How to change date format (month name) in iReport?

Question

I\'ve a requirement to change the date format in iReport. Currently I used an SQL query to collect the data. Here\'s my query in iReport

SELECT DATE_F

Answer 1

To display dates in different formats, one option is to format dates based on locales. For example, the following expression uses the current user's locale:

DateFormat.getDateInstance(DateFormat.LONG, $P{REPORT_LOCALE}).format($F{currentDate})

Answer 2

You can create and use scriptlet or you can use expressions like in this samples:

• Using national locale (ms_MY, malaysia):

<field name="currentDate" class="java.sql.Timestamp"/>
...
<textField>
    <reportElement x="300" y="0" width="100" height="20"/>
    <textElement/>
    <textFieldExpression><![CDATA[(new DateFormatSymbols(new Locale("ms", "MY")).getMonths())[$F{currentDate}.getMonth()]]]></textFieldExpression>
</textField>

• Using conditional ? : operator

<field name="currentDate" class="java.sql.Timestamp"/>
...
<textField>
    <reportElement x="200" y="0" width="100" height="20"/>
    <textElement/>
    <textFieldExpression><![CDATA[$F{currentDate}.getMonth() == 0 ?
    "Januari" : $F{currentDate}.getMonth() == 1 ?
    "Februari" : $F{currentDate}.getMonth() == 2 ?
    "Mac" : $F{currentDate}.getMonth() == 3 ?
    "April" : $F{currentDate}.getMonth() == 4 ?
    "Mei" : $F{currentDate}.getMonth() == 5 ?
    "Jun" : $F{currentDate}.getMonth() == 6 ?
    "Julai" : $F{currentDate}.getMonth() == 7 ?
    "Ogos" : $F{currentDate}.getMonth() == 8 ?
    "September" : $F{currentDate}.getMonth() == 9 ?
    "Oktober"  : $F{currentDate}.getMonth() == 10 ?
    "November"  : $F{currentDate}.getMonth() == 11 ?
    "Disember" : "Unknown"
    ]]></textFieldExpression>
</textField>

• You can read this article how to use scriptlet.