JSF - Application Events

JSF provides system event listeners to perform application specific tasks during JSF application Life Cycle.

S.No System Event & Description
1

PostConstructApplicationEvent

Fires when the application starts. Can be used to perform initialization tasks after the application has started.
2

PreDestroyApplicationEvent

Fires when the application is about to shut down. Can be used to perform cleanup tasks before the application is about to shut down.
3

PreRenderViewEvent

Fires before a JSF page is to be displayed. Can be used to authenticate the user and provide restricted access to JSF View.

System Events can be handled in the following manner.

S.No Technique & Description
1

SystemEventListener

Implement SystemEventListener interface and register the system-event-listener class in faces-config.xml
2

Method Binding

Pass the name of the managed bean method in listener attribute of f:event.

SystemEventListener

Implement SystemEventListener Interface.

public class CustomSystemEventListener implements SystemEventListener {
   
   @Override
   public void processEvent(SystemEvent event) throws 
      AbortProcessingException {
      
      if(event instanceof PostConstructApplicationEvent) {
         System.out.println("Application Started. 
            PostConstructApplicationEvent occurred!");
      }      
   }
}

Register custom system event listener for system event in faces-config.xml.

<system-event-listener>
   <system-event-listener-class>
      com.tutorialspoint.test.CustomSystemEventListener
   </system-event-listener-class>
   
   <system-event-class>
      javax.faces.event.PostConstructApplicationEvent
   </system-event-class>    					
</system-event-listener>

Method Binding

Define a method

public void handleEvent(ComponentSystemEvent event) {
   data = "Hello World";
}

Use the above method.

<f:event listener = "#{user.handleEvent}" type = "preRenderView" />

Example Application

Let us create a test JSF application to test the system events in JSF.

Step Description
1 Create a project with a name helloworld under a package com.tutorialspoint.test as explained in the JSF - First Application chapter.
2 Modify UserData.java file as explained below.
3 Create CustomSystemEventListener.java file under a package com.tutorialspoint.test. Modify it as explained below
4 Modify home.xhtml as explained below.
5 Create faces-config.xml in WEB-INF folder.Modify it as explained below. Keep the rest of the files unchanged.
6 Compile and run the application to make sure the business logic is working as per the requirements.
7 Finally, build the application in the form of war file and deploy it in Apache Tomcat Webserver.
8 Launch your web application using appropriate URL as explained below in the last step.

UserData.java

package com.tutorialspoint.test;

import java.io.Serializable;

import javax.faces.bean.ManagedBean;
import javax.faces.bean.SessionScoped;
import javax.faces.event.ComponentSystemEvent;

@ManagedBean(name = "userData", eager = true)
@SessionScoped
public class UserData implements Serializable {
   private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
   private String data = "sample data";
	
   public void handleEvent(ComponentSystemEvent event) {
      data = "Hello World";
   }

   public String getData() {
      return data;
   }

   public void setData(String data) {
      this.data = data;
   }
}

CustomSystemEventListener.java

package com.tutorialspoint.test;

import javax.faces.application.Application;
import javax.faces.event.AbortProcessingException;
import javax.faces.event.PostConstructApplicationEvent;
import javax.faces.event.PreDestroyApplicationEvent;
import javax.faces.event.SystemEvent;
import javax.faces.event.SystemEventListener;

public class CustomSystemEventListener implements SystemEventListener {

   @Override
   public boolean isListenerForSource(Object value) {
      
      //only for Application
      return (value instanceof Application);
   }

   @Override
   public void processEvent(SystemEvent event) 
      throws AbortProcessingException {
      
      if(event instanceof PostConstructApplicationEvent) {
         System.out.println("Application Started. 
            PostConstructApplicationEvent occurred!");
      }
      
      if(event instanceof PreDestroyApplicationEvent) {
         System.out.println("PreDestroyApplicationEvent occurred.
            Application is stopping.");
      }
   }
}

home.xhtml

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"   
   xmlns:h = "http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
   xmlns:f = "http://java.sun.com/jsf/core">
   
   <h:head>
      <title>JSF tutorial</title>		   
   </h:head>
   
   <h:body> 
      <h2>Application Events Examples</h2>
      <f:event listener = "#{userData.handleEvent}" type = "preRenderView" />
      #{userData.data}
   </h:body>
</html>

faces-config.xhtml

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<faces-config
   xmlns = "http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
   xmlns:xsi = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
   xsi:schemaLocation = "http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee 
   http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-facesconfig_2_0.xsd"
   version = "2.0">
   
   <application>
      <!-- Application Startup -->
      <system-event-listener>
         <system-event-listener-class>
            com.tutorialspoint.test.CustomSystemEventListener
         </system-event-listener-class>
         <system-event-class>
            javax.faces.event.PostConstructApplicationEvent
         </system-event-class>    					
      </system-event-listener> 
      
      <!-- Before Application is to shut down -->
      <system-event-listener>
         <system-event-listener-class>
            com.tutorialspoint.test.CustomSystemEventListener
         </system-event-listener-class>
         <system-event-class>
            javax.faces.event.PreDestroyApplicationEvent
         </system-event-class>    					
      </system-event-listener>
   </application>
</faces-config>

Once you are ready with all the changes done, let us compile and run the application as we did in JSF - First Application chapter. If everything is fine with your application, this will produce the following result.

JSF actionListener result

Look into your web-server console output. You will see the following result.

INFO: Deploying web application archive helloworld.war 
Dec 6, 2012 8:21:44 AM com.sun.faces.config.ConfigureListener contextInitialized 

INFO: Initializing Mojarra 2.1.7 (SNAPSHOT 20120206) for context '/helloworld' 
Application Started. PostConstructApplicationEvent occurred! 
Dec 6, 2012 8:21:46 AM com.sun.faces.config.ConfigureListener 
$WebConfigResourceMonitor$Monitor <init> 

INFO: Monitoring jndi:/localhost/helloworld/WEB-INF/faces-config.xml 
for modifications 
Dec 6, 2012 8:21:46 AM org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol start 

INFO: Starting Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-8080 
Dec 6, 2012 8:21:46 AM org.apache.jk.common.ChannelSocket init 
INFO: JK: ajp13 listening on /0.0.0.0:8009  

Dec 6, 2012 8:21:46 AM org.apache.jk.server.JkMain start 
INFO: Jk running ID = 0 time = 0/24  config = null 
Dec 6, 2012 8:21:46 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start 
INFO: Server startup in 44272 ms
jsf_event_handling.htm
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