Value and binding attributes?

Question

In a number of UIComponents there is a value and a binding attribute. What is the difference between these attributes and when should one be used vs. the other?

Answer 1

The "binding" attribute is used to bind the tag to a related instance of a component on a backing managed bean.
For example, if you had created an instance of HtmlPanelGrid (called "grid") on a backing bean and had a getter/setter method for that component (getGrid/setGrid), you would use "binding={managedBean.grid}" to tie the <h:panelGrid> tag to the backing instance of component.
The "value" tag is used to assign a value to the component. This may be a String for some components (i.e. outputText) or a List (i.e. dataTable)
The simplest example would be:
<h:outputText value="Hello world!"/>
The preceding tag would render text of "Hello World!"
However... if you were to use binding for that... in your managed bean:
private HtmlOutputText text = new HtmlOutputText();
text.setValue("Hello world!");
public void setText(HtmlOutputText t) {
this.text = t;
public HtmlOutputText getText() {
return text;
Then on the JSP:
<h:outputText binding="#{managedBean.text}"/>
Regards.