How to construct a faces request from a http request?

Question

I wonder how FacesServlet.service determines whether it should be calling LifecycleImpl.execute in oppose to calling LifecycleImpl.render?
Basically, I'm trying to construct a http request that would go through the decode method of my UIComponent. However, it seems that my request has always been treated as a non-faces request, where it goes to the render face directly.
Does anyone know how do I need to construct my http request so that it'll be recgonized as a faces request?
Anyone knows where i can download the source code for FacesServlet?
thanks!

Answer 1

Sorry, are you saying that FacesServlet ALWAYS call execute before render even if it's the first request?
What I experienced is that for the first request, execute isn't called, and it goes directly to render.
And if I use the html form submit on the 2nd request, it does go to execute, then render.
However, if i construct another http request, it'll act like a first request, where it doesn't go through the execute, but striaght to render.
This is what I set in web.xml:
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup> 1 </load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<!-- Faces Servlet Mapping -->
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/faces/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
I call my jsp using http://server:8080/faces/my.jsp, and I'm using tomcat 5. Any help would be appreciated.