Why does JSF automatically generate names for html components and can this be overridden?

Question

I'm reading up on JSF. One thing that I noticed is that tags such as h:inputText and h:inputTextarea auto-generate a random name.

Is there any way to over-ride this?

• Michael Borgwardt: What exactly would be your goal in overriding those names? Presumably they work just fine for having JSF map the form data to its components.
• Chetter Hummin: @Michael Borgwardt That is true. This is more of an academic question actually as I've not done JSF programming at all. I am merely interested in knowing whether there is any way to override the basic behaviour.

Answer 1

The name and id for the rendered HTML are generated by the UIComponent.getClientId() method, so all you have to do is override that method. However, doing so is not recommended since it risks breaking the contract of the ID (which must be unique even when the same component is rendered multiple times), which would lead to very complex bugs.

• Chetter Hummin: Thank you for the answer. The id appears to be a standard attribute (in h:inputText for example). However, name is not similarly available. I was just wondering why this decision was made.