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I have a stateless EJB that acceses my database. I need this bean in a JSF 2 converter to retreive an entity object from the String value parameter. I'm using JEE6 with Glassfish V3.

@EJB annotation does not work and gets a NPE, because it's in the faces context and it has not access to the EJB context.

My question is: Is it still possible to Inject this bean with a @Resource or other annotation, or a JNDI lookup, or do I need a workaround?


Do a JNDI lookup like this:

  try {
   ic = new InitialContext();
   myejb= (MyEJB) ic
  } catch (NamingException e) {
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4 Answers 4

up vote 6 down vote accepted

I never used JSF 2.0 (only 1.0), but chapter 5.4 of the spec says:

[...] allow the container to inject references to container managed resources into a managed bean instance before it is made accessible to the JSF application. Only beans declared to be in request, session, or application scope are eligble for resource injection.

But so far I understand, a JNDI lookup should do the trick.

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JNDI lookup doesn't work. I tried @EJB(mappedName="java:global/myProject/myEJB") where the value is the one that glassfish outputs in console as "portable JNDI name" of my EJB while deploying –  Michael Bavin Jan 7 '10 at 10:54
don't use @EJB annotation. Get the target component using InitialContext. –  Bozho Jan 7 '10 at 10:57
@Bozho: InitialContext worked! :) Thankyou –  Michael Bavin Jan 7 '10 at 13:06
@bugspy.net: still hanging in the ol' J2EE days with lot of ignorance? –  BalusC Jan 7 '10 at 16:21

Other (yet not so pretty) solution may be using binding instead of converterId. Using JSF managed beans only:

<f:converter binding="#{app.personConverter}" />

Where appBean stands for something like: @ManagedBean(name="app") @ApplicationScoped class AppBean { @EJB private PersonService ps; private Converter personConverter; }

There MAY be a nicer solution in CDI-style (JSR-299) but i've failed to make this one running:

<f:converter binding="#{cdiBean}" />

Where cidBean ought to be: @Named class CdiBean implements Converter { @EJB ... }

Fails with 'Default behavior invoked of requiring a converter-id passed in the constructor'

Anyhow first approach using binding and app scoped JSF bean works.

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The Seam Faces extension for JSF 2.0 and CDI allows @Inject support directly in Validators and Converters.

Check it out: http://ocpsoft.com/java/seam-faces-3-0-0-alpha2-jsf-2-0-just-got-even-easier/

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i don't know if this solution is pretty... but it does work:

public class AcquisitionConverter implements Converter
    private AcquisitionService service;




<h:inputText value="#{flowController.acquisition}" converter="#{acquisitionConverter}">

with jsf 2.1.3 (mojarra) and glassfish 3.1.1

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The @FacesConverter annotation is by the way superflous in this construct (and only confusing to starters). Remove it. –  BalusC Nov 12 '12 at 11:45
ok, i removed it :) –  Michele Mariotti Nov 12 '12 at 17:38
the converter="#{acquisitionConverter}" was the things that didnt work for me –  Juan Diego Feb 15 at 16:24

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