Configuring a Conversion Service with a custom DateFormatter - spring

Question

I'm trying to add a custom DateFormatter to my spring/thymeleaf application, with the help of the following documentation :
http://www.thymeleaf.org/doc/html/Thymeleaf-Spring3.html#conversions-utility-object
The problem is that I don't use xml configuration for my beans definitions, but a WebConfig.java class with the following implementation :
#Configuration
#EnableWebMvc
#ComponentScan(basePackages = {"com.myapp.web.controller","net.atos.wfs.wts.adminportal.web.domain"})
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {
private static final Logger LOG = LoggerFactory.getLogger(WebConfig.class);
#Override
public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
registry.addResourceHandler("/resources/**").addResourceLocations("/resources/");
}
#Override
public void addInterceptors(InterceptorRegistry registry) {
LocaleChangeInterceptor localeChangeInterceptor = new LocaleChangeInterceptor();
localeChangeInterceptor.setParamName("lang");
registry.addInterceptor(localeChangeInterceptor);
}
#Bean
public LocaleResolver localeResolver() {
CookieLocaleResolver cookieLocaleResolver = new CookieLocaleResolver();
cookieLocaleResolver.setDefaultLocale(StringUtils.parseLocaleString("en"));
return cookieLocaleResolver;
}
#Bean
public ServletContextTemplateResolver templateResolver() {
ServletContextTemplateResolver resolver = new ServletContextTemplateResolver();
resolver.setPrefix("/WEB-INF/views/");
resolver.setSuffix(".html");
//NB, selecting HTML5 as the template mode.
resolver.setTemplateMode("HTML5");
resolver.setCacheable(false);
return resolver;
}
public SpringTemplateEngine templateEngine() {
SpringTemplateEngine engine = new SpringTemplateEngine();
engine.setTemplateResolver(templateResolver());
engine.setMessageResolver(messageResolver());
engine.addDialect(new LayoutDialect());
return engine;
}
#Bean
public ViewResolver viewResolver() {
ThymeleafViewResolver viewResolver = new ThymeleafViewResolver();
viewResolver.setTemplateEngine(templateEngine());
viewResolver.setOrder(1);
viewResolver.setViewNames(new String[]{"*"});
viewResolver.setCache(false);
return viewResolver;
}
#Bean
public IMessageResolver messageResolver() {
SpringMessageResolver messageResolver = new SpringMessageResolver();
messageResolver.setMessageSource(messageSource());
return messageResolver;
}
#Override
public void addFormatters(FormatterRegistry registry) {
super.addFormatters(registry);
registry.addFormatter(new DateFormatter());
}
#Bean
public MessageSource messageSource() {
ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource messageSource = new ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource();
messageSource.setBasename("/WEB-INF/messages/messages");
// if true, the key of the message will be displayed if the key is not
// found, instead of throwing a NoSuchMessageException
messageSource.setUseCodeAsDefaultMessage(true);
messageSource.setDefaultEncoding("UTF-8");
// # -1 : never reload, 0 always reload
messageSource.setCacheSeconds(0);
return messageSource;
}
}
And here is the code of my Custom DateFormatter :
public class DateFormatter implements Formatter<Date> {
#Autowired
private MessageSource messageSource;
public DateFormatter() {
super();
}
public Date parse(final String text, final Locale locale) throws ParseException {
final SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = createDateFormat(locale);
return dateFormat.parse(text);
}
public String print(final Date object, final Locale locale) {
final SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = createDateFormat(locale);
return dateFormat.format(object);
}
private SimpleDateFormat createDateFormat(final Locale locale) {
//The following line is not working (nullPointerException on messageSource)
//final String format = this.messageSource.getMessage("date.format", null, locale);
//The following line is working :
final String format = "dd/MM/yyyy";
final SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(format);
dateFormat.setLenient(false);
return dateFormat;
}
}
My question is : how can I add a custom formatter that will be able to use #Autowired elements ?
The xml configuration is this one :
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans ...>
...
<mvc:annotation-driven conversion-service="conversionService" />
...
<!-- **************************************************************** -->
<!-- CONVERSION SERVICE -->
<!-- Standard Spring formatting-enabled implementation -->
<!-- **************************************************************** -->
<bean id="conversionService"
class="org.springframework.format.support.FormattingConversionServiceFactoryBean">
<property name="formatters">
<set>
<bean class="thymeleafexamples.stsm.web.conversion.VarietyFormatter" />
<bean class="thymeleafexamples.stsm.web.conversion.DateFormatter" />
</set>
</property>
</bean>
...
</beans>
I tried to uset the following configuration in WebConfig class :
#Bean
public FormattingConversionServiceFactoryBean conversionService() {
FormattingConversionServiceFactoryBean conversionService = new FormattingConversionServiceFactoryBean();
Set<Formatter<?>> formatters = new TreeSet<Formatter<?>>();
formatters.add(new DateFormatter());
conversionService.setFormatters(formatters);
return conversionService;
}
But in this case, the formatter is not taken into account in my application.
Thanks in advance,
Antoine.

Answer 1

Add this to your WebMvcConfigurerAdapter
#Override
public void addFormatters(FormatterRegistry registry) {
registry.addFormatter(dateFormatter);
}
#Autowired
private DateFormatter dateFormatter;
#Bean
public DateFormatter dateFormatter() {
return new DateFormatter("dd/MM/yyyy");
}

Answer 2

I used the following configuration class and was able to get the custom formatter to be called. I have not been able to get the messageSource to be passed in, it is always null as the auto-configure bean is created later in the application startup.
#Configuration
public class ThymeleafConfig {
#Autowired
private MessageSource messageSource;
#Bean
public SpringSecurityDialect securityDialect() {
return new SpringSecurityDialect();
}
#Bean
public ConversionService conversionService() {
DefaultFormattingConversionService conversionService = new DefaultFormattingConversionService( false );
conversionService.addFormatter( dateFormatter() );
return conversionService;
}
#Bean
public DateFormatter dateFormatter() {
return new DateFormatter( messageSource );
}
}
You also need to make sure in your template that you use the double brackets around the field. i.e.
<td th:text="${{user.createDate}}">12-MAR-2015</td>