Seam's Character to Boolean converter

[braddm7]

Hello,

I have a JPA entity property that is of a primitive char(1) datatype, i.e. it returns a 'Y' or an 'N'. This field in the UI is represented as a boolean checkbox.

I created a Seam's converter which for some reason invoke only the 'getAsString' method of the javax.faces.convert.Converter interface. Here is a part of the Facelet:
                                   
<h:selectBooleanCheckbox value="#{someEntity.somePrimitiveChar}">
<f:converter converterId="charToBooleanConverter" />          </h:selectBooleanCheckbox>

The initial UI rendering is fine and in debug mode the checkbox is managed by the converter's 'getAsString' method. When the form is submitted it does not enter the 'getAsObject' method. Here is the converter itself.

package com.my.domain.converters;

import javax.faces.component.UIComponent;
import javax.faces.context.FacesContext;
import javax.faces.convert.ConverterException;

import org.jboss.seam.annotations.Name;
import org.jboss.seam.annotations.faces.Converter;
import org.jboss.seam.annotations.intercept.BypassInterceptors;

@Name("charToBooleanConverter")
@BypassInterceptors
@Converter
public class CharToBooleanConverter implements javax.faces.convert.Converter {

     /** Default construction */
     public CharToBooleanConverter() {
     }

     public Object getAsObject(FacesContext context, UIComponent component, String value) throws ConverterException {
          if (value == null || value.trim().length() == 0) return new Character('N');

          Character toReturn = (value.equalsIgnoreCase("true")) ? 'Y' : 'N';
          return toReturn;
     }

     public String getAsString(FacesContext context, UIComponent component, Object value) throws ConverterException {
          String toReturn = "false";

          if (value == null) {
               return toReturn;
          }

          if (value instanceof Boolean) {
               toReturn = (((Boolean) value) == true) ? "true" : "false";
          }
          else if (value instanceof Character) {
               char toChar = ((Character) value).charValue();
               toReturn = (toChar == 'Y' || toChar == 'y') ? "true" : "false";
          }

          return toReturn;
     }
}

I appreciate your help. Thanks.

[nickarls]

I think this is a JSF issue, search the Sun JSF forums, it is popular there. I have solved a similar situation with a custom hibernate type that maps the Y/N to boolean.

(Now that I think of it, the Y/N has built-in hibernate support, I have different characters, so you might get away without writing any custom classes yourself)

[pmuir]

Agreed, a Hibernate UserType is the best way to resolve this.

[nickarls]

it was the YesNoType i recalled. It's a true=>Y, false=>N mapping.

for Hibernate, that is.

[braddm7]

Thanks, you are right that is it s JSF issue. Here is what I got from Sun's forum if anyone is curious:
Converters are for String-to-Object conversion, where Object is the model type, and String is the display type. For h:selectBooleanCheckbox
to support Converters, there'd have to something like Boolean-to-Object conversion supported, which would be weird. Anyway, this definitely isn't a bug in the RI. It's arguably a problem with the specification. Then h:selectBooleanCheckbox
tag should not support the converter attribute at all.

[jimk1723]

Yup, this works for me:

    @Column(name = "IS_CHART", table = "EVENT")
    @Type(type = "org.hibernate.type.YesNoType")
    public Boolean isChart() {
        return chart;
    }