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Java - PropertyEditorManager Examples

Java 

This example show how to use PropertyEditorManager to find a property editor for a given type. The JDK provided editor implementations, BooleanEditor in this case, are in unofficial package com.sun.beans.editors.BooleanEditor. 

package com.logicbig.example;

import java.awt.*;
import java.beans.PropertyEditor;
import java.beans.PropertyEditorManager;

public class DefaultPropEditorExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        PropertyEditor editor = PropertyEditorManager.findEditor(Font.class);
        //font to text conversion
        editor.setValue(new Font(Font.DIALOG, Font.BOLD, 12));
        String asText = editor.getAsText();
        System.out.println(asText);

        //text to font conversion
        PropertyEditor editor2 = PropertyEditorManager.findEditor(Font.class);
        editor2.setAsText("SansSerif ITALIC 14");
        Object value = editor2.getValue();
        System.out.println(value);
    }
}

Output:

true




Registering a PropertyEditor by calling PropertyEditorManager.registerEditor(..). This call will tie the provided type to the custom property editor globally. 

public class OverridingDefaultEditorExample {

    public static void main (String[] args) {
        //overriding default jdk boolean editor
        PropertyEditorManager.registerEditor(Boolean.class, CustomBooleanEditor.class);
        PropertyEditor editor = PropertyEditorManager.findEditor(Boolean.class);
        editor.setAsText("yes");
        System.out.println(editor.getValue());
    }

    public static class CustomBooleanEditor extends BooleanEditor {
        @Override
        public void setAsText (String text) throws IllegalArgumentException {
            if ("yes".equalsIgnoreCase(text)) {
                super.setAsText("true");
            } else if ("no".equalsIgnoreCase(text)) {
                super.setAsText("false");
            } else {
                super.setAsText(text);
            }
        }
    }
}

Output:

true




A custom property editor can be auto registered. In this example a new custom UserEditor.java is at the same package location as bean User.java, that's way it's auto-discovered but it can be overridden if we use PropertyEditorManager.registerEditor method to register a new one. 

package com.logicbig.example;

import com.sun.beans.editors.StringEditor;

import java.beans.PropertyEditor;
import java.beans.PropertyEditorManager;
import java.beans.PropertyEditorSupport;


public class PropEditor2 {

    public static void main (String[] args) {
        //auto discovering UserEditor
        PropertyEditor editor = PropertyEditorManager.findEditor(User.class);
        System.out.println(editor.getClass());

        //uncomment the following to override the default editor
        /* PropertyEditorManager.registerEditor(User.class, UserEditor2.class);
        editor = PropertyEditorManager.findEditor(User.class);
        System.out.println(editor.getClass());*/

        editor.setAsText("Joe");
        System.out.println(editor.getValue());
    }

    public static class UserEditor extends PropertyEditorSupport {

        @Override
        public String getAsText () {
            User user = (User) getValue();
            return user.getName();
        }

        @Override
        public void setAsText (String s) {
            User user = new User();
            user.setName(s);
            setValue(user);
        }
    }

    public static class UserEditor2 extends StringEditor {

        @Override
        public String getAsText () {
            User user = (User) getValue();
            return user.getName();
        }

        @Override
        public void setAsText (String s) {
            User user = new User();
            user.setName(s);
            setValue(user);
        }
    }

    public static class User {
        private String name;


        public String getName () {
            return name;
        }

        public void setName (String name) {
            this.name = name;
        }

        @Override
        public String toString () {
            return "User{" +
                                "name='" + name + '\'' +
                                '}';
        }
    }
}

Output:

 class com.logicbig.example.PropEditor2$UserEditor
 User{name='Joe'}

See Also