How do I check if there is an error message?

Question

WIth
<h:message for="something"/>
I can display the (error) message for "something".
How do I check if there is a error message fomr "something" in a JSF page?
I am asking cause I want to use an other styleClass for an h:inputText field.
Can there be something like:
<h:inputText styleClass="${messages.something.error ? errorstyle : normalstyle} ...
Thnaks for any answers

Answer 1

Here you can find the code of my solution to the question.
Hope it can be useful...
Note: The existence of the nested class the names of the attributes
have been chosen only to make the Faces JSP more "human readable"...
in the faces-config.xml
<managed-bean>
  <managed-bean-name>decorate</managed-bean-name>
  <managed-bean-class>package.Decorate</managed-bean-class>
  <managed-bean-scope>request</managed-bean-scope>
</managed-bean>
at the end of your jsp page (as last component in the page)
<h:inputHidden value="#{decorate.inputs.onerror}" />
the "decorator"
public class Decorate {
     * @return Returns the inputs.
    public Input getInputs() {
        return new Input();
     * @param inputs
     *            The inputs to set.
    public void setInputs(Input inputs) {
    public class Input {
         * Decorates all the components of the Faces JSP that have at least one
         * associated message.
        public String getOnerror() {
            FacesContext context = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
            UIComponent root = context.getViewRoot();
            decorate(context, root);
            return "";
         * Decorates the specify components and all its children recursively.
         * @param context
         *            the current <code>FacesContext.</code>
         * @param node
         *            the component to decorate.
        private void decorate(FacesContext context, UIComponent node) {
            Iterator it = context.getMessages(node.getClientId(context));
            if (it.hasNext()) {
                try {
                    Method getStyleClass = node.getClass().getMethod(
                            "getStyleClass", new Class[] {});
                    String style = (String) getStyleClass.invoke(node,
                            new Object[] {});
                    style = (style != null) ? style + " message" : "message";
                    Method setStyleClass = node.getClass().getMethod(
                            "setStyleClass", new Class[] { String.class });
                    setStyleClass.invoke(node, new Object[] { style });
                } catch (Exception e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
            for (Iterator iter = node.getChildren().iterator(); iter.hasNext();) {
                decorate(context, (UIComponent) iter.next());
         * This method has been exposed only to comply to the <i>JavaBeans
         * architecture </i>.
         * @param onerror
        public void setOnerror(String onerror) {
how it works:
The core of the class is the decorate(FacesContext, UIComponent) method:
for each component on the current view I simply test whether the component
has got a setStyleClass method, therefore I don't care about the actual
components library! It can be tomahawk, standard JSF, whatever! and
I don't need to create my own components
( or to extend all existing components!)
only to manage the task of the "on error stlye class".
If all the "stylable" components had implemented an interface, it would have
been better, but its not like that therefore this is the only way I could think of.
Any idea would be appreciated.
Then, if there exists a message associated to the component, I simply
extend its style class adding the CSS style class message.