AutoComplete: accept array as a value (in addition to List)

1) Environment

• PrimeFaces version: 8.0

2) Expected behavior

• Accept String[] as a valid type for a value of the component

3) Actual behavior

throws java.lang.ClassCastException: class java.util.ArrayList cannot be cast to class [Ljava.lang.String; (java.util.ArrayList and [Ljava.lang.String; are in module java.base of loader 'bootstrap')

Right now the following components accept an array as a valid type:

• SelectCheckboxMenu
• SelectManyCheckbox

But AutoComplete accept only List.

It has something about converting List to array in AutoCompleteRenderer:encodeMultipleMarkup, but I don’t know how to use it. Also, the result is stored as an array in decodeMultiple but then converted to List in validate method.

To solve the issue I extended AutoComplete class with the following methods:

private boolean isInputValueArray = false;

@Override
public Object getValue()
{
    Object value = super.getValue();

    if (value != null && value.getClass().isArray())
    {
        isInputValueArray = true;
        Object[] array = (Object[]) value;
        return Arrays.asList(array);
    }

    return value;
}

@Override
public void setValue(Object value)
{
    if (isInputValueArray && value instanceof List)
    {
        value = ((List<String>) value).toArray(new String[0]);
    }

    super.setValue(value);
}

I can create a PR, but I think there is a better way to do that. If you can help me, I will implement it.

[astappiev]

Hi @melloware , I will try to implement using UISelectMany in the next few days…

[Rapster]

Till we don’t have a clean way of supporting arrays and list, I’m against supporting more array stuff. It’s not because arrays are “old school” or anything like that, it’s just it results as ugly/messy code