There needs to be support for java.time in java.text.MessageFormat

[Nick Williams]

On Dec 1, 2013, at 12:52 PM, Xueming Shen wrote:

> On 12/1/13 10:29 AM, Nick Williams wrote:
>> I filed these bugs back in June. I noticed today that they were migrated to the JIRA instance:
>> 
>> https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8016742
>> https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8016743
>> 
>> I filed the bugs, though they say someone else did. It's frustrating that suddenly I can't even comment on bugs I created, but that's beside the point of this email...
>> 
>> I'm dismayed to see that 8016743 has been scheduled for being fixed in JAVA 9! What the heck!? If I can't use the new Java 8 Date & Time types in Java's localization support, then what good are they!? I have to just stick with java.util.Date for yet another two years because I can't localize Java 8 Date & Time types in my i18n message formats. That's not the quality that I normally expect out of the Java team. >:-[
> 
> java.time has its own formatting/parsing mechanism/support via java.time.format package, in which
> it does have l10n/i18n support for print/parsing the new java.time date/time types for various locales.
> Any particular reason you must use j.text.MessageFormat to print/parse the java.time date/time types?

Yes: So that you can use message formats in ResourceBundles with java.time types. For example:

[resource bundle file contents]
some.message.key=You last logged in on {1,date,long} at {2,time,long}.
[/resource bundle file contents]

And then, in a JSP (just one example use case):

<fmt:message key="some.message.key">
    <fmt:param value="${model.lastAccessInstant}" />
    <fmt:param value="${model.lastAccessInstant}" />
</fmt:message>

Resource bundle messages _must_ follow the MessageFormat conventions. MessageFormat only supports java.text.DateFormat. DateFormat only supports java.util.Date. MessageSource needs to also support java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter, otherwise you can't use java.time types with resource bundle messages.

Nick

> 
> -Sherman
> 
>> 
>> 8016742 is a slightly different story. It's higher priority than 8016743, and although there is absolutely no update about it, it appears that MAYBE it's scheduled for being fixed in Java 8? I have no idea what "tbd_major" means. Note that a fix for 8016743 could potentially help fix 8016742.
>> 
>> Is there anyone here that can shed some light on 8016742's status and why the heck 8016743 isn't getting fixed until Java 9?
>> 
>> If not, can someone point me to a more appropriate list that I can escalate my frustrations on? These awesome new date & time types are useless if they aren't supported in Java's i18n/L10n and JAXB components.
>> 
>> N
>> 
>> On Jun 17, 2013, at 8:17 AM, Nick Williams wrote:
>> 
>>> On Jun 17, 2013, at 6:53 AM, Stephen Colebourne wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On 17 June 2013 12:40, Alan Bateman <Alan.Bateman at oracle.com> wrote:
>>>>> On 17/06/2013 11:05, Nick Williams wrote:
>>>>>> Thanks. I have filed two different bugs for these two different problems.
>>>>> Here they are:
>>>>> 
>>>>> 8016743: java.text.MessageFormat does not support java.time.* types
>>>>> 8016742: JAXB does not support java.time.* types
>>>>> 
>>>>> Note that JAXB is maintained in an upstream project (they periodically do
>>>>> source drops into OpenJDK). I don't know if support for java.time requires
>>>>> API changes or not but just to mention that JAXB is tied to a standalone JSR
>>>>> and I think they the requirement to be able to drop-in into jdk7 builds.
>>>> That could be a problem, but its really a process one. It shouldn't be
>>>> users that suffer as a result of issues like that (but there isn't
>>>> anything I can do about it other than wave my hands...)
>>>> Stephen
>>> ^^ What Stephen said. :-)
>