Convert and Validator with CDI injection

Question

Can someone inject CDI or EJB into JSF 2.2 Converter or Validator? It was said that from 2.2 it would be possible but I’m not getting it.

I’ve tried to

@EJB
 UserService userService

and also

@Inject
 UserService userService

and both did not rotate.

Answer 1

The CDI support in Converter and Validator is in the version 2.3 JSF, still release, only Milestones.

Such support is provided for in JSR 372, integral part of Java EE 8. So you should use dependencies not yet in version release for such support.

To make use of Milestone, if use Maven, add this dependency:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.glassfish</groupId>
    <artifactId>javax.faces</artifactId>
    <version>2.3.0-m02</version>
</dependency>

If not use Maven, do the download of JAR directly from the repository.

Done this, an example of convert would be this:

@RequestScoped
@FacesConverter(value = "customConverter", managed = true)
public class CustomConverter implements Converter {

    @Inject
    private CustomService service;

    // implemente getAsString e getAsObject

}

And of Validator, this:

@RequestScoped
@FacesValidator(value = "customValidator", managed = true)
public class CustomValidator implements Validator {

    @Inject
    private CustomService service;

    // implemente validate

}

Here I put the request scope, but you can use the other supported ones too, if you need.

Note that support was given by including a new attribute (managed) to existing annotations @FacesConverter and @FacesValidator.

This is the support native, that is, even if it is not convert and Validator one bean managed by container CDI it is now eligible for dependency injection.

An important observation is: the container should be prepared for this, ie be compatible with Java EE 8 (or at least have the latest module of the JSF implementation), otherwise it will do no good to use this way. For example, in Glassfish support for Java EE 8 is provided in version 5. In Glassfish 4 you can try to replace javax.faces.jar by the JSF 2.3 library cited above.

In What’s new in JSF 2.3? you can see the news for JSF 2.3, you will see that some of the novelties is precisely the increase of CDI support to more JSF artifacts.

P.S.: the links are from the Java EE 7 documentation because it does not have the Java EE 8 documentation yet.

Editing: including ways to use in a version prior to 2.3

In version prior to JSF 2.3, to be able to make use of CDI you will need your bean is managed by container to be eligible for addiction injection, so you can use for example @Named.

For example, our CustomConverter would look like this:

@Named
@RequestScoped
public class CustomConverter implements Converter {

    @Inject
    private CustomService service;

    // implemente getAsString e getAsObject

}

And our CustomValidator, thus:

@Named
@RequestScoped
public class CustomValidator implements Validator {

    @Inject
    private CustomService service;

    // implemente validate

}

Also in version prior to 2.3, you can use the library Omnifaces that supports CDI, see example in their documentation.

Answer 2

It is worth mentioning only if use your converter is managed by CDI, in the XML page when references converter has to be converter="{nomebeanconverter}", for only with @FacesConverter would look like this converter="nomebeanconverter"