t:dataTable does it need the value attribute?

Question

In this Post: http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?forumID=427&threadID=679591
..."jsweetland" writes this snippet:
<h:dataTable var="item" value="#{myBean.items}" border="1">
   <h:column>
      <f:facet name="header">
         <f:verbatim>Name</f:verbatim>
      </f:facet>
      <h:outputText value="#{item.name}"/>
   </h:column>
   <h:column>
      <f:facet name="header">
         <f:verbatim>Description</f:verbatim>
      </f:facet>
      <h:outputText value="#{item.description}"/>
   </h:column>
</h:dataTable>my question is why do we need another bean for the dataTable tag ---
<h:dataTable var="item" value="#{myBean.items}" .....>
Can't we directly create list items and use them as values inside the column tag? in other words in our example above can we make do with only the "item" bean and get rid of the "myBean" ?

Answer 1

Hello,
I don't see your point, I only see one bean, "myBean", where do you see "antother bean"? How do you want to iterate over items, rows in the dataTable? Where do you get information about current row from in actions?
Regards,
Thorsten