Spring MVC type conversion : PropertyEditor or Converter?

Question

I am looking for the easiest and simplest way to bind and convert data in Spring MVC. If possible, without doing any xml configuration.

So far I've been using PropertyEditors like so :

public class CategoryEditor extends PropertyEditorSupport {

    // Converts a String to a Category (when submitting form)
    @Override
    public void setAsText(String text) {
        Category c = new Category(text);
        this.setValue(c);
    }

    // Converts a Category to a String (when displaying form)
    @Override
    public String getAsText() {
        Category c = (Category) this.getValue();
        return c.getName();
    }

}

and

...
public class MyController {

    @InitBinder
    public void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
        binder.registerCustomEditor(Category.class, new CategoryEditor());
    }

    ...

}

It is simple : both conversion are defined in the same class, and the binding is straightforward. If I wanted to do a general binding across all my controllers, I could still add 3 lines in my xml config.

---

But Spring 3.x introduced a new way to do it, using Converters :

Within a Spring container, this system can be used as an alternative to PropertyEditors

So let's say I want to use Converters because it is "the latest alternative". I would have to create two converters :

public class StringToCategory implements Converter<String, Category> {

    @Override
    public Category convert(String source) {
        Category c = new Category(source);
        return c;
    }

}

public class CategoryToString implements Converter<Category, String> {

    @Override
    public String convert(Category source) {
        return source.getName();
    }

}

First drawback : I have to make two classes. Benefit : no need to cast thanks to genericity.

Then, how do I simply data bind the converters ?

Second drawback : I haven't found any simple way (annotations or other programmatic facilities) to do it in a controller : nothing like someSpringObject.registerCustomConverter(...);.

The only ways I've found would be tedious, not simple, and only about general cross-controller binding :

• XML config :

  <bean id="conversionService"
    class="org.springframework.context.support.ConversionServiceFactoryBean">
      <property name="converters">
          <set>
              <bean class="somepackage.StringToCategory"/>
              <bean class="somepackage.CategoryToString"/>
          </set>
      </property>
  </bean>
  

• Java config (only in Spring 3.1+) :

  @EnableWebMvc
  @Configuration
  public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {
  
      @Override
      protected void addFormatters(FormatterRegistry registry) {
          registry.addConverter(new StringToCategory());
          registry.addConverter(new CategoryToString());
      }
  
  }
  

With all these drawbacks, why using Converters ? Am I missing something ? Are there other tricks that I am not aware of ?

I am tempted to go on using PropertyEditors... Binding is much easier and quicker.

Answer 1

With all these drawbacks, why using Converters ? Am I missing something ? Are there other tricks that I am not aware of ?

No, I think you have very comprehensively described both PropertyEditor and Converter, how each one is declared and registered.

In my mind, PropertyEditors are limited in scope - they help convert String to a type, and this string typically comes from UI, and so registering a PropertyEditor using @InitBinder and using WebDataBinder makes sense.

Converter on the other hand is more generic, it is intended for ANY conversion in the system - not just for UI related conversions(String to target type). For eg, Spring Integration uses a converter extensively for converting a message payload to a desired type.

I think for UI related flows PropertyEditors are still appropriate especially for the case where you need to do something custom for a specific command property. For other cases, I would take the recommendation from Spring reference and write a converter instead(for eg, to convert from a Long id to an entity say, as a sample).