Spring MVC Date format validation with JSR303

Question

I'm using Spring MVC with JSR303 to do my input validation.

A form I've created has a couple of date fields that are bound to Date objects within the object backing the form. I'm using JSR303 to do the validation for the Date using @Future. I'm also using @DateTimeFormat(pattern="dd/MM/yyyy"), (I know it's not validation).

How do I validate the date format of the String on the form? If I leave the other required fields blank (@NotEmpty) and enter a non-valid date in the form 'dd/MM/yy' it gets converted to 'dd/MM/yyyy' on re-presentation (e.g. 12/03/12 is re-presented as 12/03/0012). Which means I will get duff data in my system. If I enter "aaa" for I get a conversion Exception. Correctly formatted Strings get converted to Date objects.

Additionally should the 'required field' annotation for Date fields be @NotNull or @NotEmpty?

Many thanks in advance for any advice provided.

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 05 '14 at 11:20

Thanks Ralph. I did some further digging around and came up with this (Which goes in my form controller):

    @InitBinder
    public void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {


    String format = "dd/MM/yyyy";
    SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(format);
    dateFormat.setLenient(false);
    CustomDateEditor customDateEditor = new CustomDateEditor(dateFormat,true,format.length());

    binder.registerCustomEditor(Date.class, customDateEditor);
    }

With the properties file having the following key:

typeMismatch.java.util.Date : Some nice calm reassuring message to assist all negligent users

Maybe there are some other ways to do this but this will do for now.

Is it possible to change message key from typeMismatch.java.util.Date to something more specific like CommandObjectXYZ.dateXYZ=Date is not valid — svlada, Nov 07 '12 at 08:59

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 20 '12 at 06:42

You can not do this with JSR303, because the validation runs on the already poplulated (form baching) object.

So you need to implement your own custom converter, that is a bit more strickt than the one shipped with spring.

@See Spring Reference: Chapter 6.5 Spring 3 Type Conversion

Spring MVC Date format validation with JSR303

2 Answers2

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