xs:String in xs:DateTime format to XMLGregorianCalendar

Question

I use JAXB for un/marshaling XML messages which I get from server. Usually I get the XMLGregorianCalendar values in the fields, that are defind as xs:dateTime in the describing XSD files, so the conversion to XMLGregorianCalendar is done automatically by JAXB.

Example from XSD file

<xs:attribute name="readouttime" use="required" type="xs:dateTime" />

However one field is defined as xs:string like this:

<xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="Value" type="xs:string" />

but I am receiving a value that should represent the dateTime:

<Value>2014-08-31T15:00:00Z</Value>

Is there any nice way, how to convert this string to XMLGregorianCallendar, or should I use SimpleDateFormat and type the pattern manually? I feel this may be a dangerous part.

Answer 1

A quick Google search yields

String mydatetime = "2011-09-29T08:55:00";
XMLGregorianCalendar xgc = DatatypeFactory.newInstance().newXMLGregorianCalendar(mydatetime);

Credits go to this blog post.