JSF error handling when the bean is not correctly loaded

Question

Hi,
I am doing some error handling in JSF and I want to do it in an elegant way. I have the following scenario for error handling.
When the bean is initialized I load the bean with values from DAO which give SQL Exceptions.
Since the bean is not loaded I properly I have to send the user to an error page showing the error message why I am sending the user to this page.
I can do it by [ FacesContext.getCurrentInstance.redirect("/error.jsf") ] doing so I will loose all the FacesMessages that are added by the exceptions.
Instead I want to use the [ FacesContext.getCurrentInstance.dispatch("url") ] which will allow the transfer of the user but I get the following
16:59:39,341 WARN [lifecycle] executePhase(RESTORE_VIEW 1,com.sun.faces.context.FacesContextImpl@8537f9) threw exception
java.lang.ClassCastException: javax.faces.component.UIViewRoot
and the method that I am calling is
public static void programErrorEnd() {
logger.info("in the prgmErrorEnd mehod");
//intializing the contex object
FacesContext ctx = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
try {
//ready to dispatch the url.
//ctx.getExternalContext().redirect("app/error/prgmerror.jsf");
ctx.getExternalContext().dispatch("error/prgmerror.jsf");
} catch (IOException e) {
//TODO what to do when there is an error at this stage.
finally {
ctx.responseComplete();
}Thanks and Regarding
Edited by: sgatl2 on Aug 28, 2008 2:32 PM
Edited by: sgatl2 on Aug 28, 2008 2:45 PM

Answer 1

Just let it throw the exception and define an error-page entry in the web.xml which catches the specified exception (or a superclass of it or a HTTP status code) and displays the error.jsf page accordingly.