Question

Given a java.util.Date, what’s the best way to display the date as Today rather than in some version of dd/mm/yyyy in a JSP?

Given a future date, I’d still like it to display in a dd/mm/yyyy format, but today should present as Today.

Answer 1

The proper JSP/JSTL way would be using JSTL <fmt:formatDate>. You can use <jsp:useBean> to construct and put a java.util.Date in the page scope.

<%@taglib prefix="fmt" uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/fmt" %>
<jsp:useBean id="today" class="java.util.Date" />
<fmt:formatDate var="todayString" value="${today}" pattern="dd/MM/yyyy" />
...
<fmt:formatDate var="dateString" value="${bean.date}" pattern="dd/MM/yyyy" />
<p>The date is: ${todayString == dateString ? 'Today' : dateString}</p>

Note that I fixed mm to be MM. The mm stands for minutes, MM for months. See also SimpleDateFormat javadoc.