Dynamic declarative component won't work properly within table row

Question

Hi guys,
I built a dynamic declarative component which basically consists of an af:inputText surrounded by a af:panelLabelAndMessage tag.
The component works fine until I put it inside a table column, then none of the attribute values get set.
The problem seems to be related to the table row binding #{row.binding.Name.inputValue} , if I use a regular binding #{binding.Name.inputValue} it works ok.
The declarative components attribute is defined as
<attribute>
    <attribute-name>kbez</attribute-name>
    <attribute-class>java.lang.Object</attribute-class>
</attribute>and is used as the inputText's value attribute
<af:componentDef var="attrs" componentVar="component">
    <af:panelLabelAndMessage label="#{attrs.label}" id="dc_plam1"
                             for="dc_it1" labelStyle="white-space:nowrap;"
                             showRequired="#{attrs.showRequired}"
                             rendered="#{attrs.rendered}">
        <af:inputText id="dc_it1" value="#{attrs.kbez}"
                      autoSubmit="true" immediate="false" ...>The component inside a table column is set like this
<af:declarativeComponent viewId="/WEB-INF/ikb.adf.kreda.basis/mitarbeitersuche/ddc/mitarbeiterLOV.jsff"
                         id="ddc1" label="Mitarbeiter"
                         kbez="#{row.bindings.Kbez.inputValue}"/>My JDeveloper version is 11.1.1.5.
Am I doing it wrong or is this a bug?
Any help is appreciated.
Thank you,
Achim
Edited by: Achim Rosenfeld on Mar 8, 2013 8:41 AM

Answer 1

Hi,
+#{row.binding.Name.inputValue} , if I use a regular binding #{binding.Name.inputValue} it works ok.+
Don't think that #{binding.Name.inputValue} works okay in a table because it doesn't stamp the component per row. Actually I don't know if we support dynamic declarative components in a stamped environment (table). I know though that we don't for taglib declarative components in this context.
Reason why it doesn't work: Tables are stamped at runtime, which means that for better performance, only the generated HTML is reused for each row with different data - not the component. Your component requires itself to be re-created for each row so it can re-read the attribute again. This is not the case in a stameped environment
Solution: For your particular use case I don't think that a dynamic declarative component is needed as you can add the construct (af:inputText surrounded by a af:panelLabelAndMessage) directly into an af:column tag. The declarative component makes more sense for reuse of layout areas (e.g. custom tabs) that are iterated within an af:forEach (in which case instances of the decalarative components would be created).
Bottom line: tables stamp their components and as such the attribute property exposed on a DDC doesn't seem to be called for each row, which is by design. This can be considered a bug if there is a use case demanding for a DDC in a table. If this is a requirement for you (and you can't directly add the components to the af:column tag) feel free to file this as a service request with customer support (required a support contract) so development can have a look if the requirement is feasible to implement.
Frank