Ability to associate a Formatter with a class by using the @Formatted annotated [SPR-6013]

[spring-projects-issues]

Keith Donald opened SPR-6013 and commented

As a developer, I would like to be able to conveniently associated a Formatter implementation with a particular object class by simply annotating that class.

Proposal: @Formatted

/**
 * A type that can be formatted as a String for display in a UI.
 * @author Keith Donald
 * @since 3.0
 */
@Target({ElementType.TYPE})
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Documented
public @interface Formatted {
	
	/**
	 * The Formatter that handles the formatting.
	 */
	Class<?> value();
}

@Formatted(AddressFormatter.class)
public static class Address {
	private String street;
	private String city;
	private String state;
	private String zip;
	private String country;
}

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Referenced from: commits 20f5f99, 2381452

[spring-projects-issues]

Arjen Poutsma commented

I would also allow the Formatted on fields/properties, so that I can do the following:

public class Person {

  @Formatted(HomeAddressFormatter.class)
  private Address homeAddress;

  @Formatted(WorkAddressFormatter.class)
  private Address workAddress;

}

the above example is a bit contrived, but you know what I'm aiming for.

[spring-projects-issues]

Florent Ramiere commented

The @Formatted has been removed (see https://fisheye.springsource.org/browse/spring-framework/trunk/org.springframework.context/src/main/java/org/springframework/ui/format/Formatted.java#r2233)

This annotation was not re-introduced.

Should we rely solely on the AnnotationFormatterFactory to provide this feature ourselves ?