This topic applies only to the IBM Business Automation Workflow Advanced configuration.

How lists are processed

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This topic only applies to BAW, and is located in the BAW repository. Last updated on 2025-03-13 12:15
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Every instance of the List component is associated with an instance of the com.ibm.bpe.jsf.handler.BPCListHandler class.

This list handler tracks the selected items in the associated list and it provides a notification mechanism to associate the list entries with the details pages for the different kinds of items. The list handler is bound to the List component through the model attribute of the bpe:list tag.

The notification mechanism of the list handler is implemented using the com.ibm.bpe.jsf.handler.ItemListener interface. You can register implementations of this interface in the configuration file of your JavaServer Faces (JSF) application.

The notification is triggered when a link in the list is clicked. Links are rendered for all of the columns for which the action attribute is set. The value of the action attribute is either a JSF navigation target, or a JSF action method that returns a JSF navigation target.

The BPCListHandler class also provides a refreshList method. You can use this method in JSF method bindings to implement a user interface control for running the query again.

Query implementations

You can use the list handler to display all kinds of objects and their properties. The content of the list that is displayed depends on the list of objects that is returned by the implementation of the com.ibm.bpc.clientcore.Query interface that is configured for the list handler. You can set the query either programmatically using the setQuery method of the BPCListHandler class, or you can configure it in the JSF configuration files of the application.

You can run queries not only against the Business Process Choreographer APIs, but also against any other source of information that is accessible from your application, for example, a content management system or a database. The only requirement is that the result of the query is returned as a java.util.List of objects by the execute method.

The type of the objects returned must guarantee that the appropriate getter methods are available for all of the properties that are displayed in the columns of the list for which the query is defined. To ensure that the type of the object that is returned fits the list definitions, you can set the value of the type property on the BPCListHandler instance that is defined in the faces configuration file to the fully qualified class name of the returned objects. You can return this name in the getType call of the query implementation. At run time, the list handler checks that the object types conform to the definitions.

To map error messages to specific entries in a list, the objects returned by the query must implement a method with the signature public Object getID().

Default converters and labels

The items returned by a query must be beans and their class must match the class specified as the type in the definition of the BPCListHandler class or com.ibm.bpc.clientcore.Query interface. In addition, the List component checks whether the item class or a superclass implements the following methods: 
static public String getLabel(String property,Locale locale);
static public com.ibm.bpc.clientcore.converter.SimpleConverter 
       getConverter(String property);

If these methods are defined for the beans, the List component uses the label as the default label for the list and the SimpleConverter as the default converter for the property. You can overwrite these settings with the label and converterID attributes of the bpe:list tag. For more information, see the Javadoc for the SimpleConverter interface and the ColumnTag class.