When sending a jsf request without any query parameters to the page with the following jsf code:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:jsf="http://xmlns.jcp.org/jsf">
<head>
<title>Search for Word</title>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<form method="get" action="#{dictionary.search()}" id="search">
<input jsf:id="keyword" value="#{dictionary.keyword}" />
</form>
<button type="submit" form="search" value="Submit">Submit</button>
</div>
</body>
</html>
the action dictionary.search() is always invoked even without clicking the submit button. However, the action is not expected to be invoked until the submit button is clicked.
Question: How to change the jsf code without any other extra tag libraries but only the provided jsf tab lib, i.e. the pass-through element so that the managed bean method dictionary.method() is invoked only when the submit button is clicked?
I eventually found the answer myself:
<form jsf:id="form">
<input type="text" jsf:value="#{dictionary.keyword}" />
<button jsf:action="#{dictionary.search}">Search</button>
</form>
The nitty-gritty here is the generation of the equivalent component tree of that generated by h:commandButton
Based on the jsf 2.2 tutorial 8.5 HTML5-Friendly Markup,
To make an element that is not a JavaServer Faces element a pass-through element, specify at least one of its attributes using the http://xmlns.jcp.org/jsf namespace
the whole form has to passed through to jsf as a jsf component, the <form> element has to be like this <form jsf:id="form">, where the value of the id actually could be at random
The same goes with both the <input> and <button> element and, as to the <input> element the type attribute has to be assigned with a value, here is text