ULC offers formatting and input validation on the client side through configurable formatters and validators. Using ULC validators, an application can handle validation automatically on the client and therefore eliminate server round trips for user input validation.

The data type classes convert non-text values (e.g., {@link java.util.Date} objects) to strings using a specified format. Conversely, they are responsible for converting string values back to the non-text type, applying validation criteria. These formatters and validators hence offer the abstraction for displaying and editing non-text values in some ULCComponents (e.g., ULCTextField). For this reason, the base interface for all formatters and validators is called IDataType.

As an example, a ULCTextField can be configured to use a ULCDateDataType. This object formats the displayed {@link java.util.Date} object in the specified way and validates the user input to be a valid date. In addition, the developer can access the value of the field directly as a {@link java.util.Date} object.

    ULCTextField dateField = new ULCTextField();
    dateField.setDataType(new ULCDateDataType("dd.MM.yyyy"));

    dateField.setValue(new Date());
    // ...
    Date dateEntered = (Date)dateField.getValue();

ULCComponent	Comments
ULCTextField	The value displayed in the text field is formatted and validated.
ULCLabel	The value displayed by the label is formatted.
ULCTableColumn	The values displayed by a column�s cells are formatted and validated.
ULCTableTreeColumn	The values displayed by a column�s cells are formatted and validated.