How to use joda time with JPA (eclipselink)?

Question

I tried to use the DataTime in my entity class. Adding @Temporal(TemporalType.DATE) above the field, I got the error saying "The persistent field or property for a Temporal type must be of type java.util.Date, java.util.Calendar or java.util.GregorianCalendar". I can introduce the conversion back and forth; using setters and getters as follows:

@Temporal(TemporalType.DATE)
private Calendar attendanceDate;

public DateTime getAttendanceDate() {
    return new DateTime(this.attendanceDate);
}

public void setAttendanceDate(DateTime attendanceDate) {
    this.attendanceDate = attendanceDate.toCalendar(Locale.getDefault());
}

but I hope eclipselink to do it for me. I have gone thro' Persist Joda-time's DateTime via Hibernate. The answer suggesting to use hibernate, but I have to use eclipselink. I can use the DateTime object in my entity class with DB representation as BLOB, but I need it as Date. Is there anything like jodatime-eclipselink? Or any other suggestion? Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

Basic the link defines an EclipseLink Converter to convert from Joda DateTime to java.sql.Timestamp or Date. You could use it, or define your own converter and use it through @Convert, @Converter in EclipseLink.

For DDL creation, the converter should define the initialize method and set the type on the mapping's field to java.sql.Timestamp.

Please log a bug (or vote for the existing one) on this in EclipseLink, we should have support for Joda.