JSR 286 Lifecycle Explained

Though age old, thought of writing this post just to have a placeholder to detail the basic JSR 286 Portlet flow.

Following flow chart explains the basic flow of JSR 286 based portlet:

JSR 286 based portlet's flow

By overriding the major methods of GenericPortlet class and adding loggers on each method entry, we can easily view the flow of the portlets lifecycle.

• After deploying the portlet, when it is being invoked for the first time (by visiting a page on which it is added) init method is called.

[2/18/16 17:10:55:925 IST] 000001c5 SystemOut     O JSR286LCCheck init method called
[2/18/16 17:10:55:926 IST] 000001c5 SystemOut     O JSR286LCCheck render method called, mode to be displayed is : view
[2/18/16 17:10:55:926 IST] 000001c5 SystemOut     O JSR286LCCheck doDispatch method called
[2/18/16 17:10:55:926 IST] 000001c5 SystemOut     O JSR286LCCheck doView method called

• For all other subsequent calls, init is not invoked. On page refresh:

[2/18/16 17:13:23:309 IST] 00000145 SystemOut     O JSR286LCCheck render method called, mode to be displayed is : view
[2/18/16 17:13:23:310 IST] 00000145 SystemOut     O JSR286LCCheck doDispatch method called
[2/18/16 17:13:23:310 IST] 00000145 SystemOut     O JSR286LCCheck doView method called

• On Form submit processAction is invoked and flowing is the flow: (Changed the portlet mode here to Edit mode). doDispatch redirects to the requested mode method:

[2/18/16 17:12:03:436 IST] 00000044 SystemOut     O JSR286LCCheck processAction method called
[2/18/16 17:12:03:741 IST] 00000044 SystemOut     O JSR286LCCheck render method called, mode to be displayed is : edit
[2/18/16 17:12:03:741 IST] 00000044 SystemOut     O JSR286LCCheck doDispatch method called
[2/18/16 17:12:03:741 IST] 00000044 SystemOut     O JSR286LCCheck doEdit method called

Once the mode is changed, it remains in the same mode till session is over or the mode is changed explicitly.

• When serveResource is called, then only serveResource is called. It acts as an independent method.

[2/18/16 17:12:40:239 IST] 00000145 SystemOut     O JSR286LCCheck serveResource method

• When the application is stopped, destroy method is called. Destroy will only be called if the portlet has been initialized / invoked. If the portlet has not been initialized, the destroy method will not be called.

[2/18/16 17:14:13:292 IST] 00000048 ApplicationMg A   WSVR0217I: Stopping application: PA_JSR286LCCheck
[2/18/16 17:14:13:301 IST] 00000048 ServletWrappe I com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper doDestroy SRVE0253I: [PA_JSR286LCCheck] [/wps/PA_JSR286LCCheck] [/_JSR286LCCheck/jsp/html/JSR286LCCheckPortletView.jsp]: Destroy successful.
[2/18/16 17:14:13:302 IST] 00000048 ServletWrappe I com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper doDestroy SRVE0253I: [PA_JSR286LCCheck] [/wps/PA_JSR286LCCheck] [/_JSR286LCCheck/jsp/html/JSR286LCCheckPortletEdit.jsp]: Destroy successful.
[2/18/16 17:14:13:302 IST] 00000048 SystemOut     O JSR286LCCheck destroy called
[2/18/16 17:14:13:302 IST] 00000048 ServletWrappe I com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper doDestroy SRVE0253I: [PA_JSR286LCCheck] [/wps/PA_JSR286LCCheck] [JSR286LCCheck]: Destroy successful.
[2/18/16 17:14:13:584 IST] 00000048 ApplicationMg A   WSVR0220I: Application stopped: PA_JSR286LCCheck