is installed.
org.jboss.seam.jms.topicConnection.topicConnectionFactoryJndiName
— the JNDI name of a JMS TopicConnectionFactory
. Default
to UIL2ConnectionFactory
org.jboss.seam.persistence.persistenceProvider
Abstraction layer for non-standardized features of JPA provider.
org.jboss.seam.core.validators
Caches instances of Hibernate Validator ClassValidator
.
org.jboss.seam.faces.validation
Allows the application to determine whether validation failed or was successful.
org.jboss.seam.debug.introspector
Support for the Seam Debug Page.
org.jboss.seam.debug.contexts
Support for the Seam Debug Page.
org.jboss.seam.exception.exceptions
Internal component for exception handling.
org.jboss.seam.transaction.transaction
API for controlling transactions and abstracting the underlying transaction management implementation behind a JTA-compatible interface.
org.jboss.seam.faces.safeActions
Decides if an action expression in an incoming URL is safe. This is done by checking that the action expression exists in the view.
These components don't fit into
org.jboss.seam.async.dispatcher
Dispatcher stateless session bean for asynchronous methods.
org.jboss.seam.core.image
Image manipulation and interrogation.
org.jboss.seam.core.pojoCache
Manager component for a PojoCache instance.
org.jboss.seam.core.uiComponent
Manages a map of UIComponents keyed by component id.
Certain special Seam component classes are installable multiple times under names
specified in the Seam configuration. For example, the following lines in
components.xml
install and configure two Seam components:
<component name="bookingDatabase"
class="org.jboss.seam.persistence.ManagedPersistenceContext">
<property name="persistenceUnitJndiName">java:/comp/emf/bookingPersistence</property>
</component>
<component name="userDatabase"
class="org.jboss.seam.persistence.ManagedPersistenceContext">
<property name="persistenceUnitJndiName">java:/comp/emf/userPersistence</property>
</component>
The Seam component names are bookingDatabase
and
userDatabase
.
org.jboss.seam.persistence.ManagedPersistenceContext
Manager component for a conversation scoped managed EntityManager
with an extended persistence context.
<entityManager>.entityManagerFactory
— a value binding expression that evaluates to an instance of
EntityManagerFactory
.
<entityManager>.persistenceUnitJndiName — the JNDI name of the entity manager factory, default to java:/<managedPersistenceContext>.
org.jboss.seam.persistence.EntityManagerFactory
Manages a JPA EntityManagerFactory
. This is most useful
when using JPA outside of an EJB 3.0 supporting environment.
entityManagerFactory.persistenceUnitName
—
the name of the persistence unit.
See the API JavaDoc for further configuration properties.
org.jboss.seam.persistence.ManagedSession
Manager component for a conversation scoped managed Hibernate Session
.
<session>.sessionFactory
— a value binding expression that evaluates to an instance of
SessionFactory
.
<session>.sessionFactoryJndiName — the JNDI name of the session factory, default to java:/<managedSession>.
org.jboss.seam.persistence.HibernateSessionFactory
Manages a Hibernate SessionFactory
.
<sessionFactory>.cfgResourceName
—
the path to the configuration file. Default to hibernate.cfg.xml
.
See the API JavaDoc for further configuration properties.
org.jboss.seam.jms.ManagedQueueSender
Manager component for an event scoped managed JMS QueueSender
.
<managedQueueSender>.queueJndiName — the JNDI name of the JMS queue.
org.jboss.seam.jms.ManagedTopicPublisher
Manager component for an event scoped managed JMS TopicPublisher
.
<managedTopicPublisher>.topicJndiName — the JNDI name of the JMS topic.
org.jboss.seam.drools.ManagedWorkingMemory
Manager component for a conversation scoped managed Drools WorkingMemory
.
<managedWorkingMemory>.ruleBase
— a value expression that evaluates to an instance of RuleBase
.
org.jboss.seam.drools.RuleBase
Manager component for an application scoped Drools RuleBase
.
Note that this is not really intended for production usage, since
it does not support dynamic installation of new rules.
<ruleBase>.ruleFiles — a list of files containing Drools rules.
<ruleBase>.dslFile — a Drools DSL definition.
org.jboss.seam.framework.EntityHome
org.jboss.seam.framework.HibernateEntityHome
org.jboss.seam.framework.EntityQuery
org.jboss.seam.framework.HibernateEntityQuery
Seam includes a number of JSF controls that are useful for working with Seam. These are intended to complement the built-in JSF controls, and controls from other third-party libraries. We recommend JBoss RichFaces, and Apache MyFaces Trinidad tag libraries for use with Seam. We do not recommend the use of the Tomahawk tag library.
To use these tags, define the "s
" namespace in your page
as follows (facelets only):
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:s="http://jboss.com/products/seam/taglib">
The ui example demonstrates the use of a number of these tags.
Description
A button that supports invocation of an action with control over conversation propagation. Does not submit the form.
Attributes
value
— the label.
action
— a method binding that
specified the action
listener.
view
— the JSF view id to link to.
fragment
— the fragment
identifier to link to.
disabled
— is the link disabled?
propagation
— determines the
conversation propagation style: begin
,
join
, nest
,
none
or end
.
pageflow
— a pageflow definition
to begin. (This is only useful when
propagation="begin"
or
propagation="join"
is used).
Usage
<s:button id="cancel"
value="Cancel"
action="#{hotelBooking.cancel}"/>
You can specify both view
and
action
on <s:link />
.
In this case, the action wil be called once the redirect to the
specified view has occured.
Description
Add the conversation id to JSF link or button (e.g.
<h:commandLink />
,
<s:button />
).
Attributes
None
Description
Add the task id to an output link (or similar JSF control),
when the task is available via #{task}
.
Attributes
None.
Description
A link that supports invocation of an action with control over conversation propagation. Does not submit the form.
Attributes
value
— the label.
action
— a method binding that
specified the action listener.
view
— the JSF view id to link to.
fragment
— the fragment identifier
to link to.
disabled
— is the link disabled?
propagation
— determines the
conversation propagation style: begin
,
join
, nest
,
none
or end
.
pageflow
— a pageflow definition
to begin. (This is only useful when using
propagation="begin"
or
propagation="join"
.)
Usage
<s:link id="register" view="/register.xhtml"
value="Register New User"/>
You can specify both view
and
action
on <s:link />
.
In this case, the action will be called once the redirect to the
specified view has occured.
Description
Customize the conversation propagation for a command link or button (or similar JSF control). Facelets only.
Attributes
type
— determines the conversation
propagation style: begin
,
join
, nest
,
none
or end
.
pageflow
— a pageflow definition to
begin. (This is only useful when using
propagation="begin"
or
propagation="join"
.)
Usage
<h:commandButton value="Apply" action="#{personHome.update}">
<s:conversationPropagation type="join" />
</h:commandButton>
Description
Specify the default action to run when the form is submitted using the enter key.
Currently you can only nest it inside buttons (e.g.
<h:commandButton />
,
<a:commandButton />
or
<tr:commandButton />
).
You must specify an id on the action source. You can only have one default action per form.
Attributes
None.
Usage
<h:commandButton id="foo" value="Foo" action="#{manager.foo}">
<s:defaultAction />
</h:commandButton>
Description
Perform date or time conversions in the Seam timezone.
Attributes
None.
Usage
<h:outputText value="#{item.orderDate}">
<s:convertDateTime type="both" dateStyle="full"/>
</h:outputText>
Description
Assigns an entity converter to the current component. This is primarily useful for radio button and dropdown controls.
The converter works with any managed entity which has an
@Id
annotation - either simple or composite.
Attributes
None.
Configuration
You must use Seam managed transactions (see
Section 9.2, “Seam managed transactions”) with
<s:convertEntity />
.
If your Managed Persistence Context isn't
called entityManager
, then you need to set it in
components.xml:
<component name="org.jboss.seam.ui.EntityConverter">
<property name="entityManager">#{em}</property>
</component>
If you are using a Managed Hibernate Session then you need to set it in components.xml:
<component name="org.jboss.seam.ui.EntityConverter">
<property name="session">#{hibernateSession}</property>
</component>
If you want to use more than one entity manager with the entity converter, you can create a copy of the entity converter for each entity manager in components.xml:
<component name="myEntityConverter" class="org.jboss.seam.ui.converter.EntityConverter">
<property name="entityManager">#{em}</property>
</component>
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{person.continent}">
<s:selectItems value="#{continents.resultList}" var="continent"
label="#{continent.name}" />
<f:converter converterId="myEntityConverter" />
</h:selectOneMenu>
Usage
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{person.continent}" required="true">
<s:selectItems value="#{continents.resultList}" var="continent"
label="#{continent.name}"
noSelectionLabel="Please Select..."/>
<s:convertEntity />
</h:selectOneMenu>
Description
Assigns an enum converter to the current component. This is primarily useful for radio button and dropdown controls.
Attributes
None.
Usage
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{person.honorific}">
<s:selectItems value="#{honorifics}" var="honorific"
label="#{honorific.label}"
noSelectionLabel="Please select" />
<s:convertEnum />
</h:selectOneMenu>
Description
A non-visual control, validates a JSF input field against the bound property using Hibernate Validator.
Attributes
None.
Usage
<h:inputText id="userName" required="true"
value="#{customer.userName}">
<s:validate />
</h:inputText>
<h:message for="userName" styleClass="error" />
Description
A non-visual control, validates all child JSF input fields against their bound properties using Hibernate Validator.
Attributes
None.
Usage
<s:validateAll>
<div class="entry">
<h:outputLabel for="username">Username:</h:outputLabel>
<h:inputText id="username" value="#{user.username}"
required="true"/>
<h:message for="username" styleClass="error" />
</div>
<div class="entry">
<h:outputLabel for="password">Password:</h:outputLabel>
<h:inputSecret id="password" value="#{user.password}"
required="true"/>
<h:message for="password" styleClass="error" />
</div>
<div class="entry">
<h:outputLabel for="verify">Verify Password:</h:outputLabel>
<h:inputSecret id="verify" value="#{register.verify}"
required="true"/>
<h:message for="verify" styleClass="error" />
</div>
</s:validateAll>
Description
"Decorate" a JSF input field when validation fails or when
required="true"
is set.
Attributes
template
— the facelets template
to use to decorate the component
#{invalid}
and #{required}
are available inside s:decorate
;
#{required}
evaluates to
true
if you have set the input component being
decorated as required, and #{invalid}
evaluates to true
if a validation error occurs.
Usage
<s:decorate template="edit.xhtml">
<ui:define name="label">Country:</ui:define>
<h:inputText value="#{location.country}" required="true"/>
</s:decorate>
<ui:composition xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
xmlns:s="http://jboss.com/products/seam/taglib">
<div>
<s:label styleClass="#{invalid?'error':''}">
<ui:insert name="label"/>
<s:span styleClass="required" rendered="#{required}">*</s:span>
</s:label>
<span class="#{invalid?'error':''}">
<s:validateAll>
<ui:insert/>
</s:validateAll>
</span>
<s:message styleClass="error"/>
</div>
</ui:composition>
Description
Render a HTML <div>
.
Attributes
None.
Usage
<s:div rendered="#{selectedMember == null}">
Sorry, but this member does not exist.
</s:div>
Description
Render a HTML <span>
.
Attributes
None.
Usage
<s:span styleClass="required" rendered="#{required}">*</s:span>
Description
A non-rendering component useful for enabling/disabling rendering of it's children.
Attributes
None.
Usage
<s:fragment rendered="#{auction.highBidder ne null}">
Current bid:
</s:fragment>
Description
"Decorate" a JSF input field with the label. The label is placed
inside the HTML <label>
tag, and is
associated with the nearest JSF input component. It is often
used with <s:decorate>
.
Attributes
style
— The control's style
styleClass
— The control's style class
Usage
<s:label styleClass="label">
Country:
</s:label>
<h:inputText value="#{location.country}" required="true"/>
Description
Checks that the submitted value is valid Seam Text
Attributes
None.
Description
Outputs Seam Text, a rich text markup useful for blogs, wikis and other applications that might use rich text. See the Seam Text chapter for full usage.
Attributes
value
— an EL expression specifying
the rich text markup to render.
Usage
<s:formattedText value="#{blog.text}"/>
Example
Description
Creates a SelectItem
from an enum value.
Attributes
enumValue
— the string
representation of the enum value.
label
— the label to be used when
rendering the SelectItem
.
Usage
<h:selectOneRadio id="radioList"
layout="lineDirection"
value="#{newPayment.paymentFrequency}">
<s:convertEnum />
<s:enumItem enumValue="ONCE" label="Only Once" />
<s:enumItem enumValue="EVERY_MINUTE" label="Every Minute" />
<s:enumItem enumValue="HOURLY" label="Every Hour" />
<s:enumItem enumValue="DAILY" label="Every Day" />
<s:enumItem enumValue="WEEKLY" label="Every Week" />
</h:selectOneRadio>
Description
Creates a List<SelectItem>
from a List, Set, DataModel or Array.
Attributes
value
— an EL expression
specifying the data that backs the
List<SelectItem>
var
— defines the name of the local
variable that holds the current object during iteration
label
— the label to be used when
rendering the SelectItem
. Can reference
the var
variable.
itemValue
— Value to return to the
server if this option is selected. Optional, by default the
var
object is used. Can reference the
var
variable.
disabled
— if true the SelectItem
will be
rendered disabled. Can reference the var
variable.
noSelectionLabel
— specifies the
(optional) label to place at the top of list (if
required="true"
is also specified then
selecting this value will cause a validation error).
hideNoSelectionLabel
— if true,
the noSelectionLabel
will be hidden when
a value is selected
Usage
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{person.age}"
converter="ageConverter">
<s:selectItems value="#{ages}" var="age" label="#{age}" />
</h:selectOneMenu>
Description
Cache the rendered page fragment using JBoss Cache. Note that
<s:cache>
actually uses the instance
of JBoss Cache managed by the built-in
pojoCache
component.
Attributes
key
— the key to cache rendered
content, often a value expression. For example, if we were
caching a page fragment that displays a document, we might
use key="Document-#{document.id}"
.
enabled
— a value expression that
determines if the cache should be used.
region
— a JBoss Cache node to use
(different nodes can have different expiry policies).
Usage
<s:cache key="entry-#{blogEntry.id}" region="pageFragments">
<div class="blogEntry">
<h3>#{blogEntry.title}</h3>
<div>
<s:formattedText value="#{blogEntry.body}"/>
</div>
<p>
[Posted on 
<h:outputText value="#{blogEntry.date}">
<f:convertDateTime timezone="#{blog.timeZone}" locale="#{blog.locale}"
type="both"/>
</h:outputText>]
</p>
</div>
</s:cache>
Description
Renders a file upload control. This control must be used within
a form with an encoding type of
multipart/form-data
, i.e:
<h:form enctype="multipart/form-data">
For multipart requests, the Seam Multipart servlet filter must
also be configured in web.xml
:
<filter>
<filter-name>Seam Filter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.jboss.seam.servlet.SeamFilter</filter-class>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>Seam Filter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
Configuration
The following configuration options for multipart requests may be configured in components.xml:
createTempFiles
— if this option
is set to true, uploaded files are streamed to a temporary
file instead of in memory.
maxRequestSize
— the maximum size
of a file upload request, in bytes.
Here's an example:
<component class="org.jboss.seam.web.MultipartFilter">
<property name="createTempFiles">true</property>
<property name="maxRequestSize">1000000</property>
</component>
Attributes
data
— this value binding receives
the binary file data. The receiving field should be
declared as a byte[]
or
InputStream
(required).
contentType
— this value binding
receives the file's content type (optional).
fileName
— this value binding
receives the filename (optional).
fileSize
— this value binding
receives the file size (optional).
accept
— a comma-separated list of
content types to accept, may not be supported by the
browser. E.g. "images/png,images/jpg"
,
"images/*"
.
style
— The control's style
styleClass
— The control's style
class
Usage
<s:fileUpload id="picture" data="#{register.picture}"
accept="image/png"
contentType="#{register.pictureContentType}" />
Description
An extended <h:graphicImage>
that allows
the image to be created in a Seam Component; further transforms
can be applied to the image.
All attributes for <h:graphicImage>
are
supported, as well as:
Attributes
value
— image to display. Can be
a path String
(loaded from the
classpath), a byte[]
, a
java.io.File
, a
java.io.InputStream
or a
java.net.URL
. Currently supported image
formats are image/png
,
image/jpeg
and
image/gif
.
fileName
— if not specified the
served image will have a generated file name. If you want
to name your file, you should specify it here. This name
should be unique
Transformations
To apply a transform to the image, you would nest a tag specifying the transform to apply. Seam currently supports these transforms:
<s:transformImageSize>
width
— new width of the
image
height
— new height of the
image
maintainRatio
— if
true
, and
one of
width
/height
are specified, the image will be resized with the
dimension not specified being calculated to
maintain the aspect ratio.
factor
— scale the image
by the given factor
<s:transformImageBlur>
radius
— perform a
convolution blur with the given radius
<s:transformImageType>
contentType
— alter the
type of the image to either
image/jpeg
or
image/png
It's easy to create your own transform - create a
UIComponent
which implements
org.jboss.seam.ui.graphicImage.ImageTransform
.
Inside the applyTransform()
method use
image.getBufferedImage()
to get the original
image and image.setBufferedImage()
to set your
transformed image. Transforms are applied in the order specified
in the view.
Usage
<s:graphicImage rendered="#{auction.image ne null}"
value="#{auction.image.data}">
<s:transformImageSize width="200" maintainRatio="true"/>
</s:graphicImage>
Description
Generates the Javascript stubs required to use Seam Remoting.
Attributes
include
— a comma-separated list
of the component names (or fully qualified class names)for
which to generate Seam Remoting Javascript stubs. See
Chapter 22, Remoting for more details.
Usage
<s:remote include="customerAction,accountAction,com.acme.MyBean"/>
Seam also provides annotations to allow you to use Seam components as JSF converters and validators:
@Converter
@Name("itemConverter")
@BypassInterceptors
@Converter
public class ItemConverter implements Converter {
@Transactional
public Object getAsObject(FacesContext context, UIComponent cmp, String value) {
EntityManager entityManager = (EntityManager) Component.getInstance("entityManager");
entityManager.joinTransaction();
// Do the conversion
}
public String getAsString(FacesContext context, UIComponent cmp, Object value) {
// Do the conversion
}
}
<h:inputText value="#{shop.item}" converter="itemConverter" />
Registers the Seam component as a JSF converter. Shown here is a converter which is able to access the JPA EntityManager inside a JTA transaction, when converting the value back to it's object representation.
@Validator
@Name("itemValidator")
@BypassInterceptors
@Validator
public class ItemValidator implements Validator {
public void validate(FacesContext context, UIComponent cmp, Object value)
throws ValidatorException {
ItemController ItemController = (ItemController) Component.getInstance("itemController");
return itemController.validate(value);
}
}
<h:inputText value="#{shop.item}" validator="itemValidator" />
Registers the Seam component as a JSF validator. Shown here is a validator which injects another Seam component; the injected component is used to validate the value.
Seam uses JBoss EL which provides an extension to the standard Unified Expression Language (EL). JBoss EL provides a number of enhancements that increase the expressiveness and power of EL expressions.
Standard EL does not allow you to use a method with user defined
parameters — of course, JSF listener methods (e.g. a
valueChangeListener
) take parameters provided by JSF.
JBoss EL removes this restriction. For example:
<h:commandButton action="#{hotelBooking.bookHotel(hotel)}" value="Book Hotel"/>
@Name("hotelBooking")
public class HotelBooking {
public String bookHotel(Hotel hotel) {
// Book the hotel
}
}
Just as in calls to method from Java, parameters are surrounded by parentheses, and separated by commas:
<h:commandButton action="#{hotelBooking.bookHotel(hotel, user)}" value="Book Hotel"/>
The parameters hotel
and user
will be evaluated as value expressions and passed to the
bookHotel()
method of the component.
Any value expression may be used as a parameter:
<h:commandButton
action="#{hotelBooking.bookHotel(hotel.id, user.username)}"
value="Book Hotel"/>
It's important to fully understand how this extension to EL works.
When the page is rendered, the parameter names
are stored (for example, hotel.id
and
user.username
), and evaluated (as value
expressions) when the page is submitted. You can't pass objects as
parameters!
You must ensure that the parameters are available not only when the
page is rendered, but also when it is submittedIf the arguments can
not be resolved when the page is submitted the action method will be
called with null
arguments!
You can also pass literal strings using single quotes:
<h:commandLink action="#{printer.println('Hello world!')}" value="Hello"/>
Unified EL also supports value expressions, used to bind a field to
a backing bean. Value expressions use JavaBean naming conventions
and expect a getter/setter pair. Often JSF expects a value
expression where only retrieval (get) is needed (e.g. the
rendered
attribute). Many objects, however, don't
have appropriately named property accessors or require parameters.
JBoss EL removes this restriction by allowing values to be retrieved using the method syntax. For example:
<h:outputText value="#{person.name}" rendered="#{person.name.length() > 5}" />
You can access the size of a collection in a similar manner:
#{searchResults.size()}
In general any expression of the form #{obj.property} would be identical to the expression #{obj.getProperty()}.
Parameters are also allowed. The following example calls the
productsByColorMethod
with a literal string
argument:
#{controller.productsByColor('blue')}
When using JBoss EL you should keep the following points in mind:
Incompatibility with JSP 2.1 — JBoss EL can't currently be used with JSP 2.1 as the compiler rejects expressions with parameters in. So, if you want to use this extension with JSF 1.2, you will need to use Facelets. The extension works correctly with JSP 2.0.
Use inside iterative components —
Components like <c:forEach />
and
<ui:repeat />
iterate over a List or
array, exposing each item in the list to nested components.
This works great if you are selecting a row using a
<h:commandButton />
or
<h:commandLink />
:
@Factory("items")
public List<Item> getItems() {
return entityManager.createQuery("select ...").getResultList();
}
<h:dataTable value="#{items}" var="item">
<h:column>
<h:commandLink value="Select #{item.name}" action="#{itemSelector.select(item})" />
</h:column>
</h:dataTable>
However if you want to use <s:link />
or <s:button />
you
must expose the items as a
DataModel
, and use a
<dataTable />
(or equivalent from a
component set like <rich:dataTable />
). Neither <s:link />
or
<s:button />
submit the form (and
therefore produce a bookmarkable link) so a "magic" parameter
is needed to recreate the item when the action method is
called. This magic parameter can only be added when a
data table backed by a DataModel
is used.
Calling a MethodExpression
from
Java code — Normally, when a
MethodExpression
is created, the parameter
types are passed in by JSF. In the case of a method binding,
JSF assumes that there are no parameters to pass. With this
extension, we can't know the parameter types until after the
expression has been evaluated. This has two minor
consequences:
When you invoke a MethodExpression
in
Java code, parameters you pass may be ignored.
Parameters defined in the expression will take
precedence.
Ordinarily, it is safe to call
methodExpression.getMethodInfo().getParamTypes()
at any time. For an expression with parameters, you must
first invoke the MethodExpression
before calling getParamTypes()
.
Both of these cases are exceedingly rare and only apply when
you want to invoke the MethodExpression
by
hand in Java code.
JBoss EL supports a limited projection syntax. A projection expression maps a sub-expression across a multi-valued (list, set, etc...) expression. For instance, the expression:
#{company.departments}
might return a list of departments. If you only need a list of department names, your only option is to iterate over the list to retrieve the values. JBoss EL allows this with a projection expression:
#{company.departments.{d|d.name}}
The subexpression is enclosed in braces. In this example, the
expression d.name
is evaluated for each department,
using d
as an alias to the department object. The
result of this expression will be a list of String values.
Any valid expression can be used in an expression, so it would be perfectly valid to write the following, assuming you had a use for the lengths of all the department names in a company:
#{company.departments.{d|d.size()}}
Projections can be nested. The following expression returns the last names of every employee in every department:
#{company.departments.{d|d.employees.{emp|emp.lastName}}}
Nested projections can be slightly tricky, however. The following expression looks like it returns a list of all the employees in all the departments:
#{company.departments.{d|d.employees}}
However, it actually returns a list containing a list of the employees for each individual department. To combine the values, it is necessary to use a slightly longer expression:
#{company.departments.{d|d.employees.{e|e}}}
It is important to note that this syntax cannot be parsed by Facelets or JSP and thus cannot be used in xhtml or JSP files. We anticipate that the projection syntax will change in future versions of JBoss EL.
Most Seam applications will need at least two kinds of automated tests: unit tests, which test a particular Seam component in isolation, and scripted integration tests which exercise all Java layers of the application (that is, everything except the view pages).
Both kinds of tests are very easy to write.
All Seam components are POJOs. This is a great place to start if you want easy unit testing. And since Seam emphasises the use of bijection for inter-component interactions and access to contextual objects, it's very easy to test a Seam component outside of its normal runtime environment.
Consider the following Seam Component which creates a statement of account for a customer:
@Stateless
@Scope(EVENT)
@Name("statementOfAccount")
public class StatementOfAccount {
@In(create=true) EntityManager entityManager
private double statementTotal;
@In
private Customer customer;
@Create
public void create() {
List<Invoice> invoices = entityManager
.createQuery("select invoice from Invoice invoice where invoice.customer = :customer")
.setParameter("customer", customer)
.getResultList();
statementTotal = calculateTotal(invoices);
}
public double calculateTotal(List<Invoice> invoices) {
double total = 0.0;
for (Invoice invoice: invoices)
{
double += invoice.getTotal();
}
return total;
}
// getter and setter for statementTotal
}
We could write a unit test for the calculateTotal method (which tests the business logic of the component) as follows:
public class StatementOfAccountTest {
@Test
public testCalculateTotal {
List<Invoice> invoices = generateTestInvoices(); // A test data generator
double statementTotal = new StatementOfAccount().calculateTotal(invoices);
assert statementTotal = 123.45;
}
}
You'll notice we aren't testing retrieving data from or persisting data to the database; nor are we testing any functionality provided by Seam. We are just testing the logic of our POJOs. Seam components don't usually depend directly upon container infrastructure, so most unit testing as as easy as that!
However, if you want to test the entire application, read on.
Integration testing is slightly more difficult. In this case, we can't eliminate the container infrastructure; indeed, that is part of what is being tested! At the same time, we don't want to be forced to deploy our application to an application server to run the automated tests. We need to be able to reproduce just enough of the container infrastructure inside our testing environment to be able to exercise the whole application, without hurting performance too much.
The approach taken by Seam is to let you write tests that exercise your components while running inside a pruned down container environment (Seam, together with the JBoss Embedded container; n.b. JBoss Embedded requires JDK 1.5 and does not work with JDK 1.6).
public class RegisterTest extends SeamTest
{
@Test
public void testRegisterComponent() throws Exception
{
new ComponentTest() {
protected void testComponents() throws Exception
{
setValue("#{user.username}", "1ovthafew");
setValue("#{user.name}", "Gavin King");
setValue("#{user.password}", "secret");
assert invokeMethod("#{register.register}").equals("success");
assert getValue("#{user.username}").equals("1ovthafew");
assert getValue("#{user.name}").equals("Gavin King");
assert getValue("#{user.password}").equals("secret");
}
}.run();
}
...
}
Occasionally, we need to be able to replace the implementation of some Seam component that depends upon resources which are not available in the integration test environment. For example, suppose we have some Seam component which is a facade to some payment processing system:
@Name("paymentProcessor")
public class PaymentProcessor {
public boolean processPayment(Payment payment) { .... }
}
For integration tests, we can mock out this component as follows:
@Name("paymentProcessor")
@Install(precedence=MOCK)
public class MockPaymentProcessor extends PaymentProcessor {
public boolean processPayment(Payment payment) {
return true;
}
}
Since the MOCK
precedence is higher than the default
precedence of application components, Seam will install the mock
implementation whenever it is in the classpath. When deployed into
production, the mock implementation is absent, so the real component
will be installed.
An even harder problem is emulating user interactions. A third problem is where to put our assertions. Some test frameworks let us test the whole application by reproducing user interactions with the web browser. These frameworks have their place, but they are not appropriate for use at development time.
SeamTest
lets you write scripted tests,
in a simulated JSF environment. The role of a scripted test is to reproduce
the interaction between the view and the Seam components. In other words, you
get to pretend you are the JSF implementation!
This approach tests everything except the view.
Let's consider a JSP view for the component we unit tested above:
<html>
<head>
<title>Register New User</title>
</head>
<body>
<f:view>
<h:form>
<table border="0">
<tr>
<td>Username</td>
<td><h:inputText value="#{user.username}"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Real Name</td>
<td><h:inputText value="#{user.name}"/></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Password</td>
<td><h:inputSecret value="#{user.password}"/></td>
</tr>
</table>
<h:messages/>
<h:commandButton type="submit" value="Register" action="#{register.register}"/>
</h:form>
</f:view>
</body>
</html>
We want to test the registration functionality of our application (the stuff that happens when the user clicks the Register button). We'll reproduce the JSF request lifecycle in an automated TestNG test:
public class RegisterTest extends SeamTest
{
@Test
public void testRegister() throws Exception
{
new FacesRequest() {
@Override
protected void processValidations() throws Exception
{
validateValue("#{user.username}", "1ovthafew");
validateValue("#{user.name}", "Gavin King");
validateValue("#{user.password}", "secret");
assert !isValidationFailure();
}
@Override
protected void updateModelValues() throws Exception
{
setValue("#{user.username}", "1ovthafew");
setValue("#{user.name}", "Gavin King");
setValue("#{user.password}", "secret");
}
@Override
protected void invokeApplication()
{
assert invokeMethod("#{register.register}").equals("success");
}
@Override
protected void renderResponse()
{
assert getValue("#{user.username}").equals("1ovthafew");
assert getValue("#{user.name}").equals("Gavin King");
assert getValue("#{user.password}").equals("secret");
}
}.run();
}
...
}
Notice that we've extended SeamTest
, which provides a
Seam environment for our components, and written our test script as an
anonymous class that extends SeamTest.FacesRequest
,
which provides an emulated JSF request lifecycle. (There is also a
SeamTest.NonFacesRequest
for testing GET requests.)
We've written our code in methods which are named for the various JSF
phases, to emulate the calls that JSF would make to our components. Then
we've thrown in various assertions.
You'll find plenty of integration tests for the Seam example applications which demonstrate more complex cases. There are instructions for running these tests using Ant, or using the TestNG plugin for eclipse:
If you used seam-gen to create your project you are ready to start writing tests. Otherwise you'll need to setup the testing environment in your favorite build tool (e.g. ant, maven, eclipse).
First, lets look at the dependencies you need at a minimum:
Table 31.1.
Group Id | Artifact Id | Location in Seam |
---|---|---|
org.jboss.seam.embedded
|
hibernate-all
|
lib/test/hibernate-all.jar
|
org.jboss.seam.embedded
|
jboss-embedded-all
|
lib/test/jboss-embedded-all.jar
|
org.jboss.seam.embedded
|
thirdparty-all
|
lib/test/thirdparty-all.jar
|
org.jboss.seam.embedded
|
jboss-embedded-api
|
lib/jboss-embedded-api.jar
|
org.jboss.seam
|
jboss-seam
|
lib/jboss-seam.jar
|
org.jboss.el
|
jboss-el
|
lib/jboss-el.jar
|
javax.faces
|
jsf-api
|
lib/jsf-api.jar
|
javax.activation
|
javax.activation
|
lib/activation.jar
|
It's very important you don't put the compile time JBoss AS
dependencies from lib/
(e.g.
jboss-system.jar
) on the classpath, these
will cause Embedded JBoss to not boot. So, just add the
dependencies (e.g. Drools, jBPM)you need as you go.
You also need to include the bootstrap/
directory on the classpath; bootstrap/
contains
the configuration for Embedded JBoss.
And, of course you need to put your built project and tests onto
the classpath. Don't forget to put all the correct configuration
files for JPA and Seam onto the classpath as well.Seam asks
Embedded JBoss to deploy any resource (jar or directory)
which has seam.properties
in it's root.
Therefore, if you don't assemble a directory structure that
resembles a deployable archive containing your built project, you
must put a seam.properties
in each resource.
By default, a generated project will use the
java:/DefaultDS
(a built in HSQL datasource in
Embedded JBoss) for testing. If you want to use another datasource
place the foo-ds.xml
into
bootstrap/deploy
directory.
Seam provides TestNG support out of the box, but you can also use another test framework, such as JUnit, if you want.
You'll need to provide an implementation of
AbstractSeamTest
which does the following:
Calls super.begin()
before every test
method.
Calls super.end()
after every test
method.
Calls super.setupClass()
to setup
integration test environment. This should be called before
any test methods are called.
Calls super.cleanupClass()
to clean up
the integration test environment.
Calls super.startSeam()
to start Seam at
the start of integration testing.
Calls super.stopSeam()
to cleanly shut
down Seam at the end of integration testing.
If you need to insert or clean data in your database before each test you can use Seam's integration with DBUnit. To do this, extend DBUnitSeamTest rather than SeamTest.
You need to provide a dataset for DBUnit. IMPORTANT NOTE: DBUnit supports two formats for dataset files, flat and XML. Seam's DBUnitSeamTest assumes the flat format is used, so please ensure that your dataset is in this format also.
<dataset>
<ARTIST
id="1"
dtype="Band"
name="Pink Floyd" />
<DISC
id="1"
name="Dark Side of the Moon"
artist_id="1" />
</dataset>
and tell Seam about it by overriding prepareDBUnitOperations()
:
protected void prepareDBUnitOperations() {
beforeTestOperations.add(
new DataSetOperation("my/datasets/BaseData.xml")
);
}
DataSetOperation
defaults to DatabaseOperation.CLEAN_INSERT
if no other operation is specified as a constructor argument. The
above example cleans all tables defined BaseData.xml
,
then inserts all rows declared in BaseData.xml
before each @Test
method is invoked.
If you require extra cleanup after a test method executes, add
operations to afterTestOperations
list.
You need to tell DBUnit about the datasource you are using by
setting a TestNG test parameter named datasourceJndiName
:
<parameter name="datasourceJndiName" value="java:/seamdiscsDatasource"/>
DBUnitSeamTest only works out of the box with HSQL as a datasource.
If you want to use another database, then you'll need to implement
some extra methods. Read the javadoc on
DBUnitSeamTest
for more.
Warning! This feature is still under development.
It's very easy to integration test your Seam Mail:
public class MailTest extends SeamTest {
@Test
public void testSimpleMessage() throws Exception {
new FacesRequest() {
@Override
protected void updateModelValues() throws Exception {
setValue("#{person.firstname}", "Pete");
setValue("#{person.lastname}", "Muir");
setValue("#{person.address}", "test@example.com");
}
@Override
protected void invokeApplication() throws Exception {
MimeMessage renderedMessage = getRenderedMailMessage("/simple.xhtml");
assert renderedMessage.getAllRecipients().length == 1;
InternetAddress to = (InternetAddress) renderedMessage.getAllRecipients()[0];
assert to.getAddress().equals("test@example.com");
}
}.run();
}
}
We create a new FacesRequest
as normal. Inside
the invokeApplication hook we render the message using
getRenderedMailMessage(viewId);
, passing the
viewId of the message to render. The method returns the rendered
message on which you can do your tests. You can of course also use
any of the standard JSF lifecycle methods.
There is no support for rendering standard JSF components so you can't test the content body of the mail message easily.
The jBPM designer and viewer will let you design and view in a nice way your business processes and your pageflows. This convenient tool is part of JBoss Eclipse IDE and more details can be found in the jBPM's documentation (http://docs.jboss.com/jbpm/v3/gpd/)
This tool lets you design your own business process in a graphical way.
OC4J (Oracle Containers for Java) 11g (currently a "Technology
Preview" release) is Oracle's JEE5 application server. Seam application
can be deployed to OC4J, but require some additional configuration
changes, and dependencies. This chapter will show you exactly what must be
done. We will start by looking at the building and deploying the JEE5 Hotel
Booking example application which comes with Seam. Then we will deploy a
project generated by seam-gen
. First a basic
seam-gen
application with RichFaces ajax
components, and facelets. Then expand that application to include Seam
security with Drools, JPA provided with hibernate, and automatic CRUD
reverse engineering of a MySQL database.
First we need to install the target container - OC4j. This chapter
requires you to use OC4J 11g Technology Preview (not OC4J 10g). You can
download OC4J 11g from
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/java/oc4j/11/
Below are instructions to install. launch, access, and shutdown the 11g
release. For further information on installing OC4J, consult the
readme.txt
distributed with OC4J, or the OC4J
installation guide and release notes.
Download and unzip OC4J
Make sure you have $JAVA_HOME
and
$ORACLE_HOME
set as environment
variables ( $ORACLE_HOME
is the
directory to which you unzip OC4J). For further information
on installing OC4J, consult the
readme.txt
distributed with OC4J
Applications (ear/war) are deployed to the
$ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/applications
directory.
Note that OC4J does not support hot deployment by default. This means every time you deploy the application you must restart the server.
Start OC4J: $ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/java
-jar -XX:MaxPermSize=256M oc4j.jar
You must override the default PermGen memory settings using above command. See OC4J release notes for details.
You will be asked to set the admin password if this is the first time you have started OC4J
Once deployed you can check out your applications at
http://localhost:8888/<your-app-path>
You can stop the server by pressing
CTRL-C
in the console on which the
server is running.
The jee5/booking
example is based on the Hotel
Booking example (which runs on JBoss AS). Out of the box it is designed to
run on Glassfish, but it's easy to build it for OC4J. It is located in the
$SEAM_DIST/examples/jee5/booking
directory.
First, lets look at the basic dependencies of the booking example. Armed with this knowledge we can look at the extra dependencies requirements that OC4J adds.
We will show you how to get these dependencies into the
application in Section 33.2.3, “ Building the jee5/booking
example
” below.
jboss-seam.jar
— We
declare this as an EJB3 module (why? well Seam needs to be
able to interact with container managed transactions;
this is implemented as an EJB3 Stateful Session Bean)
jboss-el.jar
jboss-seam-ui.jar
—
Seam's JSF controls depend on Apache's
commons-beanutilsjboss-seam-debug.jar
jsf-facelets.jar
richfaces-api.jar
,
richfaces-impl.jar
and
richfaces-ui.jar
— which
requires Apache commons-digester and
commons-beanutils Hibernate — of course, we decided to use Hibernate as the JPA provider (rather than TopLink Essentials which ships with OC4J).
To use Hibernate as your JPA provider you need the following jars:
hibernate.jar
hibernate-annotations.jar
hibernate-entitymanager.jar
hibernate-validator.jar
jboss-common-core.jar
commons-logging.jar
commons-collections.jar
Third party jars — various jars needed for seam and this example to run.
javaasist.jar
dom4j.jar
cglib.jar
asm.jar
commons-beanutils.jar
commons-digester.jar
log4j.jar
— This can be left out if you are not going
to configure log4j. If it is packaged but not
configured logging will be hidden in oc4j.
Extra OC4J jars — Running Seam on most application servers (such as JBoss AS or Glassfish) you only need to include the dependencies for those bits of Seam you actually use (e.g. if you use Seam Text you need to include ANTLR); but, on OC4J, due to its "interesting" classloading you must always include them:
hibernate-search.jar
hibernate-common-annotations.jar
— needed for hibernate search
lucene-core.jar
— needed for hibernate search
antlr.jar
— needed for Seam Text jbpm-jpdl.jar
— needed for Seam's JBPM quartz.jar
dbunit.jar
— needed for some testing classes
jboss-embedded-api.jar
— needed for some testing classes
Drools — needed for Seam Security. We aren't using Seam security with Drools, but have to include it. Drools consists of 6 jars:
drools-core.jar
drools-compiler.jar
janino.jar
mvel141.jar
core.jar
antlr-runtime.jar
Drools integration is not used in the example.
There are just a few changes to be made:
web.xml
You need to declare all your ejb's in the
web.xml
. This is a silly
requirement of a number of JEE5 application servers - for
example OC4J and Glassfish.
This is already done in the example's web.xml file, below is an example.
<ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-ref-name>
jboss-seam-jee5/AuthenticatorAction/local
</ejb-ref-name>
<ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
<local>
org.jboss.seam.example.booking.Authenticator
</local>
<ejb-link>AuthenticatorAction</ejb-link>
</ejb-local-ref>
persistence.xml
You need to provide the correct configuration for your JPA implementation. We are using Hibernate and due to OC4J bundling an old ANTLR, we need to use an alternative query factory, we also want to use the OC4J transaction manager:
For our example modify the
resources/META-INF/persistence.xml
file. Comment out the Glassfish properties and
un-comment the OC4J properties.
<property name="hibernate.dialect"
value="org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect"/>
<property name="hibernate.query.factory_class"
value="org.hibernate.hql.classic.ClassicQueryTranslatorFactory"/>
<property name="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class"
value="org.hibernate.transaction.OrionTransactionManagerLookup"/>
Modify the build.xml
file in the
example:
Un-comment the labeled OC4J-related library properties. This will include all the extra dependencies discussed above.
It should look like the following:
<!-- add libs for oc4j (eager classloading) -->
<property name="jbpm.lib" value="true"/>
<property name="drools.lib" value="true"/>
<property name="quartz.lib" value="true" />
<property name="search.lib" value="true" />
<property name="dbunit.lib" value="true" />
<property name="jboss-embedded-api.lib" value="true" />
Build the demo app by running ant
in
the examples/jee5/booking
directory. The build target is
dist/jboss-seam-jee5.ear
Copy dist/jboss-seam-jee5.ear
following the instructions below.
This mini-tutorial describes the (fairly tedious) steps required
to deploy a JEE 5 application to OC4J. It assumes you have already
downloaded and installed it following the instructions in Section 33.1, “Installation and operation of OC4J”. It also assumes you are
deploying the jee5/booking
example, using the
embedded hsqldb database. To deploy another application you would need
to alter the datasource and application name.
Copy hsqldb.jar
to OC4J shared library
directory: cp ../../seam-gen/lib/hsqldb.jar
$ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/applib/
(OC4J doesn't
come with an embedded database so we decided to use HSQLDB)
Edit the OC4J datasource file
$ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/config/data-sources.xml
and, inside <data-sources>
, add
<managed-data-source
connection-pool-name="jee5-connection-pool"
jndi-name="jdbc/__default"
name="jee5-managed-data-source" />
<connection-pool name="jee5-connection-pool">
<connection-factory
factory-class="org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver"
user="sa"
password=""
url="jdbc:hsqldb:." />
</connection-pool>
The jndi-name
is used as the
jta-data-source
in
persistence.xml
.
Edit
$ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/config/server.xml
and, inside <application-server>
, add
<application name="jboss-seam-jee5"
path="../../home/applications/jboss-seam-jee5.ear"
parent="default"
start="true" />
To keep things simple use the same names as you used for project.
Edit
$ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/config/default-web-site.xml
, and, inside
<web-site>
, add
<web-app application="jboss-seam-jee5"
name="jboss-seam-jee5"
load-on-startup="true"
root="/seam-jee5" />
The root
is the context path you will put
into your web browser to access the application.
Copy the application to OC4J: cp
dist/jboss-seam-jee5.ear
$ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/applications/
Start/stop OC4J following instructions in Section 33.1, “Installation and operation of OC4J” above.
Checkout the app at:
http://localhost:8888/seam-jee5
seam-gen
is a great tool for developers that
can quickly get you up and running with a full Seam application. However
the project that it created is configured to run on JBoss AS. This means
there are some extra steps needed to have it execute on OC4j. The
following explanation assumes you are using the command line and a
simple text editor, but of course you can use your favorite IDE.
seam-gen
projects come with support for Eclipse
and Netbeans.
We will start by creating and deploying a pretty simple application
using seam-gen
. Then we'll show you how easy it is
to use seam-gen
and Hibernate Tools to reverse
engineer a database schema into a functional CRUD application.
seam-gen
will create JPA entity beans, Seam
Application Framework components and JSF views for you. We will also add
Seam security using Drools.
This tutorial uses MySQL (but of course you could use any database,
altering the SQL and datasources as appropriate); install, configure
and run MySQL, then create a database with some sample data. Don't forget
to also download the
mysql-connector-java-X.jar
for jdbc support.
When setting up Seam security this tutorial will assume there is a table
named User
with columns
username
and password
with
at least one entry. Beyond that you can set up any type of sample data and
tables you would like.
First we need to tell the seam-gen
what we
want, run ./seam setup
in the seam
distribution directory. Follow the settings example below based on
your system and setup (ex. use your database name instead of
oc4jexample
).
> ./seam setup Buildfile: build.xml init: setup: [echo] Welcome to seam-gen :-) [input] Enter your Java project workspace (the directory that contains your Seam projects) [C:/Projects] [C:/Projects] /home/jbalunas/workspace [input] Enter your JBoss home directory [C:/Program Files/jboss-4.2.2.GA] [C:/Program Files/jboss-4.2.2.GA] /home/jbalunas/jboss/jboss-4.2.2.GA [input] Enter the project name [myproject] [myproject] oc4j_example [echo] Accepted project name as: oc4j_example [input] Select a RichFaces skin (not applicable if using ICEFaces) [blueSky] ([blueSky], classic, ruby, wine, deepMarine, emeraldTown, sakura, DEFAULT) [input] Is this project deployed as an EAR (with EJB components) or a WAR (with no EJB support) [ear] ([ear], war, ) [input] Enter the Java package name for your session beans [com.mydomain. oc4j_example] [com.mydomain.oc4j_example] org.jboss.seam.tutorial.oc4j.action [input] Enter the Java package name for your entity beans [org.jboss.seam. tutorial.oc4j.action] [org.jboss.seam.tutorial.oc4j.action] org.jboss.seam.tutorial.oc4j.model [input] Enter the Java package name for your test cases [org.jboss.seam. tutorial.oc4j.action.test] [org.jboss.seam.tutorial.oc4j.action.test] org.jboss.seam.tutorial.oc4j.test [input] What kind of database are you using? [hsql] ([hsql], mysql, oracle, postgres, mssql, db2, sybase, enterprisedb, h2) mysql [input] Enter the Hibernate dialect for your database [org.hibernate. dialect.MySQLDialect] [org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect] [input] Enter the filesystem path to the JDBC driver jar [lib/hsqldb.jar] [lib/hsqldb.jar] lib/mysql-connector.jar [input] Enter JDBC driver class for your database [com.mysql.jdbc.Driver] [com.mysql.jdbc.Driver] [input] Enter the JDBC URL for your database [jdbc:mysql:///test] [jdbc:mysql:///test] jdbc:mysql:///oc4jexample [input] Enter database username [sa] [sa] username [input] Enter database password [] [] password [input] skipping input as property hibernate.default_schema.new has already been set. [input] Enter the database catalog name (it is OK to leave this blank) [] [] [input] Are you working with tables that already exist in the database? [n] (y, [n], ) y [input] Do you want to drop and recreate the database tables and data in import.sql each time you deploy? [n] (y, [n], ) n [input] Enter your ICEfaces home directory (leave blank to omit ICEfaces) [] [] [propertyfile] Creating new property file: /home/jbalunas/workspace/jboss-seam/seam-gen/build.properties [echo] Installing JDBC driver jar to JBoss server [copy] Copying 1 file to /home/jbalunas/jboss/jboss-4.2.2.GA/server/default/lib [echo] Type 'seam create-project' to create the new project BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Type ./seam new-project
to create your
project and cd
/home/jbalunas/workspace/oc4j_example
to the newly
created project.
We now need to make some changes to the generated project.
Let's start with the configuration files:
build.xml
Change the default target to archive (we aren't going to cover automatic deployment to OC4J).
<project name="oc4j_example" default="archive" basedir=".">
OC4J looks for the drools file
/security.drl
file in
the root of the war
file
instead of the root of the
ear
file so we need to have
the build.xml
move it to
the correct location at build time. The
following must be added at the top of the
<target name="war"
depends="compile" description="Build the
distribution .war file">
target.
<copy todir="${war.dir}">
<fileset dir="${basedir}/resources" >
<include name="*.drl" />
</fileset>
</copy>
resources/META-INF/persistence-dev.xml
Alter the
jta-data-source
to be
jdbc/__oc4jexample
(and use this as the
jndi-name
when creating
the data source in
data-sources.xml
later
during deployment).
Add the properties (described in
jee5/booking
example):
<property name="hibernate.query.factory_class"
value="org.hibernate.hql.classic.ClassicQueryTranslatorFactory" />
<property name="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class"
value="org.hibernate.transaction.OrionTransactionManagerLookup" />
<property name="hibernate.transaction.flush_before_completion"
value="true"/>
<property name="hibernate.cache.provider_class"
value="org.hibernate.cache.HashtableCacheProvider"/>
Remove the JBoss AS specific method of exposing the EntityManagerFactory:
<property
name="jboss.entity.manager.factory.jndi.name"
value="java:/oc4j_exampleEntityManagerFactory">
You'll need to alter
persistence-prod.xml
as well if you want to deploy to OC4J using the
prod profile.
resources/META-INF/jboss-app.xml
You can delete this file as we aren't deploying to
JBoss AS ( jboss-app.xml
is used
to enable classloading isolation in JBoss AS)
resources/*-ds.xml
You can delete these file as we aren't deploying to
JBoss AS (these files define datasources in JBoss AS,
in OC4J you have to edit the master
data-sources.xml
file)
resources/WEB-INF/components.xml
Enable container managed transaction
integration - add the
<transaction:ejb-transaction />
component, and it's namespace
declaration
xmlns:transaction="http://jboss.com/products/seam/transaction"
Alter the
jndi-pattern
to
java:comp/env/oc4j_example/#{ejbName}/local
We want to use a Seam Managed Persistence Context in our application. Unfortunately OC4J doesn't expose the EntityManagerFactory in JNDI, but Seam provides a built-in manager component. To activate add the following entry:
<persistence:entity-manager-factory
auto-create="true"
name="oc4jEntityManagerFactory"
persistence-unit-name="oc4j_example" />
We then need to tell Seam to use it, so we alter
the
managed-persistence-context
injecting the Entity Manager Factory into the
existing element:
<persistence:managed-persistence-context
name="entityManager"
auto-create="true"
entity-manager-factory="#{oc4jEntityManagerFactory}" />
resources/WEB-INF/web.xml
You must add the Seam container managed transaction integration EJB entry below. Remember for OC4j you need to declare all your EJBs here if you modify the application further.
<ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-ref-name>
oc4j_example/EjbSynchronizations/local
</ejb-ref-name>
<ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
<local>
org.jboss.seam.transaction.LocalEjbSynchronizations
</local>
<ejb-link>EjbSynchronizations</ejb-link>
</ejb-local-ref>
resources/META-INF/orion-application.xml
This is a file that you must create so that RichFaces and Ajax4Jsf stylesheets will work with OC4J. This file basically tells OC4J not force its own inherited URL settings.
<?xml version = '1.0' encoding = 'utf-8'?>
<orion-application
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://xmlns.oracle.com/oracleas/schema/
orion-application-10_0.xsd"
schema-major-version="10"
schema-minor-version="0"
component-classification="internal">
<imported-shared-libraries>
<remove-inherited name="oracle.xml"/>
</imported-shared-libraries>
</orion-application>
Now you need to tell the
build.xml
file that it
needs to copy this file to the
ear
archive. Find the
<target name="ear"
description="Build the EAR">
target and modify the
<copy todir="${ear.dir}/META-INF">
section to look like the following:
<copy todir="${ear.dir}/META-INF">
<fileset dir="${basedir}/resources/META-INF">
<include name="application.xml" />
<include name="orion-application.xml"/>
<include name="jboss-app.xml" />
</fileset>
</copy>
This application has similar requirements as the
jee5/booking
example above.
The build.xml
must be modified to add
the jars listed below to the generated archive files. Look for the
<fileset dir="${basedir}">
section below and add the imports underneath the other libraries
being imported.
<target name="ear" description="Build the EAR">
<copy todir="${ear.dir}">
<fileset dir="${basedir}/resources">
<include name="*jpdl.xml" />
<include name="*hibernate.cfg.xml" />
<include name="jbpm.cfg.xml" />
<include name="*.drl" />
</fileset>
<fileset dir="${lib.dir}">
<include name="jboss-seam.jar" />
</fileset>
<fileset dir="${basedir}">
<include name="lib/jbpm*.jar" />
<include name="lib/jboss-el.jar" />
<include name="lib/drools-*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/janino*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/antlr-*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/mvel*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/richfaces-api*.jar" />
</fileset>
</copy>
<copy todir="${ear.dir}/META-INF">
<fileset dir="${basedir}/resources/META-INF">
<include name="application.xml" />
<include name="jboss-app.xml" />
</fileset>
</copy>
</target>
Hibernate:
<include name="lib/hibernate.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-annotations.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-commons-annotations.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-entitymanager.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-search.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-validator.jar"/>
<include name="lib/commons-logging.jar"/>
<include name="lib/commons-collections.jar"/>
<include name="lib/jboss-common-core.jar"/>
Drools — because we are using Drools to provide Seam Security rules, we need to add in Eclipse JDT compiler (you don't need this on JBoss AS; again this is due to OC4J's classloading):
<include name="lib/core.jar"/>
Third party jars — most of these are only needed because of OC4J's classloading:
<include name="lib/javassist.jar"/>
<include name="lib/quartz.jar"/>
<include name="lib/dbunit.jar"/>
<include name="lib/jboss-embedded-api.jar"/>
<include name="lib/dom4j.jar"/>
<include name="lib/lucene-core.jar"/>
<include name="lib/cglib.jar"/>
<include name="lib/asm.jar"/>
<include name="lib/commons-beanutils.jar"/>
<include name="lib/commons-digester.jar"/>
<include name="lib/antlr.jar"/>
You should end up with something like:
<fileset dir="${basedir}">
<include name="lib/jbpm*.jar" />
<include name="lib/jboss-el.jar" />
<include name="lib/drools-*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/janino*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/antlr-*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/mvel*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/richfaces-api*.jar" />
<include name="lib/hibernate.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-annotations.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-commons-annotations.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-entitymanager.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-search.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-validator.jar"/>
<include name="lib/commons-logging.jar"/>
<include name="lib/commons-collections.jar"/>
<include name="lib/jboss-common-core.jar"/>
<include name="lib/core.jar"/>
<include name="lib/javassist.jar"/>
<include name="lib/quartz.jar"/>
<include name="lib/dbunit.jar"/>
<include name="lib/jboss-embedded-api.jar"/>
<include name="lib/dom4j.jar"/>
<include name="lib/lucene-core.jar"/>
<include name="lib/cglib.jar"/>
<include name="lib/asm.jar"/>
<include name="lib/commons-beanutils.jar"/>
<include name="lib/commons-digester.jar"/>
<include name="lib/antlr.jar"/>
</fileset>
These instructions are very similar to the ones in Section 33.3, “Deploying the Seam application to OC4J” but with the correct references
for the oc4j_example
application.
Build your application by calling
ant
in the base directory of your
project (ex.
/home/jbalunas/workspace/oc4j_example
). The target of the build will be
dist/oc4j_example.ear
.
Copy the mysql-connector.jar
file
to the
$ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/applib
directory so that jdbc drivers are available.
$ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/config/data-sources.xml
<managed-data-source
connection-pool-name="oc4j-example-connection-pool"
jndi-name="jdbc/__oc4jexample"
name="oc4j-example-managed-data-source" />
<connection-pool
name="oc4j-example-connection-pool">
<connection-factory
factory-class="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
user="username"
password="password"
url="jdbc:mysql:///oc4j" />
</connection-pool>
$ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/config/server.xml
<application name="oc4j_example"
path="../../home/applications/oc4j_example.ear"
parent="default"
start="true" />
$ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/config/default-web-site.xml
<web-app application="oc4j_example"
name="oc4j_example"
load-on-startup="true"
root="/oc4j_example" />
Start/stop OC4J following instructions in the
Installation and operation of OC4J
section above.
Checkout the app at:
http://localhost:8888/oc4j_example
In this section we extend the basic
seam-gen
application into a full blown CRUD
application based on an existing database. Plus we will add
Drools
based security as well.
Type ./seam generate-entities
in the
base directory of your seam distribution. This will create the
entities, the Seam Application Framework classes and the
relevant views for the CRUD application.
That's it...no really...that's it. Build and deploy as before and see for yourself.
As stated above this section assumes your database had a
User
table with
username
and
password
columns with at least one entry.
If you don't have this you may need to modify the
authenticate
method below.
Lets link our User
entity into Seam
Security by making our authenticator class a Stateless Session
Bean (OC4J is a EJB3 container after all!):
Add the @Stateless
annotation to the
Authenticator
class.
Rename the class to
AuthenticatorAction
Create an interface called
Authenticator
which
AuthenticatorAction
implements (EJB3 requires session beans to have a
local interface). Annotate the interface with
@Local
, and add a single
method with same signature as the
authenticate
in
AuthenticatorAction
.
@Name("authenticator") @Stateless public class
AuthenticatorAction implements Authenticator {
@Local public interface Authenticator {
public boolean authenticate();
}
Use @PersistenceContext
to
inject an EntityManager by adding this line the
AuthenticatorAction
class:
@PersistenceContext private EntityManager entityManager;
Implement authenticate:
public boolean authenticate() {
List <User> users = entityManager .createQuery("select u from User u where
u.username = #{identity.username} and
u.password = #{identity.password}") .getResultList();
if (users.size() == 1) {
identity.addRole("admin");
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
And then add the EJB3 reference to
web.xml
:
<ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-ref-name>
oc4j_example/AuthenticatorAction/local
</ejb-ref-name>
<ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
<local>
org.jboss.seam.tutorial.oc4j.action.Authenticator
</local>
<ejb-link>AuthenticatorAction</ejb-link>
</ejb-local-ref>
Build and deploy as before and notice that now only actual username and passwords are accepted.
Weblogic 10.X is BEA's JEE5 server offering, currently 10.0.MP1 is their stable release, and 10.3.TP is their latest tech preview release. Seam applications can be deployed and developed on Weblogic servers, and this chapter will show you how. There are some known issues with the Weblogic servers that will need to be worked around, and configuration changes that are needed.
First step is to get Weblogic downloaded, installed and running (no
small feat). Then we'll talk about Seam's JEE5 example and the hurdles to
getting it running. After that, the JPA example will
be modified and deployed to the server. Then finally we will create a
seam-gen
application and get it up and running to
provide a jump start to your own application.
First things first we need to get the server installed - and there is a choice to be made. Weblogic 10.0.MP1 is the most recent stable release, while 10.3.TP is a technical preview version that fixes some things and breaks others.
Weblogic 10.0.MP1
—
Download page
10.0.MP1 has a known issue with EJBs that use
varargs
in their methods (it confuses them
as transient
). This causes exceptions
when Weblogic attempts to compile the Seam EJBs. There is a BEA
support patch available to fix this issue, but BEA is currently
working on a second issue related to the EJBs. See the
jee5/booking
example for more details.
Weblogic 10.3.TP
—
Download page
This version still has not fixed the
varargs
bug, and there is a new issue with
EJBs that do not use kodo
(BEA's
implementation of JPA). BEA has said that the varargs
issue will be resolved in the final version of 10.3,
but the kodo
issue is a blocker for getting
the jee5/booking
working.
jboss-seam.jar
for Weblogic EJB
Support Starting with Seam 2.0.2.CR2 a special Weblogic specific jar has
been created that does not contain the TimerServiceDispatcher
. This is the EJB that uses varargs
and
exposes the second EJB issue. We will be using this jar for the
jee5/booking
example, as it avoids both known BEA
issues.
Here are the quick steps to installing Weblogic 10.1.MP1. For more details or if you are having any issues please check with the BEA docs at the Weblogic 10.0 Doc Center . Here we install the RHEL 5 version using the graphical installer:
Follow the link given above for 10.0.MP1 and download the correct version for your environment. You will need to sign up for an account with BEA in order to do this.
You may need to change the the
server1001_XX.bin
file to be
executable:
chmod a+x server1001_XX.bin
Execute the install:
./server1001_XX.bin
When the graphical install loads, you need to set the BEA
home location. This is where all BEA applications are
installed. This location will be known as
$BEA_HOME
in this document e.g.:
/jboss/apps/bea
Select Complete
as the
installation type. You do not need all the extras of the
complete install (such as struts and beehive libraries), but
it will not hurt.
Then you need to tell it where to install the server components:
$BEA_HOME/wlserver_10.0
A Weblogic domain is similar to a JBoss server configuration - it is a self contained server instance. The Weblogic server you just installed has some example domains, but we are going to create one just for the seam examples. You can use the existing domains if you wish (modify the instructions as needed).
Start up the Weblogic configuration wizard:
$BEA_HOME/wlserver_10.0/common/bin/config.sh
Choose to create a new domain, configured to support
Weblogic Server
. Note that this is
the default domain option.
Set a username and password for this domain.
Next choose Development Mode
and
the default JDK when given the option.
The next screen asks if you want to customize any setting.
Select No
.
Finally set the name of the domain to
seam_examples
and leave the default
domain location.
Now that the server is installed and the domain is created you need to know how to start and stop it, plus how to access its configuration console.
Starting the domain:
This is the easy part - go to the
$BEA_HOME/user_projects/domains/seam_examples/bin
directory and run the
./startWeblogic.sh
script.
Accessing the configuration console:
Launch
http://127.0.0.1:7001/console
in
your web browser. It will ask for your username and password
that you entered before. We won't get into this much now, but
this is the starting point for a lot of the various
configurations that are needed later.
Stopping the domain:
There are a couple of options here:
The recommended way is through the configuration console:
Select
seam_examples
on the
left hand side of the console.
Choose the
Control
tab in the
middle of the page.
Select the check box
AdminServer
in the
table.
Choose Shutdown
just above the table, and select either
When work completes
or Force shutdown now
as appropriate.
Then finally confirm that you want to shut this server down.
Hitting Ctrl-C
in the
terminal where you started the domain.
No negative effects have been seen, but we would not recommend doing this while in the middle of configuration changes in the console.
When using the
@DOMAIN/autodeploy
directory as
described in this chapter you may see
NoClassDefFound
exceptions. If
you see this try restarting the Weblogic server. If you
still see it remove the auto-deployed EAR/WAR files,
restart the server, and redeploy. We could not find a
specific reason for this, but others seem to be having this
issue as well.
Do you want to run Seam using EJB's on Weblogic? If so there
are some obstacles that you will have to avoid. This section
describes those obstacles and what changes are needed to the
jee5/booking
example to get it deployed and functioning.
For several releases of Weblogic there has been an issue
with how Weblogic compiles EJB's that use variable arguments
in their methods. This is confirmed in the Weblogic 9.X and
10.X versions. Seam uses variable arguments in one of its
internal EJB's (
TimerServiceDispatcher
). So Seam will not function correctly without
modifications.
The basic explanation of the issue is that the Weblogic EJB
compiler believes that methods that use
varargs
are
transient
and the deployment will fail with exceptions like below:
java.io.IOException: Compiler failed executable.exec: /jboss/apps/bea/wlserver_10.0/user_projects/domains/seam_examples/servers/AdminServer /cache/EJBCompilerCache/5yo5dk9ti3yo/org/jboss/seam/async/ TimerServiceDispatcher_qzt5w2_LocalTimerServiceDispatcherImpl.java:194: modifier transient not allowed here public transient javax.ejb.Timer scheduleAsynchronousEvent(java.lang.String arg0, java.lang.Object[] arg1) ^ /jboss/apps/bea/wlserver_10.0/user_projects/domains/seam_examples/servers/AdminServer /cache/EJBCompilerCache/5yo5dk9ti3yo/org/jboss/seam/async/ TimerServiceDispatcher_qzt5w2_LocalTimerServiceDispatcherImpl.java:275: modifier transient not allowed here public transient javax.ejb.Timer scheduleTimedEvent(java.lang.String arg0, org.jboss.seam.async.TimerSchedule arg1, java.lang.Object[] arg2)
BEA has created a patch (
CR327275
) for this issue that can be requested from their
support. It is rumored that it will be included in the
final release of Weblogic 10.3, although not confirmed.
Unfortunately a second issue has been reported and
verified by BEA (
CR363182
). This issue has to do with certain EJB methods
incorrectly left out of Weblogic's generated internal
stub classes. At the time of this writing the status of
this issue is not known. When this issue has been
patched, and tested with Seam this reference guide
chapter will be updated.
So that Seam's users can deploy an EJB application to
Weblogic a special Weblogic specific jar has been
created, starting with Seam 2.0.2.CR2. It is located in
the
$SEAM/lib/interop
directory and is called
jboss-seam-wls-compatible.jar
. The only difference between this jar and the
jboss-seam.jar
is that it does not contain the
TimerServiceDispatcher
EJB. To use this jar simply rename the
jboss-seam-wls-compatible.jar
to
jboss-seam.jar
and replace the original in your applications
EAR
file. The
jee5/booking
example demonstrates this.
In this section we will go over the steps needed to get
the jee5/booking
example to up and running.
This example uses the in memory hypersonic database, and the correct data source needs to be set up. The admin console uses a wizard like set of pages to configure it.
Copy hsqldb.jar
to the Weblogic
domain's shared library directory: cp
../../../lib/hsqldb.jar
/jboss/apps/bea/user_projects/domains/seam_examples/lib
Start up the server and navigate to the administration console following Section 34.1.3, “How to Start/Stop/Access your domain”
On the left side tree navigate
seam_examples - Services- JDBC - Data
Sources
.
You must lock the domain configuration using the button in the upper left box.
Then select the New
button at the top of the data source table
Fill in the following:
Name:
seam-jee5-ds
JNDI Name:
seam-jee5-ds
Database Type and Driver:
other
Select Next
button
Select Next
button on the
Transaction Options
page
Fill in the following on the Connection
Properties
page:
Database Name:
hsqldb
Host Name:
127.0.0.1
Port: 9001
Username: sa
will
empty password fields.
Select Next
button
Fill in the following on the Connection
Properties
page:
Driver Class Name:
org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver
URL:
jdbc:hsqldb:.
Username: sa
will
empty password fields.
Leave the rest of the fields as is.
Select Next
button
Choose the target domain for the data source in our
case the only one AdminServer
.
Click Next
.
Finally - apply the changes by selecting the
Apply Changes
button in the
upper left corner.
These are the instructions to deploy and configure Weblogic's
JSF 1.2 libraries. Out of the box Weblogic does not come with its
own JSF libraries active, and unfortunately when deploying an
EAR
based application Weblogic requires its
own JSF libraries to function. This appears to be caused by
classloader issues. The assumption being that JSF libraries
in the application are not visible to Weblogic during deployment of
the EAR
application. Why this does not effect
WAR
based applications is not known.
In the administration console navigate to the
Deployments
page using the left hand
menu.
You must lock the domain configuration using the button in the upper left box.
Then select the Install
button at the top of the deployments table
Using the directory browser navigate to the
/jboss/apps/bea/wlserver_10.0/common/deployable-libraries
directory. Then select the jsj-1.2.war
archive, and click the Next
button.
Make sure that the Install this deployment
as a library
is selected. Click the Next
button on the Install Application
Assistant
page.
Click the Next
button on the
Optional Settings
page.
Make sure that the Yes, take me to the
deployment's configuration screen.
is selected.
Click the Finish
button on the
Review your choices and click Finish
page.
On the Settings for jsf(1.2,1.2.3.1)
page set the Deployment Order
to
99
so that it is deployed prior to
autodeployed applications. Then click the
Save
button.
Then activate the changes by clicking the green button in the upper left.
There is another step that is needed for this to work. For
some reason, even with the steps above classes in the
jsf-api.jar
are not found during application deployment.
The only way I found for this to work is to put the
jsf-api.jar
from $SEAM/lib
directory
in the domains shared library
/jboss/apps/bea/user_projects/domains/seam_domain/lib
Shutdown the server following Section 34.1.3, “How to Start/Stop/Access your domain”
Then execute
cp ../../../lib/jsf-api.jar /jboss/apps/bea/user_projects/domains/seam_examples/lib
. Verify the jar was copied correctly.
Start up the server and navigate to the administration console following Section 34.1.3, “How to Start/Stop/Access your domain”
Then verify a clean start up of the server.
OK - now we are ready to finally begin adjusting the seam application for deployment to the Weblogic server.
resources/META-INF/persistence.xml
Change the
jta-data-source
to what you entered above :
<jta-data-source>seam-jee5-ds</jta-data-source>
Then comment out the glassfish properties.
Then add these two properties for weblogic support.
<property name="hibernate.dialect"
value="org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect"/>
<property name="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class"
value="org.hibernate.transaction.WeblogicTransactionManagerLookup"/>
resources/META-INF/weblogic-application.xml
This file needs to be created and should contain the following:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<weblogic-application>
<library-ref>
<library-name>jsf</library-name>
<specification-version>1.2</specification-version>
<implementation-version>1.2</implementation-version>
<exact-match>false</exact-match>
</library-ref>
<prefer-application-packages>
<package-name>antlr.*</package-name>
</prefer-application-packages>
</weblogic-application>
These changes do two two different things.
The first element
library-ref
tells weblogic that this application will
be using the deployed JSF libraries. The
second element
prefer-application-packages
tells weblogic that the
antlr
jars take precedence. This avoids a
conflict with hibernate.
resources/META-INF/ejb-jar.xml
The changes described here work around an
issue where Weblogic is only using a
single instance of the
sessionBeanInterceptor
for all session beans. Seam's interceptor
caches and stores some component specific
attributes, so when a call comes in - the
interceptor is primed for a different
component and an error is seen. To solve
this problem you must define a separate
interceptor binding for each EJB you wish
to use. When you do this Weblogic will use
a separate instance for each EJB.
Modify the
assembly-descriptor
element to look like this:
<assembly-descriptor>
<interceptor-binding>
<ejb-name>AuthenticatorAction</ejb-name>
<interceptor-class >org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class>
</interceptor-binding>
<interceptor-binding>
<ejb-name>BookingListAction</ejb-name>
<interceptor-class >org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class>
</interceptor-binding>
<interceptor-binding>
<ejb-name>RegisterAction</ejb-name>
<interceptor-class >org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class>
</interceptor-binding>
<interceptor-binding>
<ejb-name>ChangePasswordAction</ejb-name>
<interceptor-class >org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class>
</interceptor-binding>
<interceptor-binding>
<ejb-name>HotelBookingAction</ejb-name>
<interceptor-class >org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class>
</interceptor-binding>
<interceptor-binding>
<ejb-name>HotelSearchingAction</ejb-name>
<interceptor-class >org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class>
</interceptor-binding>
<interceptor-binding>
<ejb-name>EjbSynchronizations</ejb-name>
<interceptor-class >org.jboss.seam.ejb.SeamInterceptor</interceptor-class>
</interceptor-binding>
</assembly-descriptor>
resources/WEB-INF/weblogic.xml
This file needs to be created and should contain the following:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<weblogic-web-app>
<library-ref>
<library-name>jsf</library-name>
<specification-version>1.2</specification-version>
<implementation-version>1.2</implementation-version>
<exact-match>false</exact-match>
</library-ref>
</weblogic-web-app>
This file and the element
library-ref
tells Weblogic that this application will
using the deployed JSF libraries. This is
needed in both this file and the
weblogic-application.xml
file because both applications require
access.
resources/WEB-INF/web.xml
Because the
jsf-impl.jar
is not going to be in the
$WAR/WEB_INF/lib
directory we need to add a configuration
listener to this file.
<listener>
<listener-class>com.sun.faces.config.ConfigureListener</listener-class>
</listener>
There are some changes needed to the build script and the
jboss-seam.jar
then we can deploy the app.
build.xml
Add the following to the
build.xml
. Note that
richfaces-api.jar
is only needed if using the admin console
to deploy. For some reason Weblogic needs
it in the
WAR
when it scans the application.
<fileset id="war.lib.extras" dir="${seam.dir}">
<include name="lib/richfaces-api.jar" />
</fileset>
Next we need to add the follow so that the
weblogic-application.xml
will be packaged.
<!-- Resources to go in the ear -->
<fileset id="ear.resources" dir="${resources.dir}">
<include name="META-INF/application.xml" />
<include name="META-INF/weblogic-application.xml" />
<include name="META-INF/*-service.xml" />
<include name="META-INF/*-xmbean.xml" />
<include name="treecache.xml" />
<include name="*.jpdl.xml" />
<exclude name=".gpd.*" />
<include name="*.cfg.xml" />
<include name="*.xsd" />
</fileset>
Then finally we need to add two jars to
the
EAR
. Add these two lines to the
ear.lib.extras
fileset.
<include name="examples/wiki/lib/jboss-archive-browsing.jar" />
<include name="lib/concurrent.jar" />
$SEAM/lib/interop/jboss-seam-wls-compatible.jar
This is the change discussed above in Section 34.2.1, “EJB3 Issues with Weblogic” . There are really two options.
Rename this jar and replace the original
$SEAM/lib/jboss-seam.jar
file. This approach does not require any
changes to the packaged
EAR
archive, but overwrites the original
jboss-seam.jar
The other option is the modify the
packaged
EAR
archive and replace the
jboss-seam.jar
in the archive manually. This leaves the
original jar alone, but requires a manual
step when ever the archive is packaged.
Assuming that you choose the first option for handling
the
jboss-seam-wls-compatible.jar
we can build the application by running
ant archive
at the base of the
jee5/booking
example directory.
Because we chose to create our Weblogic domain in development mode we can deploy the application by putting the EAR file in the domains autodeploy directory.
cp ./dist/jboss-seam-jee5.ear /jboss/apps/bea/user_projects/domains/seam_examples/autodeploy
Check out the application at
http://localhost:7001/seam-jee5/
This is the Hotel Booking example implemented in Seam POJO and Hibernate JPA and does not require EJB3 support to run. The example already has a breakout of configurations and build scripts for many of the common containers including Weblogic 10.X
First we'll build the example for Weblogic 10.x and do the needed steps to deploy. Then we'll talk about what is different between the Weblogic versions, and with the JBoss AS version.
Note that this example assumes that Weblogic's JSF libraries have been configured as described in Section 34.2.2.2, “Setting up Weblogics JSF Support”.
Step one setup the datasource, step two build the app, step three deploy.
The Weblogic 10.X version of the example will use the in
memory hsql database instead of the built in PointBase
database. If you wish to use the PointBase database you
must setup a PointBase datasource, and adjust the
hibernate setting in
persistence.xml
to use the PointBase dialect. For reference the
jpa/weblogic92
example uses PointBase.
Configuring the datasource is very similar to the jee5 Section 34.2.2.1, “Setting up the hsql datasource” . Follow the steps in that section, but use the following entries where needed.
DataSource Name:
seam-jpa-ds
JNDI Name:
seam-jpa-ds
Building it only requires running the correct ant command:
ant -f build-weblogic10.xml
This will create a container specific distribution and exploded archive directories.
When we installed Weblogic following Section 34.1.2, “Creating your Weblogic domain” we chose to have the domain in development mode. This means to deploy the application all we need to do is copy it into the autodeploy directory.
cp ./dist-weblogic10/jboss-seam-jpa.war /jboss/apps/bea/user_projects/domains/seam_examples/autodeploy
Check out the application at the following
http://localhost:7001/jboss-seam-jpa/
.
Between the the Weblogic 10.x and 9.2 examples there are several differences:
META-INF/persistence.xml
— The 9.2 version is configured to use the
PointBase
database and a
pre-installed datasource. The 10.x version uses
the hsql
database and a
custom datasource.
WEB-INF/weblogic.xml
— This file and its contents solve an issue
with an older version of the
ANTLR
libraries that
Weblogic 10.x uses internally. OC4J have the same
issue as well. It also configures the application to
use the shared JSF libraries that were installed
above.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<weblogic-web-app
xmlns="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90
http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/90/weblogic-web-app.xsd">
<library-ref>
<library-name>jsf</library-name>
<specification-version>1.2</specification-version>
<implementation-version>1.2</implementation-version>
<exact-match>false</exact-match>
</library-ref>
<container-descriptor>
<prefer-web-inf-classes>true</prefer-web-inf-classes>
</container-descriptor>
</weblogic-web-app>
This make Weblogic use classes and
libraries in the web application before other
libraries in the classpath. Without this change
hibernate is required to use a older, slower query
factory by setting the following property in the
META-INF/persistence.xml
file.
<property name="hibernate.query.factory_class"
value="org.hibernate.hql.classic.ClassicQueryTranslatorFactory"/>
WEB-INF/components.xml
— In the Weblogic 10.x version JPA entity
transactions is enabled by adding:
<transaction:entity-transaction entity-manager="#{em}"/>
WEB-INF/web.xml
— Because the jsf-impl.jar
is not in the WAR
this listener
need to be configured :
<listener>
<listener-class>com.sun.faces.config.ConfigureListener</listener-class>
</listener>
Between the Weblogic 10.x version and the JBoss version there are more changes. Here is the rundown:
META-INF/persistence.xml
— Except for datasource name the Weblogic
version sets:
<property name="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class"
value="org.hibernate.transaction.WeblogicTransactionManagerLookup"/>
WEB-INF/lib
— The
Weblogic version requires several library
packages because they are not included as they are
with JBoss AS. These are primarily for hibernate,
and its dependencies.
To use Hibernate as your JPA provider you need the following jars:
hibernate.jar
hibernate-annotations.jar
hibernate-entitymanager.jar
hibernate-validator.jar
jboss-common-core.jar
commons-logging.jar
commons-collections.jar
jboss-archive-browsing.jar
Various third party jars that Weblogic needs:
antlr.jar
cglib.jar
asm.jar
dom4j.jar
el-ri.jar
javassist.jar
seam-gen
is a very useful tool for developers
to quickly get an application up and running, and provides a foundation
to add your own functionality. Out of box seam-gen
will produce applications configured to run on JBoss AS. These
instructions will show the steps needed to get it to run on Weblogic.
seam-gen
was build for simplicity so, as you
can imagine, deploying an application generated by
seam-gen
to Weblogic 10.x is not too hard.
Basically it consists of updating or removing some configuration
files, and adding dependent jars that Weblogic 10.x does not ship
with.
This example will cover the basic seam-gen WAR
deployment. This will demonstrate Seam POJO components, Hibernate
JPA, Facelets, Drools security, RichFaces, and a configurable
dataSource.
The first thing we need to do it tell
seam-gen
about the project we want to make.
This is done by running ./seam setup
in the base
directory of the Seam distribution. Note the paths here are my own,
feel free to change for you environment.
./seam setup Buildfile: build.xml init: setup: [echo] Welcome to seam-gen :-) [input] Enter your Java project workspace (the directory that contains your Seam projects) [C:/Projects] [C:/Projects] /home/jbalunas/workspace [input] Enter your JBoss home directory [C:/Program Files/jboss-4.2.2.GA] [C:/Program Files/jboss-4.2.2.GA] /jboss/apps/jboss-4.2.2.GA [input] Enter the project name [myproject] [myproject] weblogic-example [echo] Accepted project name as: weblogic_example [input] Select a RichFaces skin (not applicable if using ICEFaces) [blueSky] ([blueSky], classic, ruby, wine, deepMarine, emeraldTown, sakura, DEFAULT) [input] Is this project deployed as an EAR (with EJB components) or a WAR (with no EJB support) [ear] ([ear], war, ) war [input] Enter the Java package name for your session beans [org.jboss.seam. tutorial.weblogic.action] [org.jboss.seam.tutorial.weblogic.action] org.jboss.seam.tutorial.weblogic.action [input] Enter the Java package name for your entity beans [org.jboss.seam. tutorial.weblogic.model] [org.jboss.seam.tutorial.weblogic.model] org.jboss.seam.tutorial.weblogic.model [input] Enter the Java package name for your test cases [org.jboss.seam. tutorial.weblogic.action.test] [org.jboss.seam.tutorial.weblogic.action.test] org.jboss.seam.tutorial.weblogic.test [input] What kind of database are you using? [hsql] ([hsql], mysql, oracle, postgres, mssql, db2, sybase, enterprisedb, h2) [input] Enter the Hibernate dialect for your database [org.hibernate. dialect.HSQLDialect] [org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect] [input] Enter the filesystem path to the JDBC driver jar [lib/hsqldb.jar] [lib/hsqldb.jar] [input] Enter JDBC driver class for your database [org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver] [org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver] [input] Enter the JDBC URL for your database [jdbc:hsqldb:.] [jdbc:hsqldb:.] [input] Enter database username [sa] [sa] [input] Enter database password [] [] [input] Enter the database schema name (it is OK to leave this blank) [] [] [input] Enter the database catalog name (it is OK to leave this blank) [] [] [input] Are you working with tables that already exist in the database? [n] (y, [n], ) [input] Do you want to drop and recreate the database tables and data in import.sql each time you deploy? [n] (y, [n], ) [input] Enter your ICEfaces home directory (leave blank to omit ICEfaces) [] [] [propertyfile] Creating new property file: /rhdev/projects/jboss-seam/cvs-head/jboss-seam/seam-gen/build.properties [echo] Installing JDBC driver jar to JBoss server [copy] Copying 1 file to /jboss/apps/jboss-4.2.2.GA/server/default/lib [echo] Type 'seam create-project' to create the new project BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Type ./seam new-project
to create your
project and cd
/home/jbalunas/workspace/weblogic_example
to see
the newly created project.
First we change and delete some configuration files, then we update the libraries that are deployed with the application.
build.xml
Change the default target to
archive
.
<project name="weblogic_example" default="archive" basedir=".">
resources/META-INF/persistence-dev.xml
Alter the
jta-data-source
to
be seam-gen-ds
(and
use this as the
jndi-name
when
creating the data source in Weblogic's
admin console)
Change the transaction type to
RESOURCE_LOCAL
so that we can use JPA transactions.
<persistence-unit name="weblogic_example" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
Add/modify the properties below for Weblogic support:
<property name="hibernate.cache.provider_class"
value="org.hibernate.cache.HashtableCacheProvider"/>
<property name="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class"
value="org.hibernate.transaction.WeblogicTransactionManagerLookup"/>
You'll need to alter
persistence-prod.xml
as well if you want to deploy to Weblogic
using the prod profile.
resource/WEB-INF/weblogic.xml
You will need to create this file and populate it following description of WEB-INF/weblogic.xml.
resource/WEB-INF/components.xml
We want to use JPA transactions so we need to add the following to let Seam know.
<transaction:entity-transaction entity-manager="#{entityManager}"/>
You will also need to add the transaction namespace and schema location to the top of the document.
xmlns:transaction="http://jboss.com/products/seam/transaction"
http://jboss.com/products/seam/transaction http://jboss.com/products/seam/transaction-2.1.xsd
resource/WEB-INF/web.xml
WEB-INF/web.xml
— Because the
jsf-impl.jar
is not in the
WAR
this listener need to be configured :
<listener>
<listener-class>com.sun.faces.config.ConfigureListener</listener-class>
</listener>
resources/WEB-INF/jboss-app.xml
You can delete this file as we aren't
deploying to JBoss AS (
jboss-app.xml
is used to enable classloading isolation in
JBoss AS)
resources/*-ds.xml
You can delete these files as we aren't deploying to JBoss AS. These files define datasources in JBoss AS, in Weblogic we will use the administration console.
The seam-gen
application has very
similar library dependencies as the jpa
example above. See Section 34.3.2, “What's different with Weblogic 10.x”.
Below is the changes that are needed to get them in this
application.
Missing jar — There is one library that
seam-gen
does not provide by
default. This needs to be copied into your projects
/lib
directory manually.
jboss-archive-browsing.jar — can
be found in the
@SEAM_DIST/examples/wiki/lib
directory.
build.xml — Now we need to adjust the
build.xml
. Find the target
war
and add the following to the end
of the target.
<copy todir="${war.dir}/WEB-INF/lib">
<fileset dir="${lib.dir}">
<!-- Misc 3rd party -->
<include name="commons-logging.jar" />
<include name="dom4j.jar" />
<include name="javassist.jar" />
<include name="cglib.jar" />
<include name="antlr.jar" />
<!-- Hibernate -->
<include name="hibernate.jar" />
<include name="hibernate-commons-annotations.jar" />
<include name="hibernate-annotations.jar" />
<include name="hibernate-entitymanager.jar" />
<include name="hibernate-validator.jar" />
<include name="jboss-archive-browsing.jar" />
</fileset>
</copy>
There is currently an issue with the behavior of the
seam-gen WAR
application when built using
the development profile (the default) and deployed to Weblogic.
The symptom is that the login page of the application will always
show a login failed
message.
When the application is built using the development profile
the action
class files are placed in the
WEB-INF/dev
directory. Normally these
class files are hot deployable and managed by Seam. This does not
happen on Weblogic (see
jira JBSEAM-2455 for details and status).
To workaround this you need to modify the
build-dev.properties
file. Simply
remove the property
action.dir=WEB-INF/dev
.
Finally all that's left is deploying the application. This involves setting up a data source, building the app, and deploying it.
Configuring the datasource is very similar to the jee5 Section 34.2.2.1, “Setting up the hsql datasource”. Except for what is listed here follow that instruction from the link.
DataSource Name:
seam-gen-ds
JNDI Name: seam-gen-ds
When we installed Weblogic following Section 34.1.2, “Creating your Weblogic domain” we chose to have the domain in development mode. This means to deploy the application all we need to do is copy it into the autodeploy directory.
cp ./dist/weblogic_example.war /jboss/apps/bea/user_projects/domains/seam_examples/autodeploy
Check out the application at the following
http://localhost:7001/weblogic_example/
.
.
Websphere 6.1.x is IBM's application server offering. The latest
release is 6.1.0.13 which does not have EJB3
or
JEE5
support. There is a recently released (Nov 07)
EJB3
feature pack which provides some support for
EJB3
and JPA
. Currently there
is no true JEE5
offering from IBM. This causes some
issues with Seam integration with applications that use EJB3.
First we will go over some basic information about the Websphere environment that we used for these examples. After a good deal of research and work we were able to get EJB3 applications to function correctly. We will go over the details of those steps with the jee5 example. We will also deploy the the JPA example application.
Websphere is a commercial product and so we will not discuss the details of its installation other than to say follow the directions provided by your particular installation type and license. This section will detail the exact server versions used, installation tips, and some custom properties that are needed for all of the examples.
All of the examples and information in this chapter are based on the the latest version of Websphere at the time of this writing.
The EJB3 feature pack that we installed came with the 6.1.0.13 patch version of Websphere. Installing the feature pack does not ensure that your server will have the proper environment for EJB3 applications. Be sure that as part of the installation of the feature pack you follow the instructions to create a new server profile with the EJB3 feature pack enabled, or augment one of your existing ones. This can also be done after the installation by running the profile managment tool.
There are times that restarting the server will be required after deploying or changes the examples in this chapter. Its does not seem like every change requires a restart. If you get errors or exceptions after modifing a property or deploying an application try to restart the server.
There are a couple of Websphere custom properties that are required for Seam integration. These properties are not needed specifically for Seam, but work around some issues with Websphere. These are set following the instructions here : Setting web container custom properties
prependSlashToResource = "true"
— This solves a fairly common issue with Websphere
where applications are not using a leading "/" when
attempting to access resources. If this is not set then a
java.net.MalformedURLException
will be thrown. With this property set you will still see
warnings, but the resources will be retrieved as expected.
com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.invokefilterscompatibility
= "true"
— This solves an issue with
Websphere where it throws a
FileNotFoundException
when a web
application attempts to access a file resource that does not
actually exist on disk. This is a common practice in modern web
applications where filters or servlets are used to process
resource requests like these. This issue manifests itself as
failures to retrieve JavaScript, CSS, images, etc... when
requesting a web page.
PK33090; 6.1: A filter that serves a file does not pop-up an alert message
The jee5/booking
example is based on the Hotel
Booking example (which runs on JBoss AS). Out of the box it is designed
to run on Glassfish, but with the steps below it can be deployed to
Websphere. It is located in the
$SEAM_DIST/examples/jee5/booking
directory.
As stated before the EJB3
feature pack does not
provide a full jee5
implementation. This means
that there are some tricks to getting an application deployed and
functioning.
Below are the configuration file changes that are need to the base example.
resources/WEB-INF/components.xml
We need to change the way that we look up EJBs for
Websphere. We need to remove the
/local
from the end of the
jndi-pattern
attribute. It should
look like this:
<core:init jndi-pattern="java:comp/env/jboss-seam-jee5/#{ejbName}" debug="true"/>
resources/WEB-INF/web.xml
This is the first place that we notice an unexpected
change because this is not full jee5
implementation.
Websphere does not support Servlet
2.5
, it requires Servlet
2.4
. For this change we need to adjust the top of
the web.xml
file to look like the
following:
<xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app version="2.4"
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd">
Next, we have to make some changes to the EJB references
in the web.xml
. These changes are
what will allow Websphere to bind the EJB2 references in
the web module to the the actual EJB3 beans in the EAR
module. Replace all of the
ejb-local-refs
when the values
below.
<!-- JEE5 EJB3 names -->
<ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-ref-name>jboss-seam-jee5/AuthenticatorAction</ejb-ref-name>
<ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
<local-home></local-home>
<local>org.jboss.seam.example.booking.Authenticator</local>
</ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-ref-name>jboss-seam-jee5/BookingListAction</ejb-ref-name>
<ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
<local-home></local-home>
<local>org.jboss.seam.example.booking.BookingList</local>
</ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-ref-name>jboss-seam-jee5/RegisterAction</ejb-ref-name>
<ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
<local-home></local-home>
<local>org.jboss.seam.example.booking.Register</local>
</ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-ref-name>jboss-seam-jee5/ChangePasswordAction</ejb-ref-name>
<ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
<local-home></local-home>
<local>org.jboss.seam.example.booking.ChangePassword</local>
</ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-ref-name>jboss-seam-jee5/HotelBookingAction</ejb-ref-name>
<ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
<local-home></local-home>
<local>org.jboss.seam.example.booking.HotelBooking</local>
</ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-ref-name>jboss-seam-jee5/HotelSearchingAction</ejb-ref-name>
<ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
<local-home></local-home>
<local>org.jboss.seam.example.booking.HotelSAll of the examples and informaearching</local>
</ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-ref-name>jboss-seam-jee5/EjbSynchronizations</ejb-ref-name>
<ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
<local-home></local-home>
<local>org.jboss.seam.transaction.LocalEjbSynchronizations</local>
</ejb-local-ref>
The important change is that there is an empty
local-home
element for each EJB.
This tells Websphere to make the correct bindings between
the web module and the EJB3 beans. The
ejb-link
element is simply not used.
Note also that EjbSynchronizations
is
a built-in Seam EJB and not part of the Hotel Booking example. This
means that if your application's components.xml
specifies transaction:ejb-transaction
, then you must include:
<ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-ref-name>myapp/EjbSynchronizations</ejb-ref-name>
<ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
<local-home></local-home>
<local>org.jboss.seam.transaction.LocalEjbSynchronizations</local>
</ejb-local-ref>
in your web.xml. If you don't include it, you'll get the following error:
Name comp/env/myapp/EjbSynchronizations not found in context java:
resources/META-INF/persistence.xml
For this example we will be using the default
datasource that comes with Websphere. To do this change the
jta-data-source
element:
<jta-data-source>DefaultDatasource</jta-data-source>
Then we need to adjust some of the hibernate properties. First comment out the Glassfish properties. Next you need to add/change the properties:
<!--<property name="hibernate.transaction.flush_before_completion" value="true"/>-->
<property name="hibernate.cache.provider_class"
value="org.hibernate.cache.HashtableCacheProvider"/>
<property name="hibernate.dialect" value="GlassfishDerbyDialect"/>
<property name="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class"
value="org.hibernate.transaction.WebSphereExtendedJTATransactionLookup"/>
hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class
— Standard Hibernate transaction
manager property for Websphere 6.X
hibernate.transaction.flush_before_completion
— This is commented out because we want
the container to manage the transactions. Also
if this is set to true
an
exception will be thrown by Websphere when the
EJBContext is looked up.
com.ibm.wsspi.injectionengine.InjectionException: EJBContext may only be looked up by or injected into an EJB
hibernate.dialect
— From WAS 6.1.0.9 on the embedded DB was
switched to the same Derby DB in
Glassfish.
resources/GlassfishDerbyDialect.class
You will need to get the
GlassfishDerbyDialect.class
and
copy it into the /resources
directory. The class exists in the JPA example and can be
copied using the command below assuming you are in
jee5/booking
directory:
cp ../../jpa/resources-websphere61/WEB-INF/classes/GlassfishDerbyDialect.class ./resources
This class will be put into the
jboss-seam-jee5.jar
file using
changes to the build.xml discussed later.
resources/import.sql
This file must also be copied from the JPA example
because either the Derby DB or the dialect does not support
changes to the ID
column. The files
are identical except for the column difference. Use the
following command to make the copy
cp ../../jpa/resources-websphere61/import.sql ./resources
In order to get the changes we have made into our application we
need to make some changes to the build.xml
.
There are also some additional jars that are required by our
application in order to work with Websphere. This section will cover
what changes are needed to the build.xml
.
JSF libraries — Websphere 6.1 comes with its own version of JSF 1.1 (Seam requires JSF 1.2). So we must add these jars to our application:
jsf-api.jar
jsf-impl.jar
Since Websphere is not a fully compliant
JEE5
implementation we need to
add these EL libraries:
el-api.jar
el-ri.jar
jboss-seam.jar
— for
some reason when deploying the application through
the Websphere administration console it can not find
the jboss-seam.jar
at the base
of the EAR archive. This means that we need to add it to
the /lib
of the EAR.
Finally we remove the log4j.jar
so that all of the log output from our application will
be added to the Websphere log. Additional steps are
required to fully configure log4j and those are outside
of the scope of this document.
Add the following entry to the bottom of the
build.xml
file. This overrides the
default fileset that is used to populate the
jboss-seam-jee5.jar
. The primary change
is the addition of the
GlassfishDerbyDialect.class
:
<fileset id="jar.resources" dir="${resources.dir}">
<include name="import.sql" />
<include name="seam.properties" />
<include name="GlassfishDerbyDialect.class" />
<include name="META-INF/persistence.xml" />
<include name="META-INF/ejb-jar.xml" />
</fileset>
Next we need to add the library dependencies discussed above.
For this add the following to bottom of the
ear.lib.extras
fileset entry:
<!--<include name="lib/log4j.jar" />-->
<include name="lib/el-api.jar" />
<include name="examples/jpa/lib/el-ri.jar" />
<include name="lib/jsf-api.jar" />
<include name="lib/jsf-impl.jar" />
<include name="lib/jboss-seam.jar" />
</fileset>
Now all that is left is to execute the ant
archive
task and the built application will be in
the jee5/booking/dist
directory.
So now we have everything we need in place. All that is left is to deploy it - just a few steps more.
For this we will use Websphere's administration console. As before there are some tricks and tips that must be followed.
The steps below are for the Websphere version stated above, yours may be slightly different.
Log in to the administration console
https://localhost:9043/ibm/console
Access the Enterprise
Application
menu option under the
Applications
top menu.
At the top of the Enterprise
Application
table select
Install
. Below are installation
wizard pages and what needs to done on each:
Preparing for the application
installation
Browse to the
examples/jee5/booking/dist/jboss-seam-jee5.ear
file using the file upload widget.
Select the
Next
button.
Select installation
options
Select the Deploy
enterprise beans
check box. This is needed unless you
used a Websphere tool to package the
application.
Select the
Next
button.
Map modules to
servers
No changes needed here as we only
have one server. Select the
Next
button.
Map EJB references to
beans
This page will list all of the
beans that we entered in the web.xml.
Make sure that Allow
EJB reference targets to resolve
automatically
check box
is selected. This will tell
Websphere to bind our EJB3 beans to
the EJB references in the web
module.
Select the
Next
button.
Map virtual hosts for Web
modules
No changes needed here. Select
the Next
button.
Summary
No changes needed here. Select
the Finish
button.
Installation
Now you will see it installing and deploying your application.
When if finishes select the
Save
link and
you will be returned to the
Enterprise
Applications
table.
Now that we have our application installed we need to make some adjustments to it before we can start it:
Starting from the Enterprise
Applications
table select the
Seam Booking
link.
Select the Manage
Modules
link.
Select the
jboss-seam-jee5.war
link.
Change the Class loader
order
combo box to
Classes loaded with application
class loader first
.
Select Apply
and then
Save
options.
Return the Seam
Booking
page.
On this page select the Class
loading and update detection
link.
Select the radio button for
Classes loaded with application
class loader first
.
Even though we are not enabling class reload
you must also enter a valid number in the
Polling interval for updated
files
text area (zero works
fine).
Select Apply
and then
Save
options.
You should verify that the change you just made has been remembered. We have had problems with the last class loader change not taking effect - even after a restart. If the change did not take you will need to do it manually, following these directions:
Open the following file in a text editor of your choice:
$WebSphereInstall/$yourServerName/profiles/$yourProfileName/config/cells/ $yourCellName/applications/Seam Booking.ear/deployments/ Seam Booking/deployment.xml
Modify the following line so that
PARENT_FIRST
is now
PARENT_LAST
:
<classloader xmi:id="Classloader_#######" mode="PARENT_FIRST"/>
Save the file and now when go to the
Class loading and update
detection
page you
should see Classes loaded
with application class loader
first
selected.
To start the application return to the
Enterprise Applications
table and
select our application in the list. Then choose the
Start
button at the top of the
table.
You can now access the application at
http://localhost:9080/seam-jee5/
.
The default timeout period for a Websphere 6.1 Stateful EJB is 10 minutes. This means that you may see some EJB timeout exceptions after some idle time. It is possible to adjust the timeout of the Stateful EJBs on an individual basis, but that is beyond the scope of this document. See the Websphere documentation for details.
Thankfully getting the jpa
example to work is
much easier than the jee5
example. This is the
Hotel Booking example implemented in Seam POJOs and using Hibernate JPA
with JPA transactions. It does not require EJB3 support to
run.
The example already has a breakout of configurations and build scripts for many of the common containers including Websphere.
First thing we are going to do is build and deploy that example. Then we'll go over some key changes that we needed.
Building it only requires running the correct ant command:
ant websphere61
This will create container specific distribution and exploded
archive directories with the websphere61
label.
This is similar to the jee5
example at
Section 35.2.3, “Deploying the application to Websphere”, but without so many steps.
From the Enterprise Applications
table
select the Install
button.
Preparing for the application
installation
Browse to the
examples/jpa/dist-websphere61/jboss-seam-jpa.war
file using the file upload widget.
In the Context root
text box
enter jboss-seam-jpa
.
Select the Next
button.
Select the Next
button for the next
three pages, no changes are needed.
Summary
page
Review the settings if you wish and select
the Finish
button to install
the application. When installation finished select the
Save
link and you will be returned to the
Enterprise Applications
table.
As with the jee5
example there are some
class loader changes needed before we start the application.
Follow the instructions at installation adjustments for jee5 example
but exchange jboss-seam-jpa
for Seam Booking
.
Finally start the application by selecting it in the
Enterprise Applications
table and clicking
the Start
button.
You can now access the application at the
http://localhost:9080/jboss-seam-jpa/index.html
.
The differences between the JPA examples that deploys to JBoss 4.2 and Websphere 6.1 are mostly expected; library and configuration file changes.
Configuration file changes
WEB-INF/web.xml
— the only significant change is that
Websphere 6.1 only support Servlet
2.4
so the top of this file was changed.
META-INF/persistence.xml
— the main changes here are for the
datasource JNDI path, switching to the Websphere
6.1 transaction manager look up class, and
changing the hibernate dialect to be
GlassfishDerbyDialect
.
WEB-INF/classes/GlassfishDerbyDialect.class
— this class is needed for the
hibernate dialect change to
GlassfishDerbyDialect
import.sql
—
either for the dialect or Derby DB the
ID
column can not be
populated by this file and was removed.
Changes for dependent libraries
WEB-INF/lib
— The Websphere
version requires several library packages because they are
not included as they are with JBoss AS. These are primarily for
hibernate, JSF-RI support and their dependencies. Below are
listed only the additional jars needed above and beyond the JBoss
JPA
example.
To use Hibernate as your JPA provider you need the following jars:
hibernate.jar
hibernate-annotations.jar
hibernate-commons-annotations.jar
hibernate-entitymanager.jar
hibernate-validator.jar
commons-collections.jar
jboss-archive-browsing.jar
Seam requires JSF 1.2 and these are the jars needed for that. Websphere 6.1 ships with its own implementation of JSF 1.1.
jsf-api.jar
jsf-impl.jar
el-ri.jar
el-api.jar
Various third party jars that Websphere needs:
antlr.jar
cglib.jar
asm.jar
dom4j.jar
javassist.jar
seam-gen
is a very useful tool for developers
to quickly get an application up and running, and provides a foundation
to add your own functionality. Out of box seam-gen
will produce applications configured to run on JBoss AS. These
instructions will show the steps needed to get it to run on Websphere.
As stated above in Section 35.2, “ The jee5/booking
example ” there
are some tricky changes needed to get an EJB3 application running. This
section will take you through the exact steps.
The first step is setting up seam-gen
to
construct the base project. There are several choices made below,
specifically the datasource and hibernate values that we will adjust
once the project is created.
./seam setup Buildfile: build.xml init: setup: [echo] Welcome to seam-gen :-) [input] Enter your Java project workspace (the directory that contains your Seam projects) [C:/Projects] [C:/Projects] /home/jbalunas/workspace [input] Enter your JBoss home directory [C:/Program Files/jboss-4.2.2.GA] [C:/Program Files/jboss-4.2.2.GA] /home/jbalunas/jboss/jboss-4.2.2.GA [input] Enter the project name [myproject] [myproject] websphere_example [echo] Accepted project name as: websphere_example [input] Do you want to use ICEFaces instead of RichFaces [n] (y, [n], ) [input] skipping input as property icefaces.home.new has already been set. [input] Select a RichFaces skin [blueSky] ([blueSky], classic, ruby, wine, deepMarine, emeraldTown, sakura, DEFAULT) [input] Is this project deployed as an EAR (with EJB components) or a WAR (with no EJB support) [ear] ([ear], war, ) [input] Enter the Java package name for your session beans [org.jboss.seam. tutorial.websphere.action] [org.jboss.seam.tutorial.websphere.action] org.jboss.seam.tutorial.websphere.action [input] Enter the Java package name for your entity beans [org.jboss.seam. tutorial.websphere.model] [org.jboss.seam.tutorial.websphere.model] org.jboss.seam.tutorial.websphere.model [input] Enter the Java package name for your test cases [org.jboss.seam. tutorial.websphere.action.test] [org.jboss.seam.tutorial.websphere.action.test] org.jboss.seam.tutorial.websphere.test [input] What kind of database are you using? [hsql] ([hsql], mysql, oracle, postgres, mssql, db2, sybase, enterprisedb, h2) [input] Enter the Hibernate dialect for your database [org.hibernate. dialect.HSQLDialect] [org.hibernate.dialect.HSQLDialect] [input] Enter the filesystem path to the JDBC driver jar [lib/hsqldb.jar] [lib/hsqldb.jar] [input] Enter JDBC driver class for your database [org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver] [org.hsqldb.jdbcDriver] [input] Enter the JDBC URL for your database [jdbc:hsqldb:.] [jdbc:hsqldb:.] [input] Enter database username [sa] [sa] [input] Enter database password [] [] [input] Enter the database schema name (it is OK to leave this blank) [] [] [input] Enter the database catalog name (it is OK to leave this blank) [] [] [input] Are you working with tables that already exist in the database? [n] (y, [n], ) [input] Do you want to drop and recreate the database tables and data in import.sql each time you deploy? [n] (y, [n], ) [propertyfile] Creating new property file: /rhdev/projects/jboss-seam/svn-seam_2_0/jboss-seam-2_0/seam-gen/build.properties [echo] Installing JDBC driver jar to JBoss server [copy] Copying 1 file to /home/jbalunas/jboss/jboss-4.2.2.GA/server/default/lib [echo] Type 'seam create-project' to create the new project BUILD SUCCESSFUL Total time: 3 minutes 5 seconds
Type ./seam new-project
to create your
project and cd
/home/jbalunas/workspace/websphere_example
to the
newly created structure.
We now need to make some changes to the generated project.
resources/META-INF/persistence-dev.xml
Alter the
jta-data-source
to be
DefaultDatasource
. We are
going to be using the integrated Websphere
DB.
Add or change the properties below.
These are described in detail at Section 35.2, “ The jee5/booking
example ”:
<property name="hibernate.dialect" value="GlassfishDerbyDialect"/>
<property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="update"/>
<property name="hibernate.show_sql" value="true"/>
<property name="hibernate.format_sql" value="true"/>
<property name="hibernate.cache.provider_class"
value="org.hibernate.cache.HashtableCacheProvider"/>
<property name="hibernate.transaction.manager_lookup_class"
value="org.hibernate.transaction.WebSphereExtendedJTATransactionLookup"/>
Remove the JBoss AS specific method of exposing the EntityManagerFactory:
<property
name="jboss.entity.manager.factory.jndi.name"
value="java:/websphere_exampleEntityManagerFactory">
You'll need to alter
persistence-prod.xml
as
well if you want to deploy to Websphere using the
prod profile.
resources/GlassfishDerbyDialect.class
As with other examples we need to include this class for
DB support. It can be copied from the
jpa
example into the
websphere_example/resources
directory.
cp $SEAM/examples/jpa/resources-websphere61/WEB-INF/classes/GlassfishDerbyDialect.class ./resources
resources/META-INF/jboss-app.xml
You can delete this file as we aren't deploying to JBoss
AS ( jboss-app.xml
is used to enable
classloading isolation in JBoss AS)
resources/*-ds.xml
You can delete these file as we aren't deploying to JBoss AS (these files define datasources in JBoss AS, we are using Websphere's default datasource)
resources/WEB-INF/components.xml
Enable container managed transaction
integration - add the
<transaction:ejb-transaction />
component, and it's namespace
declaration
xmlns:transaction="http://jboss.com/products/seam/transaction"
Alter the jndi-pattern
to
java:comp/env/websphere_example/#{ejbName}
We do not need
managed-persistence-context
for this example and so can delete its
entry.
<persistence:managed-persistence-context name="entityManager"
auto-create="true"
persistence-unit-jndi-name="java:/websphere_exampleEntityManagerFactory"/>
resources/WEB-INF/web.xml
Websphere does not support Servlet
2.5
, it required Servlet
2.4
. For this change we need to adjust the top of
the web.xml
file to look like the
following:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app version="2.4"
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd">
As with the jee5/booking
example we need to add EJB references to the web.xml. These
references require the empty
local-home
to flag them for
Websphere to perform the proper binding.
<ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-ref-name>websphere_example/AuthenticatorAction</ejb-ref-name>
<ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
<local-home></local-home>
<local>org.jboss.seam.tutorial.websphere.action.Authenticator</local>
</ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-local-ref>
<ejb-ref-name>websphere_example/EjbSynchronizations</ejb-ref-name>
<ejb-ref-type>Session</ejb-ref-type>
<local-home></local-home>
<local>org.jboss.seam.transaction.LocalEjbSynchronizations</local>
</ejb-local-ref>
We want to take the existing Authenticator
Seam POJO component and create an EJB3 out of it.
Rename the class to
AuthenticatorAction
Add the @Stateless
annotation to the new
AuthenticatorAction
class.
Create an interface called
Authenticator
which
AuthenticatorAction
implements (EJB3 requires session beans to have a
local interface). Annotate the interface with
@Local
, and add a single method
with same signature as the
authenticate
in
AuthenticatorAction
.
@Name("authenticator") @Stateless public class
AuthenticatorAction implements Authenticator {
@Local public interface Authenticator {
public boolean authenticate();
}
We've already added its reference to the
web.xml
file so are good to go.
This application has similar requirements as the
jee5/booking
example.
Change the default target to
archive
(we aren't going to cover
automatic deployment to Websphere).
<project name="websphere_example" default="archive" basedir=".">
Websphere looks for the drools
/security.drl
file in the root of the
war
file instead of the root of the
websphere_example.jar
so we need
to have the build.xml
move it to the
correct location at build time. The following must be added at
the top of the <target name="war"
depends="compile" description="Build the distribution
.war file">
target.
<copy todir="${war.dir}">
<fileset dir="${basedir}/resources" >
<include name="*.drl" />
</fileset>
</copy>
We need to ge the
GlassfishDerbyDialect.class
into
our application jar. To do that find the
jar
task and modify the top of it so that
it looks like this:
<target name="jar" depends="compile,copyclasses"
description="Build the distribution .jar file">
<copy todir="${jar.dir}">
<fileset dir="${basedir}/resources">
<include name="seam.properties" />
<include name="*.drl" />
<include name="GlassfishDerbyDialect.class" />
</fileset>
</copy>
...
Next we need to get the
jboss-seam.jar
into the base of the
EAR
file. For deployment Websphere
requires this jar to be in both the /lib
directory and at the base of the EAR
. You
must add the following to the archive
task:
<fileset dir="${lib.dir}">
<include name="jboss-seam.jar" />
</fileset>
So that the whole archive
task looks
like:
<target name="archive" depends="jar,war,ear"
description="Package the archives">
<jar jarfile="${dist.dir}/${project.name}.jar" basedir="${jar.dir}"/>
<jar jarfile="${dist.dir}/${project.name}.war" basedir="${war.dir}"/>
<jar jarfile="${dist.dir}/${project.name}.ear">
<fileset dir="${ear.dir}"/>
<fileset dir="${dist.dir}">
<include name="${project.name}.jar"/>
<include name="${project.name}.war"/>
</fileset>
<fileset dir="${lib.dir}">
<include name="jboss-seam.jar" />
</fileset>
</jar>
</target>
Now we need to get extra jars into the
build.xml
. Look for the
<fileset dir="${basedir}">
section
of the task below. Add the new includes at the bottom of
the fileset.
<target name="ear" description="Build the EAR">
<copy todir="${ear.dir}">
<fileset dir="${basedir}/resources">
<include name="*jpdl.xml" />
<include name="*hibernate.cfg.xml" />
<include name="jbpm.cfg.xml" />
</fileset>
<fileset dir="${lib.dir}">
<include name="jboss-seam.jar" />
</fileset>
<fileset dir="${basedir}">
<include name="lib/jbpm*.jar" />
<include name="lib/jboss-el.jar" />
<include name="lib/drools-*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/core.jar"/>
<include name="lib/janino*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/antlr-*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/mvel*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/richfaces-api*.jar" />
</fileset>
</copy>
<copy todir="${ear.dir}/META-INF">
<fileset dir="${basedir}/resources/META-INF">
<include name="application.xml" />
<include name="jboss-app.xml" />
</fileset>
</copy>
</target>
Hibernate dependencies
<!-- Hibernate and deps -->
<include name="lib/hibernate.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-commons-annotations.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-annotations.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-entitymanager.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-validator.jar"/>
<include name="lib/jboss-common-core.jar" />
JSF dependencies. You will need to copy the
el-ri.jar
from the
$SEAM/examples/jpa/lib
directory.
<!-- jsf libs -->
<include name="lib/jsf-api.jar" />
<include name="lib/jsf-impl.jar" />
<include name="lib/el-api.jar" />
<include name="lib/el-ri.jar"/>
Third party dependencies. You will need to copy the
jboss-archive-browsing.jar
from the
$SEAM/examples/jpa/lib
directory into the
the projects /lib
directory. You will
also need to acquire the concurrent.jar
and place it in the same directory. You can get this from
any jboss distribution or just search for it.
<!-- 3rd party and supporting jars -->
<!--<include name="lib/log4j.jar" />-->
<include name="lib/javassist.jar"/>
<include name="lib/dom4j.jar" />
<include name="lib/jboss-archive-browsing.jar" />
<include name="lib/concurrent.jar" />
<include name="lib/cglib.jar"/>
<include name="lib/asm.jar"/>
<include name="lib/antlr.jar" />
<include name="lib/commons-logging.jar" />
<include name="lib/commons-collections.jar" />
jboss-seam.jar
- this is needed in
both the ear
base and
/lib
directory.
<!-- seam jar -->
<include name="lib/jboss-seam.jar" />
You should end up with something like:
<fileset dir="${basedir}">
<include name="lib/jbpm*.jar" />
<include name="lib/jboss-el.jar" />
<include name="lib/drools-*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/core.jar"/>
<include name="lib/janino*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/antlr-*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/mvel*.jar"/>
<include name="lib/richfaces-api*.jar" />
<!-- Hibernate and deps -->
<include name="lib/hibernate.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-commons-annotations.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-annotations.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-entitymanager.jar"/>
<include name="lib/hibernate-validator.jar"/>
<include name="lib/jboss-common-core.jar" />
<!-- jsf libs -->
<include name="lib/jsf-api.jar" />
<include name="lib/jsf-impl.jar" />
<include name="lib/el-api.jar" />
<include name="lib/el-ri.jar"/>
<!-- 3rd party and supporting jars -->
<!--<include name="lib/log4j.jar" />-->
<include name="lib/javassist.jar"/>
<include name="lib/dom4j.jar" />
<include name="lib/jboss-archive-browsing.jar" />
<include name="lib/concurrent.jar" />
<include name="lib/cglib.jar"/>
<include name="lib/asm.jar"/>
<include name="lib/antlr.jar" />
<include name="lib/commons-logging.jar" />
<include name="lib/commons-collections.jar" />
<!-- seam jar -->
<include name="lib/jboss-seam.jar" />
</fileset>
Build your application by calling
ant
in the base directory of your
project (ex.
/home/jbalunas/workspace/websphere_example
). The target of the build will be
dist/websphere_example.ear
.
To deploy the application follow the instructions here :
Section 35.2.3, “Deploying the application to Websphere” but use references to
this project websphere_example
instead of
jboss-seam-jee5
.
Checkout the app at:
http://localhost:9080/websphere_example/index.html
This section both lists the compile-time and runtime dependencies for Seam.
Where the type is listed as ear
, the library should be
included in the /lib directory of your application's ear file. Where the
type is listed as war
, the library should be placed in
the /WEB-INF/lib
directory of your application's war
file. The scope of the dependency is either all, runtime or provided (by
JBoss AS 4.2).
Up to date version information and complete dependency information is not
included in the docs, but is provided in the
/dependency-report.txt
which is generated from the
Maven POMs stored in /build
. You can generate this file
by running ant dependencyReport
.
Table 36.1.
Name |
Scope |
Type |
Notes |
---|---|---|---|
|
all |
ear |
The core Seam library, always required. |
|
runtime |
war |
Include during development when enabling Seam's debug feature |
|
runtime |
war |
Required when using Seam with Spring |
|
runtime |
war |
Required when using Seam's PDF features |
|
runtime |
war |
Required when using Seam Remoting |
|
runtime |
war |
Required to use the Seam JSF controls |
|
provided |
JSF API | |
|
provided |
JSF Reference Implementation | |
|
runtime |
war |
Facelets |
|
runtime |
war |
URL Rewrite library |
|
runtime |
ear |
Required when you wish to use Quartz with Seam's asynchronous features |
Table 36.2. RichFaces dependencies
Name |
Scope |
Type |
Notes |
---|---|---|---|
|
all |
ear |
Required to use RichFaces. Provides API classes that you may wish to use from your application e.g. to create a tree |
|
runtime |
war |
Required to use RichFaces. |
|
runtime |
war |
Required to use RichFaces. Provides all the UI components. |
Table 36.3. Seam Mail Dependencies
Name |
Scope |
Type |
Notes |
---|---|---|---|
|
runtime |
ear |
Required for attachment support |
|
runtime |
ear |
Required for outgoing mail support |
|
compile only |
Required for incoming mail support mail-ra.rar should be deployed to the application server at runtime | |
|
runtime |
war |
Seam Mail |
Table 36.4. Seam PDF Dependencies
Name |
Type |
Scope |
Notes |
---|---|---|---|
|
runtime |
war |
PDF Library |
|
runtime |
war |
Charting library |
|
runtime |
war |
Required by JFreeChart |
|
runtime |
war |
Seam PDF core library |
The JBoss Rules libraries can be found in the drools/lib
directory in Seam.
Table 36.5. JBoss Rules Dependencies
Name |
Scope |
Type |
Notes |
---|---|---|---|
|
runtime |
ear |
ANTLR Runtime Library |
|
runtime |
ear |
Eclipse JDT |
|
runtime |
ear | |
|
runtime |
ear | |
|
runtime |
ear | |
|
runtime |
ear |
These libraries are required if you with to use the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) with your Seam application.
Maven offers support for transitive dependency management and can be used to manage the dependencies of your Seam project. You can use Maven Ant Tasks to integrate Maven into your Ant build, or can use Maven to build and deploy your project.
We aren't actually going to discuss how to use Maven here, but just run over some basic POMs you could use.
Released versions of Seam are available in http://repository.jboss.org/maven2 and nightly snapshots are available in http://snapshots.jboss.org/maven2.
All the Seam artifacts are available in Maven:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.jboss.seam</groupId>
<artifactId>jboss-seam</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.jboss.seam</groupId>
<artifactId>jboss-seam-ui</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.jboss.seam</groupId>
<artifactId>jboss-seam-pdf</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.jboss.seam</groupId>
<artifactId>jboss-seam-remoting</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.jboss.seam</groupId>
<artifactId>jboss-seam-ioc</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.jboss.seam</groupId>
<artifactId>jboss-seam-ioc</artifactId>
</dependency>
This sample POM will give you Seam, JPA (provided by Hibernate) and Hibernate Validator:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>org.jboss.seam.example/groupId>
<artifactId>my-project</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<name>My Seam Project</name>
<packaging>jar</packaging>
<repositories>
<repository>
<id>repository.jboss.org</id>
<name>JBoss Repository</name>
<url>http://repository.jboss.org/maven2</url>
</repository>
</repositories>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-validator</artifactId>
<version>3.0.0.GA</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-annotations</artifactId>
<version>3.3.0.ga</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-entitymanager</artifactId>
<version>3.3.1.ga</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.jboss.seam</groupId>
<artifactId>jboss-seam</artifactId>
<version>2.0.0.GA</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>