Date/Time Format Provider for GWT/GXT

DateFormatProvider.java

package com.foo.bar.shared;

public interface DateFormatProvider
{
   public Date format(String pattern, String dateString);
}

DateTimeFormatProvider.java

package com.foo.bar.client;

import com.google.gwt.i18n.client.DateTimeFormat;
import com.foo.bar.shared.DateFormatProvider;

import java.util.Date;

public class DateTimeFormatProvider implements DateFormatProvider, Serializable
{
   @Override
   public Date format(String pattern, String dateString)
   {
      Date result = null;
      if (StringUtils.isNotBlank(dateString))
      {
         try
         {
            DateTimeFormat dtf = DateTimeFormat.getFormat(pattern);
            result = dtf.parse(dateString);
         }
         catch (IllegalArgumentException ex)
         {
            // handle error
         }
      }

      return result;
   }
}

SimpleDateFormatProvider.java

package com.foo.bar.server;

import com..foo.bar.shared.DateFormatProvider;
import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;

import java.text.ParseException;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.Date;

public class SimpleDateFormatProvider implements DateFormatProvider
{
   @Override
   public Date format(String pattern, String dateString)
   {
      Date result = null;
      if (StringUtils.isNotBlank(dateString))
      {
         try
         {
            SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat(pattern);
            result = sdf.parse(dateString);
         }
         catch (ParseException ex)
         {
            // handle error
            LOGGER.warn("illegal date string specified (from database?): {}", dateString, ex);
         }
      }

      return result;
   }

   private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SimpleDateFormatProvider.class);
}