A formatter could be specified for an element. These are strings that represent mask, currency, date or other applicable formats. As the name of the attribute connotes, this could also be in form of a formatter class.

The standard dWebSpec format parameters are listed below.

The single characters are combined or repeated to form a format string like MM/dd/yy.

The parameter could be specified as an internationalized key, as shown in example below:
{dateformat.long}

Where the specified string would be the key to the internationalized format strings. This would allow the introduction of different format strings for different locale.

For Struts platform, formatting involves the inputText and outputText elements.

The specification of format is based on Java formatting that is based on these classes.

  java.text.SimpleDateFormat
  java.text.NumberFormat
  java.text.DecimalFormat
  

outputText

The implementation for output text would used the bean:write tag; which has the format attribute, which could include the specified format string as shown below.

<bean:write name="dueDate" format="MM/dd/yyyyy"/>

It could also be externalized into a key.

<bean:write name="dueDate" formatKey="fmt.date.short"/>

inputText

Struts does not provide direct support for formatting input texts, either on first display on the page, or during or after editing the text.

There are however some common patterns that would provide the formatting as logic within the form bean; these also could accommodate internationalization. For on screen formatting, client scripting would need to be employed.