Tag name: < af:column >

UIComponent class: oracle.adf.view.faces.component.core.data.CoreColumn

Component type: oracle.adf.CoreColumn

The immediate children of a Table component must all be < af:column > components. Each visible ADF Column component creates a separate column in the Table.

Use the "header" facet on a Column to create the column header. The following example creates a two-column table with the column headers - "Firstname" and "Lastname":

  <af:table>
    <af:column>
      <f:facet name="header">
        <af:outputText value="Firstname"/>
      </f:facet>
      ...
    </af:column>
    <af:column>
      <f:facet name="header">
        <af:outputText value="Lastname"/>
      </f:facet>
      ...
    </af:column>
  </af:table>

The child components of each Column display the data for each row in that column. The Column does not create child components per row; instead, each child is repeatedly rendered (stamped) once per row. Because of this stamping behavior, only certain types of components are supported as children inside a Column. Supported components include all components with no behavior and most components that implement the EditableValueHolder or ActionSource interfaces.

As each row is stamped, the data for the current row ( see getRowData() on the Table) is copied into an EL reachable property. The name of this property is defined by the var property on the Table. Once the Table has completed rendering, this property is removed (or reverted back to its previous value). In the following example, the data for each row is placed under the EL property "row". Each Column displays the data for each row by getting further properties from the "row" property:

  <af:table var="row" value="#{myBean.employees}">
    <af:column>
      <af:outputText value="#{row.firstname}"/>
    </af:column>
    <af:column>
      af:outputText value="#{row.lastname}"/>
    </af:column>
  </af:table>

Formatting

The Column component supports the following attributes related to formatting:

formatType

The type of formatting to use for this column. This atribute controls left, right or center justification of the column data.

gridVisible

Controls the display of a grid line on the left of the column.

width

The width of this column.

bandingShade

Determines what background color to use for this column.

noWrap

Controls whether long lines of text in the column data should be wrapped.

headerNoWrap

Controls whether long lines of text in the column header should be wrapped.

separateRows

Controls whether each child of this column should be rendered in separate cells, or inside the same cell.

Sorting

In order to make this Column sortable, set the "sortable" property to true and set "sortProperty" to the name of the model that this column will sort. Sorting can be programatically turned on with the setSortCritiera() method on the\ table.

Column Groups

< af:column > tags can be nested to produce groups of columns. The header of a column group spans across all the columns it contains. The following example creates a column group that has the header "Name" and contains two sub columns with headers "First" and "Last":

  <af:table var="row" value="#{myBean.employees}">
    <af:column>
      <f:facet name="header">
        <af:outputText value="Name"/>
      </f:facet>
      <af:column>
        <f:facet name="header">
          <af:outputText value="First"/>
        </f:facet>
        <af:outputText value="#{row.firstname}"/>
      </af:column>
      <af:column>
        <f:facet name="header">
          <af:outputText value="Last"/>
        </f:facet>
        af:outputText value="#{row.lastname}"/>
      </af:column>
    </af:column>
  </af:table>

Example:

Name	Description
footer	the node to render as this column's footer.
header	the node to use to render this column's header.