Simple question, tough answer about SelectItems

[dhinojosa]

Ok, I have a drop-down menu with a selection of products, here is a JSF snippet:

 <h:message for="productsMenu"/>
 <h:selectOneMenu id="productsMenu"
 value="#{product}">
 <s:selectItems var="product"
 value="#{saleFinder.products}"
 label="#{sale.name} - #{sale.getSubtotal(calendarBean)}"
 noSelectionLabel="Select Sale Product..."/>
 <s:convertEntity/>
 </h:selectOneMenu>

Now here is the tough part...I want to format the second part of the label, #{sale.getSubtotal(calendarBean)}", as a currency....

[igx89]

Create a stateless Seam component with a method that takes a float as a parameter and returns it as a formatted currency string.

For example, if you named the component "formatter" and named the method "asCurrency(float currency)", then your label attribute would be:
label="#{sale.name} - #{formatter.asCurrency(sale.getSubtotal(calendarBean))}"

[dhinojosa]

Woot! Thanks...

I was going into a long divergent path.

I was thinking though through this problem that all basic converters should be accessible as a seam component. That way they can be accessed as tags or through EL. Also a standard value holder component would be a good idea too.

[pmuir]

Dan, thats not a bad idea e.g. exposed as #{converters['javax.faces.NumberConverter'} - you should file a feature request.

Matthew, I would suggest using an el function rather than a seam component - separates the view and backing layer better.

[igx89]

I've heard of EL functions, but the Seam documentation doesn't mention them and the stuff Google brings up seems specific to JSP and not Facelets, so I really have no idea how to create them. Do you know of any good tutorials/documentation on using them with Facelets and/or Seam?

[pmuir]

As usual, Rick Hightowers facelets series are excellent:

[url]http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-facelets2.html#N100B9[/url

Although I prefer to register the functions using xml rather than code.

[igx89]

Thanks. Is there a link on how to register the functions using xml too? Because from looking at that tutorial, it's a lot more complex and error-prone than the way I'm doing now.

[pmuir]

Facelets docs do discuss this afaik