How to make fmt:formatDate work for form:input

Question

I have a jstl loop and I want to format the date of a form:input. I have tried many permutations of some of the suggestions that I\'ve fond online but I just cannot get it to wo

Answer 1

You can't use a JSP tag in an attribute of another JSP tag. STore the result of the date formatting in a page attribute, and use this page attribute (as you would do with a variable in Java):

<fmt:formatDate value="transactions['${loopStatus.index}'].valueTransactionDate"  
                type="date" 
                pattern="yyyy-MM-dd"
                var="theFormattedDate" />
<form:input type="text" path="..." value="${theFormattedDate}"/>

Answer 2

In the latest releases of the spring JSTL tags you can't use the attribute value into de tah form:input. If you try, you will get a value attribute is not valid for tag <form:input> error.

In this case you must use a normal HTML input tag and put the path as the name of the input to trigger the binding to the Spring form like this

<fmt:formatDate var="fmtDate" value="${form.bean.dateProperty}" pattern="dd/MM/yyyy"/>
<input type="text" name="bean.dateProperty" value="${fmtDate}"/>

Ugly but works for me! ;)