Conditional required in jsf 2 when FacesConverter involved - validation

Question

I have a form like this:
<h:form>
Phone number:
<h:inputText id="phone_number"
value="#{dbUserManager.phoneNumber}"
validatorMessage="The phone number is invalid."
required="#{auth.value eq 'MOBILE'}"
requiredMessage="Phone number is required." />
</h:inputText>
Authentication type:
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{dbUserManager.authentication}" converter="#{authenticationTypeConverter}" binding="#{auth}">
<f:selectItems value="#{dbUserManager.authTypeList}" />
</h:selectOneMenu>
</h:form>
AuthenticationType is an entity similar to this:
#Entity
public class AuthenticationType implements Serializable
{
#Id
#Basic(optional = false)
private Short id;
#Basic(optional = false)
private String description;
#Override
//...
public String toString()
{
return description;
}
and finally AuthenticationTypeConverter:
#Stateless
#ManagedBean
#FacesConverter(value="authenticationTypesConverter")
#TransactionAttribute(TransactionAttributeType.REQUIRED)
public class AuthenticationTypeConverter implements Converter
{
#PersistenceContext(unitName="pu")
private EntityManager em = null;
#Override
public Object getAsObject(FacesContext fc, UIComponent uic, String string)
{
TypedQuery<AuthenticationType> q = em.createNamedQuery(
AuthenticationType.FIND_BY_DESCRIPTION,
AuthenticationType.class);
q.setParameter("description", string);
return q.getSingleResult();
}
#Override
public String getAsString(FacesContext fc, UIComponent uic, Object o)
{
if (o == null)
{
return "";
}
return o.toString();
}
}
What I tried to do is that to set the required of phone number to true when authentication type is set to 'MOBILE'. But it's not behaving as I expect.
I think the problem lies in the fact that I need to use FacesConverter for AuthenticationType. But I don't know how to solve it.
Can anyone give a hint?
Thanks

Answer 1

You have to rerender the h:inputText-field after the user chose from your h:selectOneMenu. To do so, change this selection to
<h:selectOneMenu value="#{dbUserManager.authentication}"
converter="#{authenticationTypeConverter}" binding="#{auth}">
<f:selectItems value="#{dbUserManager.authTypeList}" />
<f:ajax event="change" render="phone_number" />
</h:selectOneMenu>
Also in the inputTexts required-attribute I would expect something more like
{dbUserManager.authentication.description}
Give it a try...
Update 2014/01/22:
If you want to hold already typed informations in the phone_number field, you can tell the <f:ajax> tag to execute not only selectOneMenu but also the input field before rendering it new. In this case replace the upper <f:ajax /> solution with
...
<f:ajax event="change" execute="#this phone_number" render="phone_number" />
...