The first article explained how to design the presentation page of an Ada Server Faces application. This article presents the Ada beans that are behind the presentation page.

Ada Bean and presentation layer

We have seen that the presentation page contains components that make references to Ada beans with an EL expression.

<h:inputText id='height' size='10' value='#{compute.height}'>
        <f:converter converterId="float" />
</h:inputText>

The #{compute.height} is an EL expression that refers to the height property of the Ada bean identified as compute.

Writing the Cylinder Ada Bean

The Ada bean is a instance of an Ada tagged record that must implement a getter and a setter operation. These operations are invoked through an EL expression. Basically the getter is called when the view is rendered and the setter is called when the form is submitted and validated. The Bean interface defines the two operations that must be implemented by the Ada type:

with Util.Beans.Basic;
with Util.Beans.Objects;
...
   type Compute_Bean is new Util.Beans.Basic.Bean with record
      Height : My_Float := -1.0;
      Radius : My_Float := -1.0;
   end record;

   --  Get the value identified by the name.
   overriding
   function Get_Value (From : Compute_Bean;
                       Name : String) return Util.Beans.Objects.Object;

   --  Set the value identified by the name.
   overriding
   procedure Set_Value (From  : in out Compute_Bean;
                        Name  : in String;
                        Value : in Util.Beans.Objects.Object);

The getter and setter will identify the property to get or set through a name. The value is represented by an Object type that can hold several data types (boolean, integer, floats, strings, dates, ...). The getter looks for the name and returns the corresponding value in an Object record. Several To_Object functions helps in creating the result value.

   function Get_Value (From : Compute_Bean;
                       Name : String) return Util.Beans.Objects.Object is
   begin
      if Name = "radius" and From.Radius >= 0.0 then
         return Util.Beans.Objects.To_Object (Float (From.Radius));

      elsif Name = "height" and From.Height >= 0.0 then
         return Util.Beans.Objects.To_Object (Float (From.Height));

      else
         return Util.Beans.Objects.Null_Object;
      end if;
   end Get_Value;

The setter is similar.

   procedure Set_Value (From  : in out Compute_Bean;
                        Name  : in String;
                        Value : in Util.Beans.Objects.Object) is
   begin
      if Name = "radius" then
         From.Radius := My_Float (Util.Beans.Objects.To_Float (Value));
      elsif Name = "height" then
         From.Height := My_Float (Util.Beans.Objects.To_Float (Value));
      end if;
   end Set_Value;

Register the Cylinder Ada Bean

The next step is to register the cylinder bean and associate it with the compute name. There are several ways to do that but for the purpose of this example, there will be a global instance of the bean. That instance must be aliased so that we can use the Access attributes.

 Bean  : aliased Compute_Bean;

The Ada bean is registered on the application object by using the Set_Global procedure. This creates a global binding between a name and an Object record. In our case, the object will hold a reference to the Ada bean.

App : aliased ASF.Applications.Main.Application;
...
   App.Set_Global ("compute", Util.Beans.Objects.To_Object (Bean'Unchecked_Access));

Next Time...

We have seen how the presentation layer and the Ada beans are associated. The next article will present the action binding that links the form submission action to an Ada bean method.