Question

I receive an XML response with an attribute which contains following value:

Wed Sep 05 10:56:13 CEST 2012

I have defined in my model class a field with annotation:

@Attribute(name = "regDate")
private Date registerDate;

However it throws an exception:

java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "Wed Sep 05 10:56:13 CEST 2012" (at offset 0)

Is it possible to define date format in SimpleFramework‘s annotations ?

What format should cover this date string ?

Answer 1

SimpleXML only supports some DateFormat‘s:

• yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.S z
• yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss z
• yyyy-MM-dd z
• yyyy-MM-dd

(For the meaning of each character see SimpleDateFormat API Doc (Java SE 7))

However it’s possible to write a custom Transform who deals with other formats:

Transform

public class DateFormatTransformer implements Transform<Date>
{
    private DateFormat dateFormat;


    public DateFormatTransformer(DateFormat dateFormat)
    {
        this.dateFormat = dateFormat;
    }



    @Override
    public Date read(String value) throws Exception
    {
        return dateFormat.parse(value);
    }


    @Override
    public String write(Date value) throws Exception
    {
        return dateFormat.format(value);
    }

}

Corresponding Annotation

@Attribute(name="regDate", required=true) /* 1 */
private Date registerDate;

Note 1: required=true is optional

How to use it

// Maybe you have to correct this or use another / no Locale
DateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("EE MMM dd HH:mm:ss z YYYY", Locale.US);


RegistryMatcher m = new RegistryMatcher();
m.bind(Date.class, new DateFormatTransformer(format));


Serializer ser = new Persister(m);
Example e = ser.read(Example.class, xml);