JSF 2 + Spring 3 Integration Example

Posted on December 5, 2010 ,     Last modified : September 17, 2012

By mkyong

In this tutorial, we will show you how to integrate JSF 2.0 with Spring 3 using :

1. JSF XML faces-config.xml
2. Spring annotations
3. JSR-330 standard injection

Tools and technologies used :

1. JSF 2.1.13
2. Spring 3.1.2.RELEASE
3. Maven 3
4. Eclipse 4.2
5. Tomcat 6 or 7

1. Directory Structure

A standard Maven project for demonstration.

2. Project Dependencies

Declares JSF 2, Spring 3, JSR-330 inject, and Tomcat’s dependencies.

pom.xml

 xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" 
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 
   http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
 
 4.0.0

com.mkyong.common JavaServerFaces war 1.0-SNAPSHOT JavaServerFaces Maven Webapp http://maven.apache.org     org.springframework spring-core 3.1.2.RELEASE   org.springframework spring-web 3.1.2.RELEASE   javax.inject javax.inject 1   com.sun.faces jsf-api 2.1.13 com.sun.faces jsf-impl 2.1.13   javax.servlet jstl 1.2   javax.servlet servlet-api 2.5   javax.servlet.jsp jsp-api 2.1   org.glassfish.web el-impl 2.2   com.sun.el el-ri 1.0     JavaServerFaces   org.apache.maven.plugins maven-compiler-plugin 2.3.1 1.6 1.6

3. JSF 2 + Spring Integration

Spring’s bean in Spring Ioc context, and JSF’s managed bean in JSF Ioc context, how to make both working together? The solution is defined Spring’s SpringBeanFacesELResolver in faces-config.xml. Check this official Spring guide.

faces-config.xml

 version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
 http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_1.xsd"
 version="2.1">
 
 
  
          org.springframework.web.jsf.el.SpringBeanFacesELResolver
  

 

See following 3 examples to inject Spring’s bean in JSF managed bean.

3.1. XML Schema Example

Many developers still prefer to use XML to manage beans. With SpringBeanFacesELResolver, just uses EL ${userBo} to inject Spring’s bean into JSF’s managed bean.

UserBo.java

package com.mkyong.user.bo;
 
public interface UserBo{
 
 public String getMessage();
 
}

UserBoImpl.java

package com.mkyong.user.bo.impl;
 
import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;
 
public class UserBoImpl implements UserBo{
 
 public String getMessage() {
 
  return "JSF 2 + Spring Integration";
 
 }
 
}

UserBean.java – JSF backing bean

package com.mkyong;
 
import java.io.Serializable;
import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;
 
public class UserBean{
 
        //later inject in faces-config.xml
 UserBo userBo;
 
 public void setUserBo(UserBo userBo) {
  this.userBo = userBo;
 }
 
 public String printMsgFromSpring() {
 
  return userBo.getMessage();
 
 }
 
}

applicationContext.xml – Declares userBo bean

 xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd">
 
  id="userBo" class="com.mkyong.user.bo.impl.UserBoImpl">
 

faces-config.xml – Declares managed bean and inject userBo

 version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

    xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
    http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_0.xsd"
    version="2.0">
 
 
  user

com.mkyong.UserBean session userBo #{userBo}  

3.2. Spring Annotations – Auto Scan

This example is using Spring annotations. Injects like a normal bean with @ManagedBean, @Autowired and @Component, it just works as expected.

UserBoImpl.java

package com.mkyong.user.bo.impl;
 
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;
import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;
 
@Service
public class UserBoImpl implements UserBo{
 
 public String getMessage() {
 
  return "JSF 2 + Spring Integration";
 
 }
 
}

UserBean.java

package com.mkyong;
 
import javax.faces.bean.ManagedBean;
import javax.faces.bean.SessionScoped;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;
 
@Component
@ManagedBean
@SessionScoped
public class UserBean{
 
 @Autowired
 UserBo userBo;
 
 public void setUserBo(UserBo userBo) {
  this.userBo = userBo;
 }
 
 public String printMsgFromSpring() {
  return userBo.getMessage();
 }
 
}

applicationContext.xml – Enable the component auto scan

 xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
 xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.1.xsd
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.1.xsd">
 
  base-package="com.mkyong" />
 

Mixed use of both JSF and Spring annotations are working fine, but it look weird and duplicated – @Component and@ManagedBean together. Actually, you can just uses a single @Component, see following new version, it’s pure Spring, and it works!

UserBean.java

package com.mkyong;
 
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Scope;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;
 
import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;
 
@Component
@Scope("session")
public class UserBean{
 
 @Autowired
 UserBo userBo;
 
 public void setUserBo(UserBo userBo) {
  this.userBo = userBo;
 }
 
 public String printMsgFromSpring() {
  return userBo.getMessage();
 }
 
}

3.3. JSR-330 Annotation

Since Spring 3.0, Spring offer supports for JSR-330 injection standard. Now, you can uses @Inject to replace for@Autowired and @Named for @Component. This is recommended to solution, follow JSR-330 standard make the application more portable to other environments, and it works fine in Spring framework.

UserBoImpl.java

package com.mkyong.user.bo.impl;
 
import javax.inject.Named;
import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;
 
@Named
public class UserBoImpl implements UserBo{
 
 public String getMessage() {
 
  return "JSF 2 + Spring Integration";
 
 }
 
}

UserBean.java

package com.mkyong;
 
import javax.inject.Inject;
import javax.inject.Named;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Scope;
import com.mkyong.user.bo.UserBo;
 
@Named
@Scope("session") //need this, JSR-330 in Spring context is singleton by default
public class UserBean {
 
 @Inject
 UserBo userBo;
 
 public void setUserBo(UserBo userBo) {
  this.userBo = userBo;
 }
 
 public String printMsgFromSpring() {
  return userBo.getMessage();
 }
 
}

applicationContext.xml – Need component auto scan also

 xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
 xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.1.xsd
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.1.xsd">
 
  base-package="com.mkyong" />
 

4. Demo

Example in 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 are doing exactly the thing – Inject userBo into JSF bean, just different implementation. Now, create a simple JSF page to show the the result.

default.xhtml

version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html" >     <h1>JSF 2.0 + Spring Example</h1>   #{userBean.printMsgFromSpring()}   </h:body>   </html>

web.xml

 version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
 xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" 
 xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" 
 xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
 http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" 
 id="WebApp_ID" version="2.5">
 
  JavaServerFaces

  org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener org.springframework.web.context.request.RequestContextListener   javax.faces.PROJECT_STAGE Development   default.jsf   facesServlet javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet 1 facesServlet *.jsf facesServlet *.xhtml  

Done, see output : http://localhost:8080/JavaServerFaces/default.jsf

Download Source Code

Download It – JSF2-Spring-Example.zip (31KB)

References