SEAM excel generation fails when using templateURI

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP) 5
  • SEAM

Issue

When using the "templateURI" property of , like this:

<e:workbook type="jxl"  filename="GeneratedSpreadsheet.xls"
       xmlns:e="http://jboss.com/products/seam/excel"
       xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"
       xmlns:ui="http://java.sun.com/jsf/facelets"
       xmlns:s="http://jboss.com/products/seam/taglib"
       xmlns:rich="http://richfaces.org/rich"
       xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"
       templateURI="/directory/ExcelTemplate.xls">

JBoss throws the following exception:

2013-05-08 09:10:27,329 SEVERE [facelets.viewhandler] (http-127.0.0.1-8080-2) Error Rendering View[/directory/RendersExcel.xhtml]
org.jboss.seam.excel.ExcelWorkbookException: Could not create workbook
    at org.jboss.seam.excel.jxl.JXLExcelWorkbook.createWorkbook(JXLExcelWorkbook.java:368)
    at org.jboss.seam.excel.ui.UIWorkbook.encodeBegin(UIWorkbook.java:313)
    at javax.faces.component.UIComponent.encodeAll(UIComponent.java:928)
    at javax.faces.component.UIComponent.encodeAll(UIComponent.java:933)
    at com.sun.facelets.FaceletViewHandler.renderView(FaceletViewHandler.java:592)
...
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at jxl.read.biff.File.<init>(File.java:91)
    at jxl.Workbook.getWorkbook(Workbook.java:268)
    at jxl.Workbook.getWorkbook(Workbook.java:253)
    at org.jboss.seam.excel.jxl.JXLExcelWorkbook.createWorkbook(JXLExcelWorkbook.java:360)
    ... 53 more

Resolution

Move /directory/ExcelTemplate.xls to WEB-INF/classes.

Root Cause

The problem comes from the directory not being part of the web context classpath, which by default, only adds WEB-INF/classes, so /directory/ExcelTemplate.xls refers to the root of the web context classpath and not the root of the .war deployment.

Moving /directory to WEB-INF/classes makes it part of the web context classpath.

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