Problem with h:dataTable and conditional rowClasses

Question

Hi!
I have a problem which I hoped somebody could have a look at. It might be that what I'm trying to do isn't possible, but I think it should have worked ;)
To give you a quick presentation of my "case" or problem:
- I have a dataTable which is filled with Document objects retrieved from a database.
- The Document object has a property "created" which is a Date timestamp
- In the dataTable I alternate the background of each row with white and blue
- Then, what I would like to do, is to do a test on the "created" property, if the Document has been created within a fixed time, present it with a yellow line instead.
- I set the different background-colors with three different styles, tableViewRow1 - tableViewRow2 and tableViewRow3 (the latest is the yellow line).
To do a test on the dates I convert them into milliseconds and do a simple subtraction - if todayDate minus createdDate is smaller than criteriaDate, then the Document is considered "new" and should have a yellow background.
This is how I've defined my dataTable:
<h:dataTable id="documentsTableView"
binding="#{documentModelFactory.htmlDataTable}"
value="#{documentModelFactory.documents}"
var="document"
columnClasses="tableViewColumn"
rowClasses="#{ (documentModelFactory.todayInMillisec - document.createdInMillisec) < documentModelFactory.criteriaInMillisec ? 'tableViewRow3':'tableViewRow1,tableViewRow2'}"
styleClass="tableView"
footerClass="tableViewFooter"
headerClass="tableViewHeader"
>
So this would be the interesting lines:
rowClasses="#{ (documentModelFactory.todayInMillisec - document.createdInMillisec)< documentModelFactory.criteriaInMillisec ? 'tableViewRow3':'tableViewRow1,tableViewRow2'}"
I don't get an exception, and my expression seems valid. But it seems like it is always rendered to be false, I only get the white and blue rows, and I don't understand why.
I have done different tests on the expression, and this confuses me, because it seems like the result is what it should be.
# Test 1
For each row I created a column printing the result of the expression, false or true.
<h:column>
<f:facet name="header">
<h:outputText value="Test " />
</f:facet>
<h:outputText value="#{ (documentModelFactory.todayInMillisec - document.createdInMillisec)< documentModelFactory.criteriaInMillisec }" />
</h:column>
In all cases this is giving me the correct result, new documents get 'true' and the old ones get 'false'.
So then I thought that there is a problem setting the tableViewRow3 param properly for the <tr class="" > :
#Test 2
I created a selectDocument action which basically just sets the document in my bean when a commandLink in the dataTable is fired.
Then, in my method I retrieve the HtmlDataTable object, and do a logging of the current rowClasses for that row:
htmlDataTable.getRowClasses() - which returns a String
If I selected an "old" document, it returned "'tableViewRow1,tableViewRow2", but if i selected a new document, it returned 'tableViewRow3'.
So it seems like my expression is rendered correctly, the rowClass is set properly, but still I don't get a yellow line. In the html source I have only <tr>'s with
'tableViewRow1' and 'tableViewRow2'.
Anybody? :)
I don't know if it has something to do with the time / when the rowClasses param is "rendered", that it doesn't know what the "document" property is at that time??? I had the impression that the html was encoded "on the fly", and then this shouldn't be a problem? But I'm not exactly an expert so.. :)
I guess an alternative solution is to do the testing in my bean and build up a comma-separated String to specify a rowClass for each row displayed in the dataTable, and then set the rowClasses to something like
rowClasses="#{bean.rowStyles}"
but first solution seems like a much easier approach (less costly as well), and it would also be interesting to know why it doesn't work.
I'm using the 1.1.3 version of myfaces-impl, myfaces-api and tomahawk
Thank you for your time!
Eivind Roennevik

Answer 1

I'm not sure whether i understand your problem,
It doesnot need using the binding attribute If you wanna updating the value of each rows in the datatable.
below is a sample that updating each rows of a datatable
jsp file
<h:dataTable value="#[sampleBean.data}" var="row">
    <h:column><h:inputText value="#{row.col1}"/></h:column>
</h:dataTable>
<h:commandButton value="update" action="#{sampleBean.update}"/>BackingBean:
SampleBean.java
public class Samplebean{
  private SampleRow[] rows[];
  public SampleRow[] getData{
          return rows;
  public String update(){
      for(int i=0; i<rows.length; i++){
         rows.update();
return "success";
SampleRow.java
public class SampleRow{
  private String col1;
  public String getCol1(){
    return col1;
  public void setCol1(String col1){
    this.col1 = col1;
  public void update(){
     //write your code to save one row data to db/file here