Format string with MaskFormatter throws "Invalid character" exception

Question

I have a function in which I need to set a string to the following format : #####-####-## and padded with leading zeroes.

eg:

1234567 will become 00001-2345-67

98765432109 will become 98765-4321-09

I'm using MaskFormatter and my impression from the documentation was that A represented any letter or digit, and that setPlaceHolderCharacter would pad the string.

I know technically it's for use with text fields but had hoped I could use it in a back-end function, if not is there a different component i should be using?

I have this code below but it throws an exception java.text.ParseException: Invalid character: 1 when it hits mask.valueToString(ndc)

public class NdcFormatter implements MapFunction<Purchase, Purchase> {

    private final String maskFormat = "AAAAA-AAAA-AA";
    private final Character placeholder = '0';


    @Override
    public Purchase map(Purchase purchase) throws ParseException {
        if(purchase != null){

            String ndc = purchase.getNdc();
            MaskFormatter mask = new MaskFormatter(maskFormat);
            mask.setPlaceholderCharacter(placeholder);
            String result = mask.valueToString(ndc);

            purchase.setNdc(result);

        }

        return purchase;
    }
}

Answer 1

Here is how to fix ERROR java.text.ParseException: Invalid character: ... in MaskFormatter

Solution the error is in valueToString method, you have to add this line of code :

mask.setValueContainsLiteralCharacters(false);

but you will get a problem like that :

• when you set 1234567 it will return you 12345-6700-00
• to get 00001-2345-67 you have to pass 00001234567

so you have to fix your input value before formatting .

here is the complete code :

public class NdcFormatter implements MapFunction<Purchase, Purchase> {

    private final String maskFormat = "AAAAA-AAAA-AA";
    private final Character placeholder = '0';


    @Override
    public Purchase map(Purchase purchase) throws ParseException {
        if(purchase != null){

            String ndc = purchase.getNdc();
            MaskFormatter mask = new MaskFormatter(maskFormat);
            mask.setPlaceholderCharacter(placeholder);
            mask.setValueContainsLiteralCharacters(false);
            String result = mask.valueToString(ndc);

            purchase.setNdc(result);

        }

        return purchase;
    }
}

to pad the leading zeroes by yourself here is a simple code example.

    if(ndc.length() < maskFormat.length()) {
        String pad = "0";
        for(int i = 0; i < maskFormat.length() -ndc.length() - 3; i++ ) {
            pad = pad + "0" ;
        }
        ndc = pad + ndc;
    }