Spring Conversion Service

This tutorial I will demonstrate how to create spring 3 type conversion by replace PropertyEditor to perform the conversion. Let’s start convert String to Calendar and print on the console. Example I have the following Holiday class.

@Entity
@Table(name = "holiday")
@Configurable
public class Holiday {

    @Id
    @Column(name = "id", length = 15)
    private String id;

    @Id
    @Column(name = "holiday")
    @DateTimeFormat(pattern="dd-MM-yyyy")
    private Calendar holiday;

    public Holiday() {
        //empty constructor		
    }

    public String getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(String id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public Calendar getHoliday() {
        return holiday;
    }

    public void setHoliday(Calendar holiday) {
        this.holiday = holiday;
    }

}

 

2) Now this step is important. You must register conversionService in your application context. If no conversionService found, spring will use PropertyEditor by default.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" 
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
          xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
          xsi:schemaLocation=
"http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd 
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd">

<context:annotation-config/>

<bean id="conversionService" 
  class="org.springframework.context.support.ConversionServiceFactoryBean">

  <property name="converters">
    <list>
      <bean class="com.codeomitted.converter.StringToCalendarConverter"/>
    </list>
  </property>
</bean>

<bean id="publicHoliday" class="com.codeomitted.model.Holiday"
        p:id="independent"
        p:holiday="31-08-2013"/>

</beans>

 

//... code omitted

public class StringToCalendarConverter implements Converter<String, Calendar> {

        private DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy");

	@Override
	public Calendar convert(String calendarString) {

		Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
		try {
			Date date = (Date)formatter.parse(calendarString);
			calendar.setTime(date);
		} catch (Exception e) {
			calendar = null;
		}
		return calendar;
	}

}

3) Create a simple java application to print the holiday object.

public class AppConversExample {
   public static void main(String[] args) {

   GenericXmlApplicationContext ctx = new GenericXmlApplicationContext();
   ctx.load("classpath:application-validation-editor.xml");
   ctx.refresh();

   Holiday pubHoliday = ctx.getBean("publicHoliday", Holiday.class);
   System.out.println(pubHoliday.getId());
   System.out.println(pubHoliday.getHoliday());

   }
}

 

4) Sample output

independent
java.util.GregorianCalendar[time=1377878400000,areFieldsSet=true,areAllFieldsSet=true,lenient=true,zone=sun.util.calendar.ZoneInfo[id=”Asia/Kuala_Lumpur”,offset=28800000,dstSavings=0,useDaylight=false,transitions=10,lastRule=null],firstDayOfWeek=1,minimalDaysInFirstWeek=1,ERA=1,YEAR=2013,MONTH=7,WEEK_OF_YEAR=35,WEEK_OF_MONTH=5,DAY_OF_MONTH=31,DAY_OF_YEAR=243,DAY_OF_WEEK=7,DAY_OF_WEEK_IN_MONTH=5,AM_PM=0,HOUR=0,HOUR_OF_DAY=0,MINUTE=0,SECOND=0,MILLISECOND=0,ZONE_OFFSET=28800000,DST_OFFSET=0]

 

5) Now convert Calendar back to String

// .. code omitted
<bean id="conversionService" 
  class="org.springframework.context.support.ConversionServiceFactoryBean">

  <property name="converters">
    <list>
      <bean class="com.codeomitted.converter.StringToCalendarConverter"/>
      <bean class="com.codeomitted.converter.CalendarToStringConverter"/>
    </list>
  </property>
</bean>

// .. code omitted

 

6) Create CalendarToStringConverter class

// code omitted
public class CalendarToStringConverter implements Converter<Calendar, String> {

  private DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy");

  @Override
  public String convert(Calendar calendar) {
      calendar.add(Calendar.DATE, 0);
      String strDate = formatter.format(calendar.getTime());
      return strDate;
  }

}

 

7) Slightly change your previous code and run again.

// .. code omitted
public static void main(String[] args) {

  GenericXmlApplicationContext ctx = new GenericXmlApplicationContext();
  ctx.load("classpath:application-validation-editor.xml");
  ctx.refresh();

  ConversionService cs = ctx.getBean("conversionService",   ConversionService.class);

  Holiday pubHoliday = ctx.getBean("publicHoliday", Holiday.class);

  System.out.println(cs.convert(pubHoliday.getHoliday(), String.class));
  System.out.println(pubHoliday.getId());
  System.out.println(pubHoliday.getHoliday());

}

 

8) Output

31-08-2013
independent
java.util.GregorianCalendar[time=1377878400000,areFieldsSet=true,areAllFieldsSet=true,lenient=true,zone=sun.util.calendar.ZoneInfo[id=”Asia/Kuala_Lumpur”,offset=28800000,dstSavings=0,useDaylight=false,transitions=10,lastRule=null],firstDayOfWeek=1,minimalDaysInFirstWeek=1,ERA=1,YEAR=2013,MONTH=7,WEEK_OF_YEAR=35,WEEK_OF_MONTH=5,DAY_OF_MONTH=31,DAY_OF_YEAR=243,DAY_OF_WEEK=7,DAY_OF_WEEK_IN_MONTH=5,AM_PM=0,HOUR=0,HOUR_OF_DAY=0,MINUTE=0,SECOND=0,MILLISECOND=0,ZONE_OFFSET=28800000,DST_OFFSET=0]

 

9) By default conversionService support common types converting to each other. Refer example below to get some idea

public static void main(String[] args) {

  GenericXmlApplicationContext ctx = new GenericXmlApplicationContext();
  ctx.load("classpath:application-validation-editor.xml");
  ctx.refresh();

  ConversionService cs = ctx.getBean("conversionService", ConversionService.class);

  // string to array
  String text = "hello world";
  String arr[] = cs.convert(text, String[].class);
  System.out.println("arr[] length = " + arr[0]);

  // another string to array
  String arrText = "h,e,l,l,o";
  String arr2[] = cs.convert(arrText, String[].class);
  System.out.println("arr2[0] " + arr2[0]);
  System.out.println("arr2[1] " + arr2[1]);
  System.out.println("arr2[2] " + arr2[2]);
  System.out.println("arr2[3] " + arr2[3]);
  System.out.println("arr2[4] " + arr2[4]);

  // array to string
  String newText = cs.convert(arr2, String.class);
  System.out.println("newText = " + newText);

  // String to integer
  int value20 = cs.convert("20", Integer.class);
  System.out.println("value20 = " + value20);

  // integer to String
  String number300 = cs.convert(300, String.class);
  System.out.println("number300 = " + number300);

  // enum to String
  String statusStr = cs.convert(Status.ACTIVE, String.class);
  System.out.println("statusStr = " + statusStr);

  // Collection

  List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<Integer>();
  list.add(1);
  list.add(2);
  list.add(3);

  // list to set
  Set<Integer> intSet = cs.convert(list, HashSet.class);
  for(Integer obj: intSet) {
  	System.out.println(obj.intValue());
  }

  // set to list
  List<Integer> intList = cs.convert(intSet, ArrayList.class);
  for(Integer obj: intList) {
  	System.out.println(obj);
  }

  // boolean to string
  boolean isTrue = true;
  String strTrue = cs.convert(isTrue, String.class);
  System.out.println("strTrue = " + strTrue);

  // String to boolean
  String falseVal = "false";
  boolean booVal = cs.convert(falseVal, Boolean.class);
  System.out.println("boolVal = " + booVal);

  // Locale to String
  Locale aLocale = new Locale.Builder().setLanguage("fr").setRegion("CA").build();
  String langCode = cs.convert(aLocale, String.class);
  System.out.println("langCode = " + langCode);

  // String to Locale
  String en_GB = "en_GB";
  Locale enLocale = cs.convert(en_GB, Locale.class);
  System.out.println("Locale = " + enLocale.getCountry());

}

 

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