Sun JSF vs. Apache MyFaces

Wrestling with Sun JSF classes on JBoss can aggravate and confuse, and from what I have seen on the newsgroups there isnt a clear explanation. Well if I may offer another opaque solution here it is...

The problem: Programming JSF pages that include table components in Sun's NetBeans 5.5 and deploying to JBoss 4.0.5 will cause runtime issues rendering from the javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase class. The results will look something like this...

23:03:40,543 ERROR [[Faces Servlet]] Servlet.service() for servlet Faces Servlet threw exception
java.lang.NullPointerException
at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.getRenderer(UIComponentBase.java:741)
at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.getClientId(UIComponentBase.java:226)
at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.getClientId(UIComponentBase.java:219)
at com.sun.rave.web.ui.component.TableRowGroup.getProperties(TableRowGroup.java:1804)
at com.sun.rave.web.ui.component.TableRowGroup.restoreState(TableRowGroup.java:1490)
at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.processRestoreState(UIComponentBase.java:728)
at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.processRestoreState(UIComponentBase.java:719)
at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.processRestoreState(UIComponentBase.java:719)
at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.processRestoreState(UIComponentBase.java:719)
at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.processRestoreState(UIComponentBase.java:719)
at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.processRestoreState(UIComponentBase.java:719)
at javax.faces.component.UIComponentBase.processRestoreState(UIComponentBase.java:719)
at org.apache.myfaces.application.jsp.JspStateManagerImpl.restoreComponentState(JspStateManagerImpl.java:221)
at org.apache.myfaces.application.jsp.JspStateManagerImpl.restoreView(JspStateManagerImpl.java:287)
at org.apache.myfaces.application.jsp.JspViewHandlerImpl.restoreView(JspViewHandlerImpl.java:255)
at com.sun.rave.web.ui.appbase.faces.ViewHandlerImpl.restoreView(ViewHandlerImpl.java:310)
at org.apache.myfaces.lifecycle.LifecycleImpl.restoreView(LifecycleImpl.java:141)
at org.apache.myfaces.lifecycle.LifecycleImpl.execute(LifecycleImpl.java:66)
at javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet.service(FacesServlet.java:137)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:252)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
at com.sun.rave.web.ui.util.UploadFilter.doFilter(UploadFilter.java:198)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
at org.jboss.web.tomcat.filters.ReplyHeaderFilter.doFilter(ReplyHeaderFilter.java:96)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:213)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:178)
at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.SecurityAssociationValve.invoke(SecurityAssociationValve.java:175)
at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:432)
at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.JaccContextValve.invoke(JaccContextValve.java:74)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:126)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:105)
at org.jboss.web.tomcat.tc5.jca.CachedConnectionValve.invoke(CachedConnectionValve.java:156)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:107)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:148)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:869)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11BaseProtocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.processConnection(Http11BaseProtocol.java:664)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.PoolTcpEndpoint.processSocket(PoolTcpEndpoint.java:527)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.MasterSlaveWorkerThread.run(MasterSlaveWorkerThread.java:112)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)


Solution: Basically in a nutshell, we are removing all Apache classes and replacing them with the Sun classes in NetBeans. Follow these steps...

1.) Remove the directory
JBOSS_HOME/server/default/deploy/jbossweb-tomcat55.sar/jsf-lib

2.) Remove any instances of the myfaces listener in the web.xml. The section to remove should look like this...

<listener>
<listener-class>
org.apache.myfaces.webapp.StartupServletContextListener
</listener-class>
</listener>

3.) Now all apache libs should be purged from JBoss.  We must now add the Sun libs back in to
the web app.  Add the following libs from NetBeans (right click on libraries in your webapp and the option
to add libs should be selected)
4.) Add the following libs from NetBeans (JSF, and JSTL).  These libs should add several jars including

commons-beanutils.jar, commons-collections.jar, commons-digester.jar,
commons-logging.jar, jsf-api.jar, jsf-impl.jar, standard.jar, and jstl.jsr.

That worked for me.  I have found other articles that may help.   Here's one that seems to be more helpful...

http://blogs.sun.com/divas/entry/missing_image_bug

Good Luck