Custom tag library called multiple times

Question

Hi ppl ,
I have a custom tag library which i use to populate some menu components. When i do call my custom tag library though , it is called multiple times, use case is as follows.
I have menu tabs and menu bars which thanks to Mr.Brenden is working splendidly as so:-
<af:menuTabs>
<af:forEach var="menuTab" items="#{bindings.menu.vwUserMenuTabRenderer.rangeSet}">
<af:commandMenuItem text="#{menuTab.MenuLabel}"
shortDesc="#{menuTab.MenuHint}"
rendered="true"
immediate="true"
selected="#{sessionScope.selectedMenuId == menuTab.MenuId }"
onclick="fnSetSelectedValue('#{menuTab.MenuId}')" >
</af:commandMenuItem>
</af:forEach>
</af:menuTabs>
<af:menuBar>
<af:forEach var="menuBar" items="#{bindings.menu.vwUserMenuBarRenderer.rangeSet}">
<af:commandMenuItem onclick="return clickreturnvalue()"
onmouseover="dropdownmenu(this, event,#{menuBar.MenuId}, '150px')"
onmouseout="delayhidemenu()"
text="#{menuBar.MenuLabel}"
action="#{menuBar.MenuUri}"
rendered="#{menuBar.ParentId == sessionScope.selectedMenuId}"
immediate="true" />
</af:forEach>
</af:menuBar>
</afc:cache>
now all of this code is within a subview , and just directly below the subview tag , i have the call to my custom tag library:-
<myCustomTagLib:menuCascade />
only issue now is that assuming i have in all 7 menu bar components, the doStartTag is called 7 times. the relevant code within my custom tag class is as follows :-
public int doStartTag() throws JspException {
return (EVAL_BODY_INCLUDE);
public int doEndTag() throws JspException {
try {
declareVariables();
return EVAL_PAGE;
}catch (Exception ioe) {
throw new JspException(ioe.getMessage());
and within my declareVariables method i do an out of the jscript ( out.print(jscript.toString()); ) which is a simple string generated based on certain conditions...
now it seems to be working fine on the front end , but when i view the source of the page, i notice that the declaration is called multiple times, and this happens because the doStartTag method is called multiple times, i haven't even nested the call to the custom tag within the menu components , any clue as to whats going wrong ?
Cheers
K

Answer 1

Hi,
if you add the following print statement
System.out.println("rendering "+FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getViewRoot().getViewId());
Then the output in my case is
07/04/24 08:14:04 rendering /BrowsePage.jsp
07/04/24 08:14:05 rendering /otn_logo_small.gif
The image comes from the file system, which means it is rendered by the JSF lifecycle. If you reference the image with a URL then the lifecycle doesn't render the image but only refrences it.
To avoid your prepare render code to be executed multiple times, just check for jsp and jspx file extensions, which will guarantee that your code only executes for JSF pages, not for loaded files.
The reason why this happens is because the JSF filter is set to /faces , which means all files that are loaded through that path
Frank