A page does not behave the same in every case

Question

Hi,
I am using adfbc and jsf/adf pages.
I have an entity called Parish (CountryId, CityId, AreaId, ParishName), and created a simple validation method (if the parish name is equal to "test" then to show an error by returning false).
I created a custom validation method in my AppModule that i just simply get the record id, find the entity and set the values with the method parameters
I then created a view based on the entity and dragged my view object on my jsf page. I created a button and i binded my custom edit method to the command button, setting the appropriate parameters to bindings on the form. I then double clicked by button and created a binding for the method in a bean.
When i edit a record and change for example the CountryId, CityId, AreaId and set the ParishName to test (so to force my validation method fire), i am shown the error but the data that i last inputed are lost, and the original are show.
In another case where i am doing the same thing, the data are kept.
For example, i have a record with CountryId:UK, CityId:London, AreaId:Finchley, ParishName: North Finchley and when i edit the record and define CountryId:USA, CityId:New York, AreaId:Manhattan, ParishName: test, i get the error message but the data are the original (CountryId:UK, CityId:London, AreaId:Finchley, ParishName: North Finchley). I want to keep the last entered data. In some forms this is done automatically, but in this form i didn't do anything, just dragged and defined, and is not working.
Anyone please help?
Antonis

Answer 1

I apologize for insisting on this, but in my humble opinion it's not useful to try and figure out why your hand-written example is not working if already the declarative way is not working as we expect. We need to figure out why the declarative way is not working first.
One of my primary jobs is helping customers use ADF correctly and understand how it works internally.
The code in your updateParish() method is redundantly applying updates to entity attributes that ADF will already have applied to the entity for you. To see this for yourself, you can set a breakpoint in one of the setter methods of your entity object and you'll see that your code is applying the updates a second time.
I see one reason why your error reporting won't be working as expected, which is that you are directly using the entityImpl object to apply the values. The ADF bundled exception mode only works when you use the view object row to apply the updates to the entities indirectly. Howing using the view object row to apply the values is what ADF will have already done automatically for you, so it's not necessary to do that.
It's also not a best practice to pass a literal integer value for the first argument of setAttribute(). If for any reason the constant values change, then your code will break. You should call setAttribute("TheAttributeName",thevalue) instead for more robust code.
Finally, your programmatically setting the user principal name and current date time can also be handled for you automatically by ADF by setting those attributes to be of the correct "History Attribute" type. See section "6.6.3.10 History Attributes" in the ADF Developer's Guide for Forms/4GL Developers on the ADF Learning Center at http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/adf/learnadf.html
Set a breakpoint in your validation method and debug the completely declarative edit form with the simple (Commit) button. We need to understand if the:
(a) validation is executing, failing, but the validation error is not being reported correctly, or
(b) validation is never being enaged at all.