populating request scope managed bean

[Kevin Galligan]

I'm have a really hard time doing something that, in my mind, should be very simple.  Populating a managed bean with scope 'request'.  Essentially, I have a dataTable, which is bound to a UIData variable in the backing bean, and a commandLink which pulls the selected object and pushes it into the request collection with...

FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext().getRequestMap().put(key, value);

Then we go to the detail page.  By the time we get there, no object.  It is not redirecting, so this *should* work, I think.

I changed it to use session instead of request, and set the object with...

FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext().getSessionMap().put(key, value);

This works.  Any ideas?  I assume that I'm initalizing the request bean incorrectly, but I don't know how.  I'm probably going back to the session method so I can move on for now, but any help would be greatly appreciated.  I want to use 'saveState' to handle 'request-session' or 'request-thread' scope state, as if this works, it looks to be just the thing I've been missing with struts and jsf.  However, the "simple" part I can't get past.

Thanks in advance,
-Kevin