Let say i have this java bean,

public class MyBean implements Serializable {
    private Integer id;
    private String userid;       
    private Date contacttime;
	
	// other setter and getter	

And i have a SpringMVC Controller like this, using @ModelAttribute as the method’s parameter,

@RequestMapping(value = "/doSomething", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public @ResponseBody Object doSomething(@ModelAttribute MyBean myBean) {
	// do something
}

Im sending HTTP Post which format is like this

id=2&
userid=3abc&
contacttime=130314101010

But it shows error on my server side, which looks like this,

Failed to convert from type java.lang.String to type java.util.Date for value '130314101010'; 
nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException

Usually, i have to manually use SimpleDateFormat to parse my “ddMMyyHHmmss” String into Date, but SpringMVC provide a very elegant way of handling with this kind of conversion. Just by using @DateTimeFormat

import org.springframework.format.annotation.DateTimeFormat;

public class MyBean implements Serializable {
    private Integer id;
    private String userid;       
	
	@DateTimeFormat(pattern = "ddMMyyHHmmss")
    private Date contacttime;
	
	// other setter and getter	

Dont forget to include JodaTime on your pom.xml

<dependency>
	<groupId>joda-time</groupId>
	<artifactId>joda-time</artifactId>
	<version>2.3</version>
</dependency>

If not, you will find this kind of error,

org.springframework.core.convert.ConversionFailedException: Failed to convert from type java.lang.String to type @org.springframework.format.annotation.DateTimeFormat java.util.Date for value '130314101010'; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalStateException: JodaTime library not available - @DateTimeFormat not supported

Have fun with SpringMVC 😀