JSF Incorrect Form Action

[rynmrtn]

I posted this in the JSF Forums, but they passed the buck and told me to post it here.

I am using Spring MVC 2.5 with JSF, and I'm running into a weird issue with the action attribute on the form tag.

My application has a URL structure similar to http://webadress.com/org/user/edit. This is setup in the following way:

<bean id="faceletsViewResolver"
        class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.UrlBasedViewResolver">
        <property name="viewClass" value="org.springframework.faces.mvc.JsfView" />
        <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/pages" />
        <property name="suffix" value=".xhtml" />
    </bean> 

I also have a simple form, similar to the following:

<h:form id="someFormName">
    ... contents of the form ...
</h:form> 

The problem arises when the form is rendered to the page and the action tag is generated. Instead of posting back to the current page (/org/user/edit), it posts back to the path that the file was pulled from.

It does this...

<h:form id="someFormName" action="/WEB-INF/pages/org/user/edit" ...>
    ... contents of the form ...
</h:form> 

Instead of this...

<h:form id="someFormName" action="/org/user/edit" ...>
    ... contents of the form ...
</h:form> 

Therefore, it posts to a page that is not accessible. I'm really not sure which framework is causing this or where/how to configure this.

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks...

[wolfman22]

Hi!

Is there any solution for this problem? Cause I'm facing exactly the same problem - probably it has to do that we want to use jsf with mvc instead of webflow ?

Thanks
Wolfman

[rynmrtn]

I did quite a bit of hunting on this issue, but did not find any easy solutions.

While I no longer have the specific details of the solution, I was able to make it work by overriding a method in the default form implementation of Faces. This may be an option, though you would want to do extensive research on the side effects of rewriting the java code that generates the form information.

When I asked this question, I was studying the feasibility of using JSF with Spring MVC. Due to time limitations, we decided against it and decided to use a different technology combination.

I hope this helps in some way.

[krzychu]

I'm facing same issue with SWF 2.0.8 and <h:form tag.

[tuonghuynh]

I have the same problem too. Anybody can help ?

[eugenep]

There is such a problem really. Actually that does show that Spring+Faces integration through Webflow is still immature.
The simplest solution here is changing form's action through a javascript code on pageload, what is weird and unnatural.

[MaxMan]

Hey,

there has to be a solution! I have exactly the same problem but I am new to Spring. I am working on a dynamic CRUD controller with RESTful URLs and JSF-Views.
https://jira.springsource.org/browse/SWF-1341 seems to be solved but I am not able to see the solution. I've also consulted big google without success.
Help, pls.

regards,
Max

[MaxMan]

solved by defining a UriViewHandler extending ViewHandlerWrapper that returns current url in getActionURL()-method when the requested URI starts with /WEB-INF/ else returns the result of the wrapped ViewHandler.getActionURL() for normal JSF form action behaviour:

myPackage/UriViewHandler.java:

public class UriViewHandler extends ViewHandlerWrapper {

	private ViewHandler handler;

	public UriViewHandler(ViewHandler h) { // thanks to decorator pattern
		handler = h;
	}

	@Override
	public ViewHandler getWrapped() {
		return handler;
	}

	@Override
	public String getActionURL(FacesContext ctx, String viewId) {
		return viewId.startsWith("/WEB-INF/")
			? ((HttpServletRequest)ctx.getExternalContext().getRequest()).getRequestURI()
			: handler.getActionURL(ctx, viewId);
	}

}

faces-config.xml modification:

<application>
	<view-handler>myPackage.UriViewHandler</view-handler>
</application>

Although, this does not solve the problem of concept conflict between RESTful Controllers and JSF form handling it should be possible to use both. But Controller-driven JSF-Pages in /WEB-INF/ can not be accessed via <h:commandLink> or <h:commandButton> actions. In case <h:form> tags would not be used in JSF it could be used passive and fully controller-driven but then you will have to do validation in another way and disclaim a lot of other JSF features.
I am not sure if this really makes sense.