hibernate and myfaces...newb design question

[Dean Hiller]

I don't know if this is the best design, but I use the files
AddChildForm.java
ChildBean.java
ParentBean.java

My ChildBean and ParentBean are EJB3 objects(ie. hibernate if using that 
implementation).  AddChildForm has a pulldown which lists all the 
parents and optionally a "none" in case it is a new root.  I had the 
following backing method on the f:selectItems tag....

   public Map getAllParents() {
       List<ParentBean> parents = 
DatabaseFacade.getInstance().getAllParents();       
       releases.add(0, ParentBean.NULL_RELEASE);

       Map<String, ParentBean> items = new HashMap<String, ParentBean>();
       for(ParentBean parent : parents) {
           items.put(parent.getName(), parent);
       }
       return items;
   }

unfortunately, when JSF/MyFaces calls 
AddChildForm.getChildBean().getParent(), that returns a ParentBean.  I 
think JSF wants a String so it knows which item in the list is currently 
selected.  It seems as if I can't just pass around objects.  I am 
thinking I may have to use the database id?  Is there any cleaner way 
than that?  The method above would be quite clean as setParent() would 
actually just set the ParentBean stored in the Map which would be nice.  
Any ideas?
thanks,
dean



My form contains that bean.