JSF - How to get old and new value when using Primefaces RowEditEvent?

Question

I have a datatable with 2 columns(name and description) and I want to update my database when a person updates a row and clicks the checkmark which triggers the execBacking.update method.

In this method, I get the new values by casting event.getObject(), but how can i also get the old values? The name is my primary key so i need the old value to know which row to update in the db.

xhtml page

  <p:ajax event="rowEdit" listener="#{execBacking.update}" update=":execForm:execMessages" /> 

  <p:column headerText="Name">
    <p:cellEditor>
        <f:facet name="output">
            <h:outputText value="#{exec.name}" />
        </f:facet>
        <f:facet name="input">
            <h:inputText value="#{exec.name}" />
        </f:facet>
    </p:cellEditor>
  </p:column>

  <p:column headerText="Description">
    <p:cellEditor>
        <f:facet name="output">
            <h:outputText value="#{exec.description}" />
        </f:facet>
        <f:facet name="input">
            <h:inputText value="#{exec.description}" />
        </f:facet>
    </p:cellEditor>
  </p:column>

  <p:column headerText="Actions">
    <p:rowEditor />
    <p:commandLink styleClass="ui-icon ui-icon-trash" type="submit" actionListener="#{execBacking.delete}" update=":execForm:execMessages" >
            <f:attribute name="execName" value="#{exec.name}" />
        </p:commandLink>
  </p:column>
</p:dataTable>

Backing bean

public void update(RowEditEvent event) {

        Dao dao = new Dao(ds);
        Exec exec = (Exec) event.getObject();
        System.out.println("name = "+exec.getName());  //New name
        System.out.println("desc = "+exec.getDescription());  //New desc
        try {
            // If the new exec was updated successfully
            if(dao.updateExec(accessBacking.getUsername(), null, exec.getName(), exec.getDescription())) {
                FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().addMessage("growl", new FacesMessage(FacesMessage.SEVERITY_INFO, "Success", "Exec Updated Successfully!"));
            } else {
                FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().addMessage("messages", new FacesMessage(FacesMessage.SEVERITY_ERROR, "Error", "Error Updating Exec!"));
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().addMessage("messages", new FacesMessage(FacesMessage.SEVERITY_ERROR, "Error", e.getMessage()));
        }
    }

Answer 1

I would recommend not having name be your primary key, but instead add an auto-incrementing id field and make that your primary key, and don't make that field editable by the user. This guarantees you always have access to the record that you want to update.

Generally speaking it's bad practice to attempt to modify the primary key in a database the way you're trying to do it.