Bind month and year to date

[rcarver]

I have a form with credit card's expiration date as two select menu's: one for Year and one for Month. I'd like to bind these values to a Date object in my model (and set its Day to 1).

Date.setMonth() is deprecated, so I probably shouldn't use this:

<spring:bind path="command.creditCard.expirationDate.month">

but is there another way to do it? Examples or suggestions are much appreciated!

Thanks,
- Ryan

[Alef Arendsen]

You'll either have to manually bind the two inputs to your domain object on onBind for example, or use a little piece of JavaScript that transfers the values of the two input to a hidden field (this is what I usually do and it works just fine).

Spring's ServletRequestDataBinder uses plain PropertyEditors under the hood and those only bind to one field at a time.

[rcarver]

I have what seems to be a pretty good solution, please let me know if you see any problems with this.

I wrote a class TouchableDate which extends java.util.Date (see below). This class un-deprecates the getters/setters from Date and tracks which properties have been set.

I set a new TouchableDate() on my formBackingObject, then I implemented onBindAndValidate to test whether the properties were accessed:

    protected void onBindAndValidate(HttpServletRequest request, Object command, BindException errors) throws Exception {
        Donation donation = (Donation) command;        
        TouchableDate tDate = (TouchableDate) donation.getCreditCard().getExpirationDate();
        if (!tDate.hasMonth() || !tDate.hasYear()) {
            errors.rejectValue("creditCard.expirationDate", "empty", "Expiration date is required");
        } else {
	        tDate.setDate(1);
        }
    }

This lets me determine whether a value has been set or not, as opposed to a regular Date object which cannot have empty/invalid values (month, for example).

My binding looks the same, e.g.:

<spring&#58;bind path="command.creditCard.expirationDate.month">

The only thing I wonder is whether spring:bind is using reflection to see that expirationDate is actually a TouchableDate, and therefore has a getMonth method, or whether spring:bind is using the deprecated Date.getMonth() method.

Any other thoughts?

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;

/**
 * A special Date object that un-deprecates the getXXX, setXXX methods from Date and
 * returns -1 for properties that haven't been set. Use hasXXX methods to determine 
 * if a property has been set.Uses a Calendar internally to set properties correctly.
 *  
 * @author Ryan Carver
 */
public class TouchableDate extends Date {
    
    public static final int NOT_SET = -1;
    
    private Calendar c;
    private boolean hasHours = false;
    private boolean hasMinutes = false;
    private boolean hasSeconds = false;
    private boolean hasDate = false;
    private boolean hasDay = false;
    private boolean hasMonth = false;
    private boolean hasYear = false;
    
    //~ Constructors
    
    public TouchableDate() {
        super();
        init();
    }
    public TouchableDate(long arg0) {
        super(arg0);
        init();
    }
    
    //~ Internal
    
    private void init() {
        c = Calendar.getInstance();
        c.setTime(this);
    }
    private void setProperty(int code, int value) {
        c.set(code, value);
    }
    private int getProperty(int code) {
        return c.get(code);
    }
    
    //~ Behavior

    public long getTime() {
        return c.getTimeInMillis();
    }
    
    //~ Setters
    
    public int getHours() {
        return (hasHours) ? getProperty(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY) : NOT_SET;
    }
    public int getMinutes() {
        return (hasMinutes) ? getProperty(Calendar.MINUTE) : NOT_SET;
    }
    public int getSeconds() {
        return (hasSeconds) ? getProperty(Calendar.SECOND) : NOT_SET;
    }
    public int getDay() {
        return (hasDay) ? getProperty(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK) : NOT_SET;
    }
    public int getDate() {
        return (hasDate) ? getProperty(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH) : NOT_SET;
    }
    public int getMonth() {
        return (hasMonth) ? getProperty(Calendar.MONTH) : NOT_SET;
    }
    public int getYear() {
        return (hasYear) ? getProperty(Calendar.YEAR) : NOT_SET;
    }
    
    //~ Setters

    public void setHours(int hours) {
        hasHours = true;
        setProperty(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, hours);
    }
    public void setMinutes(int minutes) {
        hasMinutes = true;
        setProperty(Calendar.MINUTE, minutes);
    }
    public void setSeconds(int seconds) {
        hasSeconds = true;
        setProperty(Calendar.SECOND, seconds);
    }
    public void setDay(int day) {
        hasDay = true;
        setProperty(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK, day);
    }
    public void setDate(int date) {
        hasDate = true;
        setProperty(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, date);
    }
    public void setMonth(int months) {
        hasMonth = true;
        setProperty(Calendar.MONTH, months);
    }
    public void setYear(int year) {
        hasYear = true;
        setProperty(Calendar.YEAR, year);
    }
    
    //~ Boolean checkers
    
    public boolean hasDate() {
        return hasDate;
    }
    public boolean hasDay() {
        return hasDay;
    }
    public boolean hasHours() {
        return hasHours;
    }
    public boolean hasMinutes() {
        return hasMinutes;
    }
    public boolean hasMonth() {
        return hasMonth;
    }
    public boolean hasSeconds() {
        return hasSeconds;
    }
    public boolean hasYear() {
        return hasYear;
    }
}

[orusso]

You'll either have to manually bind the two inputs to your domain object on onBind for example, or use a little piece of JavaScript that transfers the values of the two input to a hidden field (this is what I usually do and it works just fine).

Spring's ServletRequestDataBinder uses plain PropertyEditors under the hood and those only bind to one field at a time.

hi!
i need to use only one field for date (my atual code):

<Spring:bind path="rate.rp_date">
 <input type="text" name="rp_date" size="10" value="${status.value}"/>
</Spring:bind>

the date is shown, like yyyy-mm-dd... without any problem, but when this field is modificated, the onSubmit method is not called because, i think, of some validation of spring, that cannot "translate" this new yyyy-mm-dd in Date again... can u plz help me with that, may be with some code exaples, forum-links or smthg else? i would appreciate any help
thks a lot