JSF Displaying Text in modal if INSERT operation was successful - ajax

Question

What is the correct way to return a value from a method in a managed bean indicating a successful SQL DML operation such as INSERT or UPDATE
Based on the tutorials and some blogs I read online, it says that a good practice in returning values from a method contained in a ManagedBean is a String value of a facelet or the .xhtml page
(in other words, a view) to redirect to a webpage.
Like this.
Original version:
#ManagedBean(name="myBean")
public class MyBean{
public String register(){
String SQL = "INSERT INTO myTable(col1,col2) VALUES(?,?);
PreparedStatement ps = connection.prepareStatement(SQL);
ps.setString(1,someStringVariable1);
ps.setString(2,someStringVariable2);
ps.executeUpdate();
return "index"; //pointing to index.xhtml
}
}
How about if i want to know if the executeUpdate() method was successful?
I thought I'd just change it to something like
Modified version:
public int register(){
int isSuccessful = 0;
try{
String SQL = "INSERT INTO myTable(col1,col2) VALUES(?,?);
PreparedStatement ps = connection.prepareStatement(SQL);
ps.setString(1,someStringVariable1);
ps.setString(2,someStringVariable2);
isSuccessful = ps.executeUpdate();
}
return isSuccessful;
}
However, on the modified version I returned an int which I don't see as correct as per how JSF should work with ManagedBean (Please correct me if i'm wrong)
I asked because say I have a Twitter Bootstrap modal which has the following.
<div class="modal-body">
<h:form>
//....some code here...
<h:commandButton value="Submit" action=#{myBean.register()}
<h:outputText value=" #{myBean.whatToPutHere_ToKnowIf_addData()wasSuccessful}" />
</h:form>
</div>
I need to be able to show within the modal div that register() execution was successful.
What is the simplest and correct way to accomplish that?
I read somewhere that AJAX will help but right now, I have very little knowledge of AJAX so maybe a simple solution to this is better.
I'd appreciate any help.
Thank you.

Answer 1

You can use a bean variable:
#ManagedBean(name="myBean")
public class MyBean {
private boolean isSuccessful = false;
public boolean isSuccessful() { return isSuccessful; }
public String register(){
isSuccessful = ...
}
}
and in your xhtml
....
<h:commandButton value="Submit" action="#{myBean.register()}" />
<f:ajax execute="#form" render="outtext" />
</h:commandButton>
<h:panelGroup id="outtext">
<h:outputText value="any Text" rendered="#{myBean.successful} />
</h:panelGroup>
</h:form>