webtier@glassfish.java.net

Re: [webtier] Difference between managed bean and backing bean ?

From: Jan-Kees van Andel <jankeesvanandel_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 12:56:36 +0100

Hi,

A managed bean is a bean that is managed by the JSF runtime or, from Java EE
6, managed by CDI. We're talking about a part of the JSF spec here.

A backing bean is a "design pattern"/concept, where managed beans are used
as the "backing" code behind a JSF view. Backing beans in JSF are
recommended to be request scoped and contain all data and logic related to a
single view.

Note that the backing bean concept is also utilized in .NET, I believe they
call it code behind, but I'm not sure about this name...

So, you can't really define a "backing bean", but this is something you need
to express through convention in your project. For example, by putting all
backing beans in some package or by using a "BackingBean" suffix in the
class name. Note that there are synonyms for Backing Bean, like Page Bean,
but Backing Bean is the defacto convention.

Regards,
Jan-Kees

2010/2/28 Celinio Fernandes <papouasied_at_yahoo.com>

> Hi,
> I read that many people use these 2 expressions indifferently although I
> know there is a difference between them.
> How would you define a backing bean, as opposed to a managed bean ?
>
> Thanks.
>
>