Input Date in Struts2 - struts2

Question

How to change the format of java.util.Date object in struts 2. What I have tested, Struts 2 accepts m/d/yy. Is it possible to change the format?
And also how to change the default message "Invalid field value for field date"?
date tag in struts2 can only be used in output.

Answer 1

You can pass format to s:date tag
<s:date name="myDate" format="yyyy-MM-dd" />
To change the default error message, in your validation.xml you can add message parameter
<field name="myDate">
<field-validator type="date">
<message key="errors.myDateRequired" />
</field-validator>
</field>
Then in your ApplicationResources.properties file you will provide value for errors.myDateRequired
Update: As per comment
s:date is only a read only tag which means cannot be used to accept input from user.
For enabling textField to accept date in different format, couple of approaches:
Use struts2-jQuery plugin, it has a very nice date picker which support different date timeformat, showcase, DatePickerTag.
Custom javascript code to format user input.
Use jQuery (if allowed) and use jQuery datepicker
You can use custom converter to use text field for date, example

Answer 2

The date format Struts accepts depends on the user's locale. So for different locales you can have different date formats. This way you won't be able to support multiple date formats for the same locale but I don't see why you would need this anyway, it's only going to confuse your users. The only way to support different date formats for the same locale without javascript would be with a custom date converter as #mprabhat notes.

Answer 3

You could see the official doc about this:
Define the format for every language y the resource bundle. For instance, an appropriate en_US format definition extension could look like this:
format.date = {0,date,MM/dd/yy}
In parallel, you could add the following to your de_DE bundle:
format.date = {0,date,dd.MM.yyyy}
http://struts.apache.org/2.1.6/docs/formatting-dates-and-numbers.html