How to override Joda-Time GSP tag output

Question

I am using the Joda-Time plug-in for Grails, and so far it has been a huge help. A massive improvement over the Java Date/Callendar method. Anyway, I am rendering Period data using the GSP tags as follows:

<joda:formatPeriod value="${ shift?.totalTime }" fields="hours,minutes" />

The tag renders the HTML as, 11 hours and 32 minutes. That's great but I need to override the text and change it to 11hrs. 32min..

Does anyone have experience doing this? I haven't found any examples as I've Googled the interwebs. I think this would help many others, as well.

BTW: I am really grateful to the Joda-Time creators. It's one of the most useful libraries/plugins I've found.

Answer 1

If you aren't concerned about localized text and will only have hours and minutes, then a simple solution would be to write your own little tag to do the formatting. Something like:

def formatPeriod = { attrs ->
    def periodFormatter = new PeriodFormatterBuilder().appendHours().appendSuffix("hrs.").appendSeparator(" ").appendMinutes().appendSuffix("min.").toFormatter()

    out << periodFormatter.print(attrs.value)
}

Here's sample output from a groovy shell:

groovy:000> period = new Period().withHours(11).withMinutes(32)
===> PT11H32M
groovy:000> formatter = PeriodFormat.wordBased()
===> org.joda.time.format.PeriodFormatter@6d2ddeee
groovy:000> formatter.print(period)
===> 11 hours and 32 minutes
groovy:000> periodFormatter = new PeriodFormatterBuilder().appendHours().appendSuffix("hrs.").appendSeparator(" ").appendMinutes().appendSuffix("min.").toFormatter()
===> org.joda.time.format.PeriodFormatter@56048075
groovy:000> periodFormatter.print(period)
===> 11hrs. 32min.

Answer 2

Looking at the source code for the PeriodTagLib it appears to be delegating that to JodaTime's word based PeriodFormat which by default is using the values from the org.joda.time.format.message bundle.

You could try defining those keys in your own message bundle in grails-app/i8n/messages.proprties but I doubt that would work.

You may have to edit the bundle from within the included sources. :/