为什么SelectOneMenu会忽略转换器？

Question

I have a list of objects, a selectOneMenu , in which I want to display that object list. I do not want to display toString() method result in that menu, and I created a converter instead.

The problem is that in h:outputText element converter is called and I see expected value. But when I attach that converter to h:selectOneMenu, converter is still called when page is rendered, but the result is ignored and toString() result is used instead. How can I fix it?

Some example code:

Converter:

@FacesConverter(forClass=Priority.class)
public class PriorityConverter implements Converter {

    @Override
    public Object getAsObject(FacesContext context, UIComponent component, String value) {
        try {
            InitialContext ic = new InitialContext();
            PriorityEJB priorityEJB = (PriorityEJB) ic.lookup("java:global/TicketSentinel/TicketSentinel-ejb/PriorityEJB");
            return priorityEJB.getPriorityByOrd(Integer.valueOf(value.charAt(0)));
        } catch (NamingException ex) {
            Logger.getLogger(PriorityConverter.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
            throw new ConverterException();
        }
    }

    @Override
    public String getAsString(FacesContext context, UIComponent component, Object value) {
        Priority p = (Priority) value;
        return p.getOrder() + " - " + p.getName();
    }

}

Part of the page:

<h:outputText value="Priority:" />
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{ticketController.ticket.priority}">
    <f:selectItems value="#{priorityController.priorityList}" />
</h:selectOneMenu>

Controller bean:

@Named(value = "priorityController")
@RequestScoped
public class PriorityController {
    @EJB
    private PriorityEJB priorityEJB;

    public List<Priority> getPriorityList() {
        return priorityEJB.getPriorities();
    }

}

---

Update:

I looked at the source of the page, and found this:

 <td><select name="j_idt18:j_idt26" size="1"> <option value="1 - Fatal">1 - - Fatal</option> <option value="2 - Critical">2 - - Critical</option> <option value="3 - Very Important">3 - - Very Important</option> <option value="4 - Important">4 - - Important</option> <option value="5 - Minor">5 - - Minor</option> <option value="6 - Fix if time">6 - - Fix if time</option> <option value="7 - Insignificant">7 - - Insignificant</option> </select></td> 

So that engine prints the right value, but in the wrong place! How can I make it place the text in value attribute into the body of <option> block?

Answer 1

The converter is only used to convert the value of the dropdown (whatever you see as <option value> and not to convert the label of the dropdown (whatever you see between <option> and </option> . The label is the one which is visible in the dropdown menu.

If you want to change the label to be the same as the value, then you just need to do it as such:

<f:selectItems value="#{priorityController.priorityList}" var="priority"
    itemValue="#{priority}" itemLabel="#{priority.order} - #{priority.name}" />

For the item value of #{priority} the converter will still be called. Although I'd prefer to use some autogenerated database ID instead of kind of a label value so that conversion is more efficient.