Question

How to compare java.util.Date value with String using JSTL and EL?

This is the model:

private Date myDate; // Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 CET 1001

This is the view:

<c:if test="#{bean.myDate eq 'Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 CET 1001'}">
    <h:outputText value="#{bean.myDate}">
        <f:convertDateTime pattern="EEEE dd MMM yyyy @ HH:mm:ss" />
    </h:outputText>
</c:if>

However the condition always evaluates false. How is how can I solve it?

Answer 1

If your environment supports EL 2.2, just call its toString() method directly.

<c:if test="#{bean.myDate.toString() eq 'Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 CET 1001'}">

If yours doesn’t, convert it to String first by inlining it as body of <c:set>.

<c:set var="myDate">#{bean.myDate}</c:set>
<c:if test="#{myDate eq 'Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 CET 1001'}">

---

Unrelated to the concrete problem, this is a rather strange way of comparing dates. It’s very sensitive to changes in locale and timezone (if the webpage visitor uses a non-English locale and your webapp supports non-English locales, then the test on Wed Jan would fail and if the webserver is moved to non-CET timezone, then the test on CET would fail). Don’t you rather want to compare it on year 1001 directly or a fixed pattern such as 1001-01-01 or so? Further I also wonder why you don’t do the test in the rendered attribute of the JSF <h:outputText> component.