Does Simple XML support xsd:dateTime date format out of box?

Question

Does Simple XML support any Date formats other than the format 2007-01-03 18:05:11.234 GMT mentioned in the tutorial? If not, should I implement a custom Transformer, or is there an easier solution?

I created a test case for xsd:dateTime parsing which fails at the moment:

import org.junit.Test;
import org.simpleframework.xml.Element;
import org.simpleframework.xml.Root;

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.TimeZone;

import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;

public class XsdDateTimeSimpleXmlTest {

    String DUMMY_XML = "<dummy><date>2011-12-01T11:46:52</date></dummy>";

    @Test
    public void testDateTimeDeserialization() throws Exception {
        Dummy expected = new Dummy(expectedDate());
        Dummy actual = deserialize(DUMMY_XML);
        assertEquals(expected, actual);
    }

    Date expectedDate() {
        Calendar c = Calendar.getInstance();
        c.set(2011, 12-1, 1, 11, 46, 52);
        c.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
        c.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
        return c.getTime();
    }

    Dummy deserialize(String xml) throws Exception {
        Deserializer<Dummy> des = new Deserializer<Dummy>(Dummy.class);
        return des.read(xml);
    }

    @Root
    static class Dummy {

        @Element
        Date date;

        Dummy() { }

        Dummy(Date date) {
            this.date = date;
        }

        @Override
        public boolean equals(Object o) {
            if (this == o) return true;
            if (o == null || getClass() != o.getClass()) return false;
            Dummy dummy = (Dummy) o;
            if (!date.equals(dummy.date)) return false;
            return true;
        }

        @Override
        public int hashCode() {
            return date.hashCode();
        }

        @Override
        public String toString() {
            return "Dummy{" +
                    "date=" + date +
                    '}';
        }
    }

}

I get java.text.ParseException: Unparseable date: "2011-12-01T11:46:52".

so what are you getting exception – Asif Bhutto Apr 29 '14 at 12:39 — Asif Bhutto, Apr 29 '14 at 12:39

Asif Bhutto · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-30T17:53:54.583

If you want to use any other format except of those which are not supported by SimpleXML, then you need to do little work around for this, You have to write your custom Transform which will handle other other formats and that is not a great deal to do it, really it's so simple.

Put attribute annotation on your date field like this

@Attribute(name="date", required=true) 
private Date date;

CustomDateFormatTransformer

import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;

import org.simpleframework.xml.transform.Transform;

public class CustomDateFormatTransformer implements Transform<Date> {

private DateFormat df;
public DateFormatTransformer(DateFormat df) {
    this.df= df;
}

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

All things are ready, finally you can call it form you client code as following

    DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("Your_date_format_here");
    RegistryMatcher registryMatcher = new RegistryMatcher();
    registryMatcher .bind(Date.class, new DateFormatTransformer(dateFormat));

// serialize or Deserializer it here .....

Here are the some formats which are only supported by SimpleXML

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

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12277887/parse-date-with-simpleframework/12492925#12492925 — ollo, Apr 30 '14 at 16:48
really it was very nice answered given by you. thanks for sharing it. — Asif Bhutto, Apr 30 '14 at 18:02
I believe the constructor should be CustomDateFormatTransformer, not DateFormatTransformer. — Reid Mac, Sep 19 '14 at 19:03

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 29 '14 at 12:49

I am not familiar with the above framework, but why not use JAXB? JAXB supports Date in the way you desire. 1. You use JAXB annotations, and specifically on the getter of the date, you can use:

@XmlElement(type=Date.class)
Date Object getDate() {
    return date;
}

Does Simple XML support xsd:dateTime date format out of box?

2 Answers2