Is there a built in converter for Y/N and boolean in JSF and/or SEAM to use with h:selectBooleanCheckbox?

Question

If an entity has the property defined as

private String noWstManagedFlg;

and the database is constraint is set to enforce a 'Y' or 'N'. Is there a built in Y N to boolean converter I can use with h:selectBooleanCheckbox? Or will I need to add my own converter and/or property on my entity that returns a boolean?

<h:selectBooleanCheckbox value="#{entity.noWstManagedFlg}" />

Answer 1

There is no such converter in Seam, but if your JPA implementation is Hibernate, you can map that property with 'yes_no' type and have it boolean in the entity.

@Type(type= "yes_no")
private boolean noWstManagedFlg;

Answer 2

From experience and what I've read h:selectBooleanCheckbox does not support converters. I had written a converter that would convert "Y"/"N" to true/false. The "getAsString" method is called as you'd expect, but the "getAsObject" method is never called. @Stefano is right the best way to go is use the Hibernate "yes_no" or "true_false" Type on your entity property.

I ran into a problem when using '@Type(type = "yes_no")'. First of all the hibernate failed to properly convert the "Y"/"N" strings to true/false values. And secondly, trying to update an entity would cause the program to hang. Using the following mapping solved these issues for me and now everything works as expected.

@Type(type = "org.hibernate.type.YesNoType")
private boolean noWstManagedFlg;