Have a backing bean in request scope; need to access parameters sent to it

Question

I have a request scope backing bean in my app, 'projectBean'. This has a property called 'id'.
/** in request scope in faces-config.xml */
projectBean {
    id               // set by the param from the previous page
    downloadAction() // activated by commandlink, depends on id
}There is another backing bean in session scope called 'projectListingBean', which has a dataTable that lists a bunch of projectBeans. In this 'projectListingBean', I can click on any row. That row, when clicked initializes a 'id' parameter, which is then passed to the new 'projectBean'. 'projectBean' then initializes itself based on the id.
In the jsp page backed by 'projectBean', I also have a link to download something specific to that 'projectBean'. Naturally enough, I have a commandlink with actionBinding to a method in my 'projectBean', downloadXXXAction().
The problem arises because the downloadXXX() method relies on a 'id'. Remember, this id was orinigally set 2 requests back from the datatable. Since the page backed by 'projectBean' is in request scope, the id is lost, and my method call doesn't work. I tried changing the scope of 'projectBean' to session, but JSF complains that I already setting the 'id' property as a param, I can't set the whole managed bean to something 'higher' like session.
Of course, the ideal fix to this probelm would be the ability to have beans in page scope, but what other ways (hacks??) are there to get around this?

Answer 1

Hi, I'm posting some code snippets if it helps with understanding the problem.
faces-config.xml:
<!-- PROJECTLISTINGBEAN -->
<managed-bean>
     <managed-bean-name>projectListingBean</managed-bean-name>
     <managed-bean-scope>session</managed-bean-scope>
     <managed-property>
          <property-name>projectBeans</property-name>
          <property-class>java.util.List</property-class>
          <list-entries>
               <value-class>
                    com.sun.sleuth.omcmweb.view.bean.ProjectBean
               </value-class>
          </list-entries>
     </managed-property>
</managed-bean>
<!-- PROJECTBEAN -->
<managed-bean>
     <managed-bean-name>projectBean</managed-bean-name>
     <managed-bean-class>
     </managed-bean-class>
     <managed-bean-scope>request</managed-bean-scope>
     <managed-property>
          <property-name>projectId</property-name>
          <property-class>java.lang.String</property-class>
          <value>#{param.projectId}</value>
     </managed-property>
</managed-bean>projectlsting.jsp (page backed by projectListingBean)
<h:dataTable value="#{projectListingBean.projectBeans}"
     var="projectBean" ...>
     <h:column>
          <f:facet name="header">
          </f:facet>
          <h:commandLink action="#{projectListingBean.viewProjectSUmmary}">
               <h:outputText value="#{projectBean.projectId}" />
               <f:param name="projectId" value="#{projectBean.projectId}" />
          </h:commandLink>
     </h:column>
</h:dataTable>projectsummary.jsp (page backed by request scoped projectBean)
<h:commandLink action="#{projectBean.assessmentAction}" value="..." />
...Flow:
projectlisting.jsp (projectListingBean - session) -param id passed->
projectsummary.jsp (projectBean - request) -commandLink clicked and id lost-->
projectSummary.jsp (projectBean - request)