@DateTimeFormat(pattern="yyyy-MM-dd") with Spring Mvc Rest Service gives "error 400 request syntactically incorrect" [duplicate]

Question

I'm not able to let this work:

@RequestMapping(value = "/people", method = RequestMethod.GET, produces = "application/json")
    public @ResponseBody
    List<IPerson> searchPerson(@RequestParam(value = "birthDay", required = false) @DateTimeFormat(pattern="yyyy-MM-dd") Date birthDay) {

with the request:

http://localhost:8080/rest/people?birthDay=2014-05-25

The error is always :

"HTTP Status 400 - The request sent by the client was syntactically incorrect".

I can't find any resource that give me a clear answer/guide to understand the underlying problem... could someone help me? Thanks!

Edit: Exception is:

Caused by: org.springframework.core.convert.ConversionFailedException: Failed to convert from type java.lang.String to type @org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestParam @org.springframework.format.annotation.DateTimeFormat java.util.Date for value '2010-10-10'; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException
    at org.springframework.core.convert.support.ObjectToObjectConverter.convert(ObjectToObjectConverter.java:78)
    at org.springframework.core.convert.support.ConversionUtils.invokeConverter(ConversionUtils.java:35)
    at org.springframework.core.convert.support.GenericConversionService.convert(GenericConversionService.java:168)
    at org.springframework.beans.TypeConverterDelegate.convertIfNecessary(TypeConverterDelegate.java:161)
    at org.springframework.beans.TypeConverterDelegate.convertIfNecessary(TypeConverterDelegate.java:93)
    at org.springframework.beans.TypeConverterSupport.doConvert(TypeConverterSupport.java:61)

... 40 more
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException
    at java.util.Date.parse(Date.java:615)
    at java.util.Date.<init>(Date.java:272)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
    at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:526)
    at org.springframework.core.convert.support.ObjectToObjectConverter.convert(ObjectToObjectConverter.java:73)
    ... 45 more

Answer 1

Finally I found the solution, maybe could be of use for others with the same issue. Just add this method to the controller:

@InitBinder
public void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
    SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
    dateFormat.setLenient(false);
    binder.registerCustomEditor(Date.class, new CustomDateEditor(dateFormat, false));
}

right in the documentation: http://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/3.1.x/spring-framework-reference/htmlsingle/spring-framework-reference.html#mvc-ann-webdatabinder

But still don't understand why @DateTimeFormat(pattern="yyyy-MM-dd") doesn't work... With this solution there is no need of DateTimeFormat, so I annotated the param like the others:

@RequestParam(required = false) Date birthDay

Answer 2

In the spring forum they said that you need to have a conversion service initialized in your configuration in order to use the Formatter automátically. Something like:

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

<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter">
    <property name="webBindingInitializer">
        <bean class="org.springframework.web.bind.support.ConfigurableWebBindingInitializer">
            <property name="conversionService" ref="conversionService" />
        </bean>
    </property>
</bean>