Register TypeConverter/PropertyEditor w/Spring Batch?

[matthewadams]

Hi all,

Probably a dumb question.

I have an ItemProcessor implementation that I'm using in a step, and one of its properties is of type java.util.Date. I know in Spring 3, registering custom type converters changed a bit, so I'm not sure how to register a TypeConverter<String,Date> so that when Spring Batch instantiates my ItemProcessor bean, it converts the SpEL expression in the config,

...
<constructor-arg value="#{jobParameters['date']}" />
...

into a proper java.util.Date using a particular format ("yyyyMMdd").

How should I do this? What's the Spring-supplied TypeConverter<String,Date> that takes a format string, if there is one?

RTFMs welcome, but I already looked at Spring 3's reference guide 5.5 "Spring 3 Type Conversion" and am not really sure where to set a ConversionService in Spring Batch or if & how I'm supposed to be using an org.springframework.beans.propertyeditors.CustomDa teEditor.

Thanks,
Matthew

[Dave Syer]

SpEL expressions are converted by the BeanFactory when the bean is instantiated, so you should be fine if you just register the Converter (not TypeConverter) or PropertyEditor (legacy code but it still works) with the BeanFactory, i.e. nothing to do with Spring Batch. Converters are registered by declaring a ConversionService bean (e.g. using ConversionServiceFactoryBean) and PropertyEditors are registered by declaring a CustomPropertyEditor.

If the Spring user guide isn't clear on this I would raise a JIRA with SPR-*.

[matthewadams]

...Converters are registered by declaring a ConversionService bean (e.g. using ConversionServiceFactoryBean) and PropertyEditors are registered by declaring a CustomPropertyEditor.

Is there an XML namespace for that yet?

I guess I was surprised to see that there is no implementation out of the box of Converter<String,java.util.Date>, Converter<String,org.joda.time.DateTime>, etc.

[Dave Syer]

There's no namespace, and there isn't much call for date conversion outside webapps, so the converter features have all gone into the Formatter hierarchy in Spring 3.0, which is more to do with binding and rendering than it is to do with pure conversion. There *is* support there for Joda time, but still no simple StringToDateConverter.

I argued quite strongly for a StringToDateConverter in Spring 3.0, but we couldn't agree on how to specify the format. Go figure. open a JIRA against SPR-* if you feel strongly. Note that the CustomDateEditor is still there and it still works.