JSF 2.2: Configure available Locales outside faces-config.xml

Question

Currently i have a section in my faces-config.xml such as follows:

    <locale-config>
        <default-locale>en</default-locale>
        <supported-locale>en_US</supported-locale>
        <supported-locale>en_GB</supported-locale>
        <supported-locale>de</supported-locale>
        <supported-locale>de_DE</supported-locale>
    </locale-config>

This is working as intended.

The problem is, i have to be able to define these Locales whithout touching the faces-config.xml in my war. The idea is having eg a config File on the resource Path defining all the available Locales.

I already tried an programatic approach as well as using a second faces-config.xml in the META-INF of another module i have access to and defining an specific file on the ressource path which should be merged according to this article . The second file in each case contained the above section in a valid faces-config.xml format. Both without any effect (neither errors nor any change in the behaviour)

Is there any nice way to do this without touching the original faces-config?

I am able to change the ear module and to access ressources programatically in any location. Unfortunately adjusting the faces-config.xml in the .war is no option.

Answer 1

There is a misconception here as far as I can see. There is no need to configure anything in the locale-config if you use custom resolvers/resource bundles/whatever and have otherwise full control over things.

If you look at the answer in Add Resource Bundles Programmatically , you see the OmniFaces Faces.getLocale() is used to pass a locale to the resourceBundle

Locale userLocale = Faces.getLocale();
ResourceBundle b = ResourceBundle.getBundle("msgs", userLocale);

So what is effectively done is pass a programmatically chosen locale to it, not automagically using something that is configured in the locale-config .

The fact the IN Faces.getLocale() some code is present to use the locale-config is to make sure it can be used when people have something configured in locale-config , so it behaves as expected in plain normal JSF. In line 16 it retreives the locale send in the request by the user. In line 18 it checks this against the supported-locale (can be left out in a custom implementation!!!) and if no match, use the default-locale (can be left out to, as can line 7-12)

1   /**
2     * {@inheritDoc}
3     * @see Faces#getLocale()
4     */
5   public static Locale getLocale(FacesContext context) {
6       Locale locale = null;
7       UIViewRoot viewRoot = context.getViewRoot();
8
9       // Prefer the locale set in the view.
10      if (viewRoot != null) {
11          locale = viewRoot.getLocale();
12      }
13
14      // Then the client preferred locale.
15      if (locale == null) {
16          Locale clientLocale = context.getExternalContext().getRequestLocale();
17
18          if (getSupportedLocales(context).contains(clientLocale)) {
19              locale = clientLocale;
20          }
21      }
22
23      // Then the JSF default locale.
24      if (locale == null) {
25          locale = context.getApplication().getDefaultLocale();
26      }
27
28      // Finally the system default locale.
29      if (locale == null) {
30          locale = Locale.getDefault();
31      }
32
33      return locale;
34  }

So this code can be totally tweaked to your liking, including first checking if the user has configured a locale of preference in your application and otherwise using the locale send by the browser IF supported.