Date data type

Value range of the Date data type

FirstSpirit provides the data type Date for the processing/editing of values which represent a date and/or a time. This data type enables interpretation of different date formats as Year, Month, Day, Hour, Minute and Second. The data type provides access to a range of methods which fall back on the calendar and relevant regional schema settings of the operating system (e.g. data formats) and therefore enable formatting in different, for example country-specific date formats and parsing.

The data type Date can also be looked up in the Sun API documentation:

java.util.Date

Definition

In FirstSpirit, when a date is defined a Date object of the class java.util.Date is generated. This data type is usually generated by means of the CMS_INPUT_DATE input component. Irrespective of this the .now method of the system object #global can be used to generate a new date object:

CMS_SET(myDate, #global.now)$

In this case the expression #global.now returns the current date.

Definition using the standard input components

Within the form area of a page or section template, input components are defined which can be subsequently used by the editors to insert the actual editorial contents into the page. The standard input components supported by FirstSpirit return different data types.

The following standard input components return an object of data type Date :

• CMS_INPUT_DATE

Then, with the help of a $CMS_VALUE(...)$ instruction, methods can then be applied to this object:

$CMS_VALUE(IDENTIFIER.METHOD)$

IDENTIFIER is the identifier defined in the resultname parameter of the input component.

Methods on date objects

The table below lists all methods which can be invoked on objects of data type Date.

after(Date)

Overview

before(Date)

Overview

compareTo(Date)

Overview

compareTo(Object)

Overview

equals(Object)

Overview

from(Instant)

Overview

getClass

The .getClass() (in Bean syntax: .class) method returns the class of the invoking object (cf. java.lang.Class).

Invocation:

$CMS_VALUE(myString.class)$
$CMS_VALUE(myString.getClass())$

Output:

java.lang.String

Overview

getTime

Overview

hashCode

Overview

isCase(Object)

Overview

isNull

The .isNull() (in Bean syntax: .isNull) method checks whether an expression or object is null , e.g. storeElement.isNull(). In the case of objects with complex values or objects, the object decides when it is null. The data type DomElement for example always contains an empty document, thus it is never null. For this reason, checking an empty DOM editor input component by using the method .isNull() returns the value false, whereas checking the component with .isEmpty() would return the value true.

The method .isNull() returns a Boolean value as the check result. true is the check result if the expression or object is null and false if not.

Overview

print

Overview

set(String, Object)

Overview

setTime(long)

Overview

toInstant

Overview

toJSON

Overview

toString

Overview

type

Overview