Spring MVC set global DateTimeFormat

Question

I want my controllers to parse dates in RequestParams and PathVariables according to a standard format.

Is it possible to set an application-wide @DateTimeFormat without annotating every @RequestParam individually?

Answer 1

You can do it at the controller level. Add @initBinder in your controller and it will format the date according to the given formatter.

@InitBinder
public void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
    SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
    dateFormat.setLenient(false);

    // true passed to CustomDateEditor constructor means convert empty String to null
    binder.registerCustomEditor(Date.class, new CustomDateEditor(dateFormat, true));
}