How do you pass parameter to a methodaction and get methoditerator back?

Question

I'm using Jdeveloper 10.1.3.5 with BC
I'm authenticating using Active Directory - this part is working fine.
However I need to be able to search the Active Directory and allow an administrator to select users to add to a custom database table. The database table has the login and name. When someone logins in, I make sure they are in the user table. But the administrator needs to be able to add other users for use in drop downs (Buyers, Product Managers, etc). The users have these roles assigned to them (assigned roles are stored in another table).
The problem is getting the data from Active Directory and displaying it in a table that the user can select from. I tried creating a method in my application module that takes two parameters - a login pattern and name pattern that are used for searching. I'm returning an ArrayList - I think I need to modify my return type. I do have the code to access Active Directory working. I added the method to the client interface. When I tried to create a page by draging the method onto the page as a parameter form and the results as a read only table, everything looks fine, but I have the following problems
1. it runs the method with no parameters when the form is first accessed - currently I return an empty ArrayList since I don't want to return the entire Active Directory - I get the following error three times - JBO-25003: Object java.util of type ApplicationModule not found
2. If I proceed to enter a parameter and press the button, the method is still called with no parameter (can tell by debugging) and I get the error again three times
So how am I supposed to do this? I know how to do it with views that access database, but here I need code to access Active Directory. I tried to do programmic view object, with no better success.
Here is the pagedef of my page
<executables>
<variableIterator id="variables">
<variable Type="java.lang.String" Name="getADUsers_loginPattern"
IsQueriable="false"/>
<variable Type="java.lang.String" Name="getADUsers_namePattern"
IsQueriable="false"/>
</variableIterator>
<methodIterator id="getADUsersIter" Binds="getADUsers.result"
DataControl="NpiAppModuleDataControl" RangeSize="10"
BeanClass="java.util.ArrayList" />
</executables>
<bindings>
<methodAction id="getADUsers" MethodName="getADUsers"
RequiresUpdateModel="true" Action="999"
IsViewObjectMethod="false"
DataControl="NpiAppModuleDataControl"
InstanceName="NpiAppModuleDataControl.dataProvider"
ReturnName="NpiAppModuleDataControl.methodResults.NpiAppModuleDataControl_dataProvider_getADUsers_result">
<NamedData NDName="loginPattern" NDType="java.lang.String"
NDValue="${bindings.getADUsers_loginPattern}"/>
<NamedData NDName="namePattern" NDType="java.lang.String"
NDValue="${bindings.getADUsers_namePattern}"/>
</methodAction>
<attributeValues id="loginPattern" IterBinding="variables">
<AttrNames>
<Item Value="getADUsers_loginPattern"/>
</AttrNames>
</attributeValues>
<attributeValues id="namePattern" IterBinding="variables">
<AttrNames>
<Item Value="getADUsers_namePattern"/>
</AttrNames>
</attributeValues>
<table id="getADUsers1" IterBinding="getADUsersIter">
<AttrNames>
<Item Value="element"/>
</AttrNames>
</table>
</bindings>
and here is my method
public ArrayList getADUsers(String loginPattern, String namePattern) {
//load properties from file
Properties props = new Properties();
try {
Common.loadProperties(props, PROPS_FILE);
} catch (IOException e) {
throw new RuntimeException(e);
ArrayList users = new ArrayList();
Hashtable env = new Hashtable();
env.put(Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY,"com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtxFactory");
env.put(Context.PROVIDER_URL, props.getProperty(PROVIDER_URL));
env.put(Context.SECURITY_AUTHENTICATION, "simple");
env.put(Context.SECURITY_PRINCIPAL, props.getProperty(SECURITY_PRINCIPAL));
env.put(Context.SECURITY_CREDENTIALS, props.getProperty(SECURITY_CREDENTIALS));
DirContext dctx = null;
NamingEnumeration results = null;
String filter = null;
String login = null;
String name = null;
if (loginPattern != null && !loginPattern.equals(""))
filter = "(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(sAMAccountName="+loginPattern.replace('%', '*')+")";
if (namePattern != null && !namePattern.equals(""))
if (filter == null) {
filter = "(&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(cn="+namePattern.replace('%', '*')+"))";
} else {
filter = filter+"(cn="+namePattern.replace('%', '*')+"))";
} else {
if (filter != null) {
filter = filter +")";
try {
if (filter != null) {
dctx = new InitialDirContext(env);
SearchControls controls = new SearchControls();
controls.setSearchScope(SearchControls.SUBTREE_SCOPE);
results = dctx.search(props.getProperty(SEARCHBASE), filter, controls);
while (results.hasMore()) {
SearchResult searchResult = (SearchResult) results.next();
Attributes attributes = searchResult.getAttributes();
Attribute attr = attributes.get("cn");
name = (String) attr.get();
attr = attributes.get("sAMAccountName");
login = (String) attr.get();
users.add(new String[] {login, name});
} catch (NamingException e) {
throw new RuntimeException(e);
} finally {
if (results != null) {
try {
results.close();
} catch (Exception e) {
if (dctx != null) {
try {
dctx.close();
} catch (Exception e) {
return users;
Thanks for your help.
Edited by: user2159804 on Aug 2, 2011 10:53 AM

Answer 1

If I remove the read only table and thus the methoditerator, the errors go away and I can see that my method is getting called with the parameters when the button is pushed.
It looks like my problem is trying to display the results of the method. I tried to create a class to for the user with properties of login and name. And in changed the method to return List<ADUser>. Still same errors. And I changed the method to return null if both parameters were null. With this I can see that the method is getting called by the methoditerator when the page is first displayed and when the button is pushed with null parameters followed by the call from the ExecuteWithParams with the parameter.
Thanks for the link, but since my problem isn't really the parameters but the displaying of the list of data, it didn't really help.