Question

I have a vaadin application that has a form,and i use a beanitem as a data source.
Inside the beanitem i have a float value that defaults to 0.0..
If i enter a high value like 123123123 and commit(it saves to a db),when i try to edit that field inside the form i get 1.23123123E9 as a value,why?
When i edit i still pass the beanitem with the data in it,why doesn’t it show my value correctly inside the textfield?

I know if i must display the value i can use decimal format but this is inside the form,and vaadin knows it is a float,so it should handle it accordingly right?
Or must i format it inside the form field factory myself?

PS:How can you set a display mode for the values inside the form?I have read you could implement the get of the field inside the bean and have it return a string too,is that the right way to do it?

Answer 1

Actually Vaadin behaves correctly, but it follows the magnitude rules (already mentioned by Yogendra Singh) please see an example

Please also check the following:

    float value1 = 12.0f;
    float value2 = 123123123;

    BeanItem<Float> item1 = new BeanItem<Float>(value1);
    BeanItem<Float> item2 = new BeanItem<Float>(value2);

    System.out.println(" result 1: " + item1.getBean());
    System.out.println(" result 2: " + item2.getBean());

Result:

result 1: 12.0
result 2: 1.2312312E8

So the correct solution (as I can see it) looks like the following:

1. Define your own Bean. There is no reason to have a BeanItem wrapping a float value.
2. Define your PropertyFormatter (example)
3. Important to note, the one should not return a String instead of the correct data type. It will affect editing, validation, etc.

PropertyFormatter example:

/** Integer formatter that accepts empty values. */
public class LenientIntegerFormatter extends PropertyFormatter {

    public LenientIntegerFormatter(Property propertyDataSource) {
        setPropertyDataSource(propertyDataSource);
    }

    @Override
    public Object parse(String formattedValue) throws Exception {
        if ("".equals(formattedValue))
            return null;
        else
        return Integer.valueOf(formattedValue);
    }

    @Override
    public String format(Object value) {
        if (value == null)
            return "";

        return ((Integer) value).toString();
    }

    @Override
    public Class<?> getType() {
        return String.class;
    }
}

It may look a little bit scary, but this is the cost of flexibility. Custom Bean allows to use table view, forms, etc without any significant changes. Basically, this is the data model behind Vaadin UI.

Chapter 9. Binding Components to Data

Custom Bean example:

public class Bean implements Serializable {
    String name;
    float value;

    public Bean(String name, float newValue) {
        this.name   = name;
        this.value = newValue;
    }

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

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

    public float getValue() {
        return value;
    }

    public void setValue(float newValue) {
        this.value = newValue;
    }
}

Just to provide all required insights:

 Bean bean = new Bean("Test", value1);
    BeanItem<Bean> beanItem = new BeanItem<Bean>(bean);
    for(Object propertyId: beanItem.getItemPropertyIds()) {
        System.out.println(" Property: '" + propertyId + 
                           "' value: " + beanItem.getItemProperty(propertyId));
    }

Will print:

Property: 'name' value: Test
Property: 'value' value: 12.0