While programming in JSF one may need access to the request object and also its attributes. The managed beans of JSF are also available in the request or the session objects. The following utility class allows you work the request object and get to the managed beans directly if the need is there

public class SWJSFRequest 
{
	public static HttpServletRequest getRequest()
	{
		HttpServletRequest request = 
			(HttpServletRequest)FacesContext
				.getCurrentInstance()
					.getExternalContext()
						.getRequest();
		if (request == null)
		{
			throw new RuntimeException("Sorry. Got a null request from faces context");
		}
		return request;
	}
	public static void setAttribute(String name, Object value)
	{
		HttpServletRequest request = getRequest();
		request.setAttribute(name,value);
	}
	
	public static Object getAttribute(String name)
	{
		HttpServletRequest request = getRequest();
		return request.getAttribute(name);
		
	}
	public static Object locateObject(String name)
	{
		System.out.println("Trying to locate object:" + name);
		HttpServletRequest request = getRequest();
		Object o = request.getAttribute(name);
		if(o != null) return o;
		
		HttpSession session = SWJSFSession.getSession();
		o = session.getAttribute(name);
		if(o != null) return o;

		FacesContext facescontext = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
		String address = "#{requestScope." + name + "}";
		System.out.println("Trying to locate object:" + address);
		
		o = facescontext.getApplication().createValueBinding(address).getValue(facescontext);
		if(o != null) return o;
		
		return null;
	}
	
	public static void dumpAttributes()
	{
		HttpServletRequest request = getRequest();
		Enumeration e = request.getAttributeNames();
		while(e.hasMoreElements())
		{
			String name = (String)e.nextElement();
			System.out.println(name);
		}
	}
}