I'm still not completely convinced that the best solution isn't to write your own ActionForm class that has two properties, 'date' and 'dateAsString' (or whatever you want to call them) and behind the scenes, when one of the properties simply sets and returns a data member, and the other parses and formats values.
I'm not trying to shut you out -- and besides, I'm not a committer, so I couldn't if I tried. I just like debating these kinds of design questions and I'm criticizing in that spirit.
Joe
At 11:50 AM -0700 7/1/03, Jon Wilmoth wrote:
The problem is I have existing code that does custom string --> date --> string conversion. I'm not looking for a better work-around. I believe this is functionality that everyone who builds a struts application will have to implement with custom code and thus is an excellent Struts/BeanUtils enhancement candidate! I do realize this is NOT a simple task as it has come up on the mailing list a number of times in the last 3 years and still remains not implemented. Here are some use cases that illustrate the desired behavior (remember, I'm looking for round-trip support of the date datatype):
Use Case 1 (Data Input): 1) User enter's birthdate in MM/dd/yyyy format .. Use Case 2 (Data Input): 1) User standard workday start time in "HH:mm" format .. Use Case 3 (Data Input): 1) User enters month of year for month long event (i.e. Black History Month) "MMMM" format ..
Use Case 3 (Data Output): 1) User Admin views list of user names and birthdays. 2) System displays username and birthday using standard MM/dd/yyyy format. 2.a) System will display date in format specified by user preferences (i.e. EE MMMM dd yyyy) overriding the standard MM/dd/yyyy format.
--- Joe Germuska <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:> problem? The alternative is solving the very, veryAt 10:45 AM -0700 7/1/03, Jon Wilmoth wrote: >I did investigate registering "custom" converters. >Unfortunately, anything that would support >non-hard-coded conversion patterns will require either >a mixed paradygm usage (i.e passing a complex object >that contains the value to convert and all convertion >configuration instead of simply the value to be >converted) of the existing Converter.convert interface >or additional parameters. Since I think everyone can >agree that the first option is confusing and should be >avoided when possible the remaining option is to >modify/extend the interface. I agree this should be >communicated within the BeanUtils developer mailing >list and will cross post this in hopes of getting >further creative approaches to the problem. Because >Struts will be responsible for providing the means to >invoke the conversion (and much more) I do feel it is >appropriate for this list to continue to discuss the >Struts/BeanUtil interaction necessary for this >functionality.
Do you have one or two primary use cases? I don't think it needs to be radically complicated, but it might be easier to tell with a concrete description of the problem to solve.
In general, Struts gives you lots of places you could pass in a date format string as a property (to an ActionForm, to an ActionMapping, to a PlugIn... in most applications, I would assume you'd have one standard date input format, so you don't need to configure a variety of format strings, although if you have a use case for that, feel free to describe it.
So if you can pass in a format string to some custom code that you write that can take a String from an ActionForm and make it a Date before it goes into your business objects, does that solve the---------------------------------------------------------------------complicated problem of generalizing string-to-object conversion for anything that has a variable string representation, including but not limited to Dates. (Or having a special-case hanging off of ConvertUtils like a third leg...)
Joe
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