Manual for updating JSF 2.0 Project to 2.2

Question

unfortunately there are no working tutorials to update a Eclipse (KEPLER) JSF 2.0 Project to JSF 2.2. Should this update be done or should a new project be created (and import all files)?

What are the Steps to update the used JSF version properly and clean?

I'm just getting errors (from FactoryNotFound to StartupServletContextListener problems), when I change the faces.xml header to:

<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">

I additionally updated the library to Majorra 2.2.0 (JSF 2.2) and dynamic web project to 3.0 and java to 1.7 (in the preferences), but the server just prints errors and does not work...

Solution

From the JSF 2.2. Reference implementation manual

Faces 2.2 is backwards compatible with Faces 2.1 and 2.0. This means that a web-application that was developed to run with Faces 2.1 or 2.0 won’t require any modification when run with Faces 2.2

Due to an error in previous versions of the specification, exceptions were silently being swallowed that now will bubble up to the exception handler. Code that was relying on this incorrect behavior may need to be modified to account for fixing this problem.

And also:

Any additional attributes on <composite:attribute/> are exposed as attributes accessible from the getValue() and attributeNames() methods on PropertyDescriptor. The return type from getValue() must be a ValueExpression with the exception of the getValue(“type”). The return type from getValue(“type”) must be Class. If the value specified for the type attribute of <cc:attribute/> cannot be converted to an actual Class, a TagAttributeException must be thrown, including the Tag and TagAttribute instances in the constructor.

Conclusion: there is minimal breakage between JSF2.1. and 2.2.

EDIT: Some new things in JSF2.2:

1. New namespaces: xmlns:f="http://xmlns.jcp.org/jsf/core" can replace xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core" and also

   xmlns:h="http://xmlns.jcp.org/jsf/html" can replace xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"

2. Based on your comment: The preRenderView event type from the following construct in JSF2.0:

   <f:metadata>
      <f:event type="preRenderView" listener="#{viewActionManagedBean.validateUser()}"/>
   </f:metadata>    
   

   Can be replaced with the following brand new <f:viewAction/> tag in JSF2.2:

   <f:metadata>
       <f:viewAction action="#{viewActionManagedBean.validateUser()}"/>
   </f:metadata>
   

   This tag also provides support for executing the managed bean method during specific phases of the request lifecycle with the phase attribute. Valid options are

   • RESTORE_VIEW (Restore View)
   • APPLY_REQUEST_VALUES(Apply Request Values)
   • PROCESS_VALIDATIONS(Process Validations)
   • UPDATE_MODEL_VALUES(Update Model Values)
   • INVOKE_APPLICATION(Invoke Application)
   • RENDER_RESPONSE(Render Response)

   The tag also supports the if attribute that defines a boolean condition on which the action will be run. Take the following for example:

   <f:metadata>
      <f:viewAction action="#{viewActionManagedBean.validateUser()}" if="#{viewActionManagedBean.verifyCondition}" phase="APPLY_REQUEST_VALUES"/>
   </f:metadata>
   

   Note that this tag is available only in the new namespace xmlns:f="http://xmlns.jcp.org/jsf/core"

You can get your copy of the specification below. Look under the /Preface/Changes between 2.1. and 2.2. /Backwards Compatibility with Previous Versions

• http://jcp.org/aboutJava/communityprocess/final/jsr344/index.html