Problem with commandButton in a custom DataTable

Question

I am trying to write a cutom DataTable and am having some trouble. I don't think that the DataTable that gets shipped has the flexibility that we need for our pages. That's why I'm trying to write my own.
What I have is a commandButton in one of the column headers for the table. It is bound to a method in a backing bean. The page seems to render correctly. But when I click on the button, it seems to make a trip to the server, but the method doesn't get invoked.
I figure that I'm missing something in my custom component, but I just can't figure it out. Does anyone have any ideas?
If you would like for me to post some/all of the code just let me know. I didn't what might be helpful.
Thanks,
Ray

Answer 1

Thank you for your response.
I already had a messages tag on my page and no messages come out. I've looked in the log and don't see anything in their either. I put in a phaseListener and all of the phases are being processed.
Here is my output. It is the same whether I press the button that is inside my custom dataTable or press a button that is outside my custom dataTable.
beforePhase RESTORE_VIEW 1
afterPhase RESTORE_VIEW 1
beforePhase APPLY_REQUEST_VALUES 2
afterPhase APPLY_REQUEST_VALUES 2
beforePhase PROCESS_VALIDATIONS 3
afterPhase PROCESS_VALIDATIONS 3
beforePhase UPDATE_MODEL_VALUES 4
afterPhase UPDATE_MODEL_VALUES 4
beforePhase INVOKE_APPLICATION 5
afterPhase INVOKE_APPLICATION 5
beforePhase RENDER_RESPONSE 6
afterPhase RENDER_RESPONSE 6
The problem is, when I press the button that is inside my custom dataTable the method for the button doesn't get invoked. So I believe that I have something wrong in my custom dataTable that isn't building the component tree correctly. Does anyone have any ideas for this?
Here is the class that renders my col tag. That tag puts out the <th> that the button is in.
* Created on Dec 19, 2004
package com.monsanto.ag_it.fieldops.aim.tblmaint.renderer;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.faces.component.UIComponent;
import javax.faces.context.FacesContext;
import javax.faces.context.ResponseWriter;
import javax.faces.render.Renderer;
import com.monsanto.ag_it.fieldops.aim.tblmaint.component.UIRptTableCol;
import com.monsanto.ag_it.fieldops.aim.tblmaint.component.UIRptTableColHdr;
* @author rcclark
* Renderer for the RptTableTag
public class RptTableColRenderer extends Renderer {
     private String tagType = null;
     public void encodeBegin(FacesContext context, UIComponent rptTableCol)
               throws IOException {
          // First determine if this is a th or td cell
          Object rptTblSection = rptTableCol.getParent().getParent();
          tagType = "td";
          if (rptTblSection instanceof UIRptTableColHdr) {
               tagType = "th";
          ResponseWriter writer = context.getResponseWriter();
          UIRptTableCol rptTblCol = (UIRptTableCol) rptTableCol;
          writer.write("\t\t\t");
          writer.startElement(tagType, rptTableCol);
//System.out.println("col id=" + (String) rptTableCol.getAttributes().get("id"));
//          if (!rptTblCol.getId().substring(0, 3).equals("_id")) {
               writer.writeAttribute("id", rptTblCol.getClientId(context), null);
          String colClass = (String) rptTableCol.getAttributes().get("colClass");
          if (colClass != null) {
               writer.writeAttribute("class", colClass, null);
          String colSpan = (String) rptTableCol.getAttributes().get("colSpan");
          if (colSpan != null) {
               writer.writeAttribute("colSpan", colSpan, null);
          String rowSpan = (String) rptTableCol.getAttributes().get("rowSpan");
          if (rowSpan != null) {
               writer.writeAttribute("rowSpan", rowSpan, null);
     public void encodeEnd(FacesContext context, UIComponent rptTableCol)
               throws IOException {
          ResponseWriter writer = context.getResponseWriter();
          writer.endElement(tagType);
          writer.write("\r\n");
     public boolean getRendersChildren() {
          return true;
}Thanks,
Ray