[jsr-314-open-mirror] [jsr-314-open] Servlet-API dependency with resources

[Neil Griffin]

Hi Guys,

After re-reading my email from Friday, I thought it would be good to provide the short-short version of the story:

Current resource URLs are not portlet-compatible, i.e.:
	http://localhost:8080/webapp-context/javax.faces.resource/foo?ln=bar

Suggested change for JSF 2.1 that would make the URLs portlet compatible:

	http://localhost:8080/webapp-context?javax.faces.resource=foo&ln=bar

In other words, I think we need to make javax.faces.resource be a request parameter, rather than part of the path.

Neil

On Apr 2, 2010, at 5:21 PM, Neil Griffin wrote:

> Hi Guys,
> 
> While developing the portletfaces-bridge [1] I discovered a Servlet-API dependency with the way JSF 2.0 implements detection of resource requests.
> 
> Specifically, javax.faces.application.Resource.getRequestPath() [2] states that "/javax.faces.resource" [3] must be part of the return value of the path.
> 
> Now... it's true that the Javadoc for javax.faces.application.Resource.getRequestPath() [2] adds:
> 	"Make it portlet safe by passing the result through ViewHandler.getResourceURL(javax.faces.context.FacesContext, java.lang.String)" [4]
> 
> ... but this isn't good enough. To make a long story short, the Portlet 2.0 API does not provide access to the URL requested by the userAgent/browser. It only provides access to request parameters. So there is no way for a portlet bridge to examine the request path. In fact, the behavior of ExternalContext.getRequestPathInfo() [5] and ExternalContext.getRequestServletPath() [6] are undefined for portlets, because there are no equivalent methods in the javax.portlet.PortletRequest class like there is for javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest. So it's just not appropriate for a JSF implementation to rely on them to behave like their Servlet API counterparts.
> 
> Therefore, in order to provide compatibility with portlets, I propose that for JSF 2.1, we deprecate:
> 	- The presence of "/javax.faces.resource/resource-name" in the path
> 
> And change it to this:
> 	- The presence of a "javax.faces.resource" request parameter with value resource-name.
> 
> Using this method, custom implementations of ResourceHandler that are present in component-suites can add additional request parameters to help them identify themselves as a custom resource request.
> 
> Thoughts? I've got it coded up in the bridge and it seems to be working fine.
> 
> Thanks guys,
> 
> Neil
> 
> [1] http://www.portletfaces.org/projects/portletfaces-bridge
> [2] https://javaserverfaces.dev.java.net/nonav/docs/2.0/javadocs/javax/faces/application/Resource.html#getRequestPath()
> [3] https://javaserverfaces.dev.java.net/nonav/docs/2.0/javadocs/javax/faces/application/ResourceHandler.html#RESOURCE_IDENTIFIER
> [4] https://javaserverfaces.dev.java.net/nonav/docs/2.0/javadocs/javax/faces/application/ViewHandler.html#getResourceURL(javax.faces.context.FacesContext, java.lang.String)
> [5] https://javaserverfaces.dev.java.net/nonav/docs/2.0/javadocs/javax/faces/context/ExternalContext.html#getRequestPathInfo()
> [6] https://javaserverfaces.dev.java.net/nonav/docs/2.0/javadocs/javax/faces/context/ExternalContext.html#getRequestServletPath()
>