Saving and Restoring State

Because component classes implement StateHolder, they must implement the saveState(FacesContext) and restoreState(FacesContext, Object) methods to help the JavaServer Faces implementation save and restore the state of components across multiple requests.

To save a set of values, you must implement the saveState(FacesContext) method. This method is called during the render response phase, during which the state of the response is saved for processing on subsequent requests. Here is the method from MapComponent:

public Object saveState(FacesContext context) {
    Object values[] = new Object[2];
    values[0] = super.saveState(context);
    values[1] = current;
    return (values);
}

This method initializes an array, which will hold the saved state. It next saves all of the state associated with MapComponent.

A component that implements StateHolder must also provide an implementation for restoreState(FacesContext, Object), which restores the state of the component to that saved with the saveState(FacesContext) method. The restoreState(FacesContext, Object) method is called during the restore view phase, during which the JavaServer Faces implementation checks whether there is any state that was saved during the last render response phase and needs to be restored in preparation for the next postback. Here is the restoreState(FacesContext, Object) method from MapComponent:

public void restoreState(FacesContext context, Object state) {
    Object values[] = (Object[]) state;
     super.restoreState(context, values[0]);
    current = (String) values[1];
}

This method takes a FacesContext and an Object instance, representing the array that is holding the state for the component. This method sets the component’s properties to the values saved in the Object array.

When you implement these methods in your component class, be sure to specify in the deployment descriptor where you want the state to be saved: either client or server. If state is saved on the client, the state of the entire view is rendered to a hidden field on the page.

To specify where state is saved for a particular web application, you need to set the javax.faces.STATE_SAVING_METHOD context parameter to either client or server in your application’s deployment descriptor. See Saving and Restoring State for more information on specifying where state is saved in the deployment descriptor.