If a property takes an object as its value, the data loader must convert that object to a string to include it in an output record. The PropertyFormatter
interface defines methods for performing this conversion.
By default, the data loaders use the implementation class atg.endeca.index.formatter.EndecaPropertyFormatter
. This class invokes the object’s getLong()
method for numbers or getTime()
method for dates; for booleans, it converts the value to the String “0” (false
) or “1” (true
). For other objects, it calls the object’s toString()
method.
You can write your own implementations of PropertyFormatter
that use custom logic for performing the conversion. The simplest way to do this is to subclass EndecaPropertyFormatter
.
In an EndecaIndexingOutputConfig
definition file, you can specify a custom property formatter by using the formatter
attribute. For example, suppose you have a Nucleus component named /mystuff/MyPropertyFormatter
, of a custom class that implements the PropertyFormatter
interface. You can specify it in the definition file like this:
<property name="myProperty" formatter="/MyStuff/MyPropertyFormatter"/>
The value of the formatter
attribute is the absolute path of the Nucleus component. To simplify coding of the definition file, you can map PropertyFormatter
Nucleus components to simple names, and use those names as the values of formatter
attributes. For example, if you map the /mystuff/MyPropertyFormatter
component to the name myFormatter
, the above tag becomes:
<property name="myProperty" formatter="myFormatter"/>
You can perform this mapping by setting the formatterMap
property of the EndecaIndexingOutputConfig
component. This property is a Map in which the keys are the names and the values are PropertyFormatter
Nucleus components that the names represent.