1.9.3. Using "push"-style MVC in a RESTful application

Push-style MVC is sometimes used to process RESTful pages, so Seam provides the notion of a page action. The blog example uses a page action for the blog entry page, entry.xhtml.

Note

We use push-style for the sake of an example, but this particular function would be simpler to implement with pull-style MVC.
The entryAction component works much like an action class in a traditional push-MVC action-oriented framework like Struts. 
@Name("entryAction")
@Scope(STATELESS)
public class EntryAction
{
    @In Blog blog;
  
    @Out BlogEntry blogEntry;
  
    public void loadBlogEntry(String id) throws EntryNotFoundException {
        blogEntry = blog.getBlogEntry(id);
        if (blogEntry==null) throw new EntryNotFoundException(id);
    }
   
}
Page actions are also declared in pages.xml: 
<pages>
  ...

  <page view-id="/entry.xhtml"> 
    <rewrite pattern="/entry/{blogEntryId}" />
    <rewrite pattern="/entry" />
    
    <param name="blogEntryId" 
           value="#{blogEntry.id}"/>
    
    <action execute="#{entryAction.loadBlogEntry(blogEntry.id)}"/>
  </page>
  
  <page view-id="/post.xhtml" login-required="true">
    <rewrite pattern="/post" />
    
    <action execute="#{postAction.post}"
            if="#{validation.succeeded}"/>
    
    <action execute="#{postAction.invalid}"
            if="#{validation.failed}"/>
    
    <navigation from-action="#{postAction.post}">
      <redirect view-id="/index.xhtml"/>
    </navigation>
  </page>

  <page view-id="*">
    <action execute="#{blog.hitCount.hit}"/>
  </page>

</pages>

Note

Note that the example uses page actions for post validation and the pageview counter. Also note the use of a parameter in the page action method binding. This is not a standard JSF EL feature, but Seam allows it both here and in JSF method bindings.
When the entry.xhtml page is requested, Seam first binds the blogEntryId page parameter to the model. Remember that, because of URL rewriting, the blogEntryId parameter name won't appear in the URL. Seam then runs the page action, which retrieves the required data — the blogEntry — and places it in the Seam event context. Finally, it renders the following: 
<div class="blogEntry">
  <h3>#{blogEntry.title}</h3>
  <div>
    <s:formattedText value="#{blogEntry.body}"/>
  </div>
  <p>
  [Posted on&#160;
  <h:outputText value="#{blogEntry.date}">
     <f:convertDateTime timeZone="#{blog.timeZone}" locale="#{blog.locale}" type="both"/>
  </h:outputText>]
  </p>
</div>
If the blog entry is not found in the database, the EntryNotFoundException exception is thrown. We want this exception to result in a 404 error, not a 505, so we annotate the exception class: 
@ApplicationException(rollback=true)
@HttpError(errorCode=HttpServletResponse.SC_NOT_FOUND)
public class EntryNotFoundException extends Exception {
    EntryNotFoundException(String id) {
        super("entry not found: " + id);
    }
}
An alternative implementation of the example does not use the parameter in the method binding: 
@Name("entryAction")
@Scope(STATELESS)
public class EntryAction {
    @In(create=true) 
        private Blog blog;
  
    @In @Out
    private BlogEntry blogEntry;
  
    public void loadBlogEntry() throws EntryNotFoundException {
        blogEntry = blog.getBlogEntry( blogEntry.getId() );
        if (blogEntry==null) throw new EntryNotFoundException(id);
    }
}

<pages> 
  ... 
  <page view-id="/entry.xhtml" action="#{entryAction.loadBlogEntry}"> 
  <param name="blogEntryId" value="#{blogEntry.id}"/> 
</page> 
  ... 
</pages>
The implementation used depends entirely upon personal preference.
The blog example also demonstrates very simple password authentication, posting to the blog, page fragment caching and atom feed generation.