If Solution 1 worked and you just want it more generic:
Holding your instances within scope of a bean you can use a more generic converter by removing the managed-bean lookup from it. Your entities should inherit from a base entity with a identifier property. You can instantiate this converter in your bean where you retrieved the entities.
Or use a guid map or public identifier if id should not be exposed in html source.
@ManagedBean(name = "personBean")
@ViewScoped
public class PersonBean implements Serializable {
private List<Person> persons;
private EntityConverter<Person> converter;
// this.converter = new EntityConverter<>(persons);
}
<p:selectOneMenu converter="#{personBean.converter}">
<f:selectItems value="#{personBean.persons}"/>
</p:selectOneMenu>
Abstract Base Entity converter:
/**
* Abstract Entity Object JSF Converter which by default converts by {@link Entity#getId()}
*/
public abstract class AEntityConverter<T extends Entity> implements Converter
{
@Override
public String getAsString(final FacesContext context, final UIComponent component, final Object value)
{
if (value instanceof Entity)
{
final Entity entity = (Entity) value;
if (entity.getId() != null)
return String.valueOf(entity.getId());
}
return null;
}
}
Cached collection:
/**
* Entity JSF Converter which holds a Collection of Entities
*/
public class EntityConverter<T extends Entity> extends AEntityConverter<T>
{
/**
* Collection of Entity Objects
*/
protected Collection<T> entities;
/**
* Creates a new Entity Converter with the given Entity Object's
*
* @param entities Collection of Entity's
*/
public EntityConverter(final Collection<T> entities)
{
this.entities = entities;
}
@Override
public Object getAsObject(final FacesContext context, final UIComponent component, final String value)
{
if (value == null || value.trim().equals(""))
return null;
try
{
final int id = Integer.parseInt(value);
for (final Entity entity : this.entities)
if (entity.getId().intValue() == id)
return entity;
}
catch (final RuntimeException e)
{
// do something --> redirect to exception site
}
return null;
}
@Override
public void setEntities(final Collection<T> entities)
{
this.entities = entities;
}
@Override
public Collection<T> getEntities()
{
return this.entities;
}
}
Remote or database lookup Converter:
/**
* Entity Object JSF Converter
*/
public class EntityRemoteConverter<T extends Entity> extends AEntityConverter<T>
{
/**
* Dao
*/
protected final Dao<T> dao;
public EntityRemoteConverter(final EntityDao<T> dao)
{
this.dao = dao;
}
@Override
public Object getAsObject(final FacesContext context, final UIComponent component, final String value)
{
// check for changed value
// no need to hit database or remote server if value did not changed!
if (value == null || value.trim().equals(""))
return null;
try
{
final int id = Integer.parseInt(value);
return this.dao.getEntity(id);
}
catch (final RuntimeException e)
{
// do someting
}
return null;
}
}
I use dao approach whenever I have to convert view-parameters and bean was not constructed yet.
Avoid expensive lookups In dao approach you should check if the value has changed before doing potential expensive lookups, since converters could be called multiple times within different phases.
Have a look at source of: http://showcase.omnifaces.org/converters/ValueChangeConverter
This basic approach is very flexible and can be extended easily for many use cases.