How to handle Date formats when populating the bean using Apache's BeanUtilsBean.populate?

[achsu subra]

hi All,

I am using Apache's BeanUtilsBean.populate(Object employee, Map empMap) to automatically populate my bean. All values in empMap are in String format. The populate() automatically takes care of the type conversions from String to int, long, boolean when populating the bean. But does not handle Date formats. Is there any way so that BeanUtils automatically takes care of converting string to Date instead of we manually type casting string to date? Any inputs will be very helpful.

Getting this error because of the Date attribute ... "Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Cannot invoke Employee.setJoiningDate - argument type mismatch"

Thanks a lot..

//Employee class
import java.util.Date;
public class Emloyee{
	
	public int id;
	public String name;
	public Date joiningDate;
	
	public String getName() {
		return name;
	}

	public void setName(String name) {
		this.name= name;
	}

	public Date getJoiningDate() {
		return joiningDate;
	}

	public void setJoiningDate(Date joiningDate) {
		this.joiningDate= joiningDate;
	}

	public long getId() {
		return id;
	}

	public void setId(long id) {
		this.id = id;
	}
}

//main class

                BeanUtilsBean b = new BeanUtilsBean();
		Employee employee = new Employee ();
		Map domainObjectAsMap = new HashMap();

		domainObjectAsMap.put("id", "9999");
		domainObjectAsMap.put("name", "Peter");		
		domainObjectAsMap.put("date", "03/06/2011");
		
		b.populate(addr, domainObjectAsMap);
		System.out.println("After populate=" + employee);

regards,
achsu

[Bear Bibeault]

Check out the following classes:

org.apache.commons.beanutils.ConvertUtils
org.apache.commons.beanutils.Converter

You can use them to register custom converters.

[david lim]

May share how you had resolve this issue please?

Below are my code snipplet and the error it returns:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Map<String, String[]> formData = new HashMap<String, String[]>();
    formData.put("email", new String[]{"[e-mail]"});
    formData.put("firstName", new String[]{"danny"});
    formData.put("lastName", new String[]{"miller"});
    formData.put("dob", new String[]{"15-Apr-1980"});
    formData.put("userName", new String[]{"dannymiller"});
    try {
        Consumer consumer = new Consumer();
        DateTimeConverter dtConverter = new DateConverter();
        dtConverter.setPattern("dd/MMM/yyyy");

        ConvertUtilsBean convertUtilsBean = new ConvertUtilsBean();
        convertUtilsBean.deregister(Date.class);
        convertUtilsBean.register(dtConverter, Date.class);

        BeanUtilsBean beanUtilsBean = new BeanUtilsBean(convertUtilsBean, new PropertyUtilsBean());

        beanUtilsBean.populate(consumer, formData);


        if (consumer != null) {
            System.out.println(consumer.getEmail());
            System.out.println(consumer.getFirstName());
            System.out.println(consumer.getLastName());
            System.out.println(consumer.getDob());
            System.out.println(consumer.getUserName());
        }
    } catch  (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

Apr 22, 2011 11:14:45 PM org.apache.commons.beanutils.converters.DateTimeConverter toDate WARNING: DateConverter does not support default String to 'Date' conversion. Apr 22, 2011 11:14:45 PM org.apache.commons.beanutils.converters.DateTimeConverter toDate WARNING: (N.B. Re-configure Converter or use alternative implementation) Exception in thread "main" org.apache.commons.beanutils.ConversionException: DateConverter does not support default String to 'Date' conversion. at org.apache.commons.beanutils.converters.DateTimeConverter.toDate(DateTimeConverter.java:468) at org.apache.commons.beanutils.converters.DateTimeConverter.convertToType(DateTimeConverter.java:343) at org.apache.commons.beanutils.converters.AbstractConverter.convert(AbstractConverter.java:156) at org.apache.commons.beanutils.converters.ConverterFacade.convert(ConverterFacade.java:60) at org.apache.commons.beanutils.ConvertUtilsBean.convert(ConvertUtilsBean.java:470) at org.apache.commons.beanutils.BeanUtilsBean.setProperty(BeanUtilsBean.java:1008) at org.apache.commons.beanutils.BeanUtilsBean.populate(BeanUtilsBean.java:830) at com.ymatch.test.BeanTest.main(BeanTest.java:32)