GeneralizedFieldHandler for handling java.util.Date formatting not being called during unmarshalling

Additional information:

Binding file segment looks like:
<complexTypeBinding name="/complexType:itemType/availabilityStart">
<member handler="com.foo.domain.handler.ItemTypeDateHandler"/>
</complexTypeBinding>

Binding as specified elsewhere:

<complexTypeBinding name="/complexType:itemType">
<member name="availabilityStart" handler="com.foo.domain.handler.AvailabilityStartHandler"/>
</complexTypeBinding>

Does not cause the generator to bind the handler to the specified member field.

-------------------------------------------

Handler source code can be found under src/com/foo/domain/handler. Both are modified examples from the project website.

Sorry to bother this, but I'd really appreciate if you tried to follow the guidelines available at

http://castor.org/how-to-submit-an-xml-bug.html

Thanks in advance
Werner

Attached is the simplified test case in the form requested.

Changing your binding file to ...

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<binding xmlns="http://www.castor.org/SourceGenerator/Binding" defaultBindingType='type'>

<package>
<name>xml.bug1878.generated</name>
<namespace>http://www.foo.com/foo</namespace>
</package>

<elementBinding name="/complexType:itemType/availabilityStart">
<member handler="xml.bug1878.ItemTypeDateHandler" />
</elementBinding>

<elementBinding name="/complexType:itemType/availabilityEnd">
<member handler="xml.bug1878.ItemTypeDateHandler" />
</elementBinding>

<complexTypeBinding name="baseDomain">
<java-class name="BaseDomain" package="xml.bug1878" abstract="true" />
</complexTypeBinding>
</binding>

does cause your custom handler to be bound against the members 'availabilityStart' and 'availabilityEnd'.

JUnit test case relative to src/bugs (with corrected binding file).

Hi, can I assume that this solves your problem ?

Sorry. It binds just fine, but I still get the date conversion errors:

Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Bad DateTime format: 01/26/2007 12:00:00 AM
The Year must be 4 digits long
at org.exolab.castor.xml.handlers.DateFieldHandler.setValue(DateFieldHandler.java:173)

I also see that whenever an empty node (e.g. <availabilityStart/>) on marshalling Castor calls in with a new Date object timestamped to now.

It looks like you are being hit a by a bug related to extending GeneralizedFieldHandler when writing your own FieldHandler (as actually mentioned in the HTML docs). Can you please try follow the instructions at

http://castor.org/xml-fieldhandlers.html#Writing-a-simple-FieldHandler

and report back whetehr this works for you ?

Using a simple field handler called AvailabilityStartHandler I get the same response.

#startElement: availabilityStart
2007-03-01 11:33:55,935 DEBUG [com.foo.domain.handler.AvailabilityStartHandler] - <asked to return newInstance from AvailStart>
#characters: 01/26/2007 12:00:00 AM
#endElement: availabilityStart
2007-03-01 11:33:55,935 ERROR [com.foo.domain.playlist.XMLConverter] - <XMLConverter - Unmarshal>
Bad DateTime format: 01/26/2007 12:00:00 AM
The Year must be 4 digits long

at org.exolab.castor.xml.Unmarshaller.unmarshal(Unmarshaller.java:740)
at org.exolab.castor.xml.Unmarshaller.unmarshal(Unmarshaller.java:596)

I'm running into the same issue.

I try to add a simple custom fieldhandler for a element.with type dateTime and I get a "Bad Date Time Format"-Exception.

I think the problem is that castordoes not use in this case the custom fieldhandler, it use the fieldhandler from XMLClassDescriptor instead.

Test case added.

Hope this helps.

Any news about this really grueling bug?

I cant setup any custom handler - also not for a compelxType with simpleContent. I think this is related to this bug.

To work around this, we downloaded the Castor source and made a change.

In org.exolab.castor.xml.handlers.DateFieldHandler, changed line 475 from:

public boolean _allowNoTime = false;

to

public boolean _allowNoTime = true;

The code is well documented, so if you have questions you can look there. Essentially this enables the Date parsing to accept "date" fields instead of enforcing "datetime". It doesn't break parsing of "datetime". Look at DateFieldHandler.parse, line 362:

        // If no time is present and we don't require time, use org.exolab.castor.types.Date
        if (pOptions._allowNoTime && trimmed.indexOf('T') == -1) {
            org.exolab.castor.types.Date parsedDate = new org.exolab.castor.types.Date(trimmed);
            return parsedDate.toDate();
        }

        DateTime parsedDateTime = new DateTime(trimmed);
        return parsedDateTime.toDate();

Gary, just for the sake of completeness, does your custom handler extend from GeneralizedFieldHandler, or do you implement FieldHandler directly, ?

I tried both GeneralizedFieldHandler and FieldHandler directly. I had GeneralizedFieldHandflers working for other types (Strings, for instance), but for dates I had the same experience as above: setValue( ) not getting called

Co-worker pointed me to the castor.properties file today. Maybe a good candidate to slip a property in there regarding date/datetime. If you guys have an idea as to where/how this should be patched, contact me via email and I may be able to help.

Hi

I am also facing the same problem in caster

while doing marshelling it works fine, but while doing unmarshelling .. it showing error. i just tried the same whats given in example.can u please help me out
org.exolab.castor.xml.MarshalException: Bad DateTime format: 03/06/2009

Thanks
Prabu.p

I kept beating my head against this problem until I looked at the example for writing a GeneralizedFieldHandler one more time, and realized the big difference was I was setting the field type to java.util.Date and not string. As soon as I changed the field type to string, it worked exactly as I wanted it to.

I have the same problem with Castor 1.3.1 and sample GeneralizedFieldHandler code from http://castor.org/xml-fieldhandlers.html#Writing-a-simple-FieldHandler.
Stevi, I'm not sure how your change solved the problem.

oh, I see - the example is wrong. need to change the Date to String in the mapping xml file:

<field name="startDate" type="string" handler="myDateHandler">
<bind-xml name="start_date" node="element" />
</field>