Changelog

Journey since 1.4.0

After many years of inactivity, fixedformat4j was revived with the 1.4.0 release. Here is a summary of everything that has improved since then:

• LocalDate and LocalDateTime support — both are now built-in types in ByTypeFormatter with type-specific default patterns and eager pattern validation.
• Repeating fields via @Field(count) — map a list of same-format fields with a single annotation; optional strictCount enforces list size on export.
• Field-level @Field / @Fields annotations — place annotations directly on a Java field instead of its getter; works with plain POJOs and Lombok (@Getter/@Setter).
• Date padding bug fixed — date formatters no longer over-strip padding characters that appear inside the formatted value (#33).
• Maven Central distribution — no GitHub account or personal access token required; standard <dependency> block just works.
• Negative decimal fix — parsing trailing-sign negatives with implicit decimals (e.g. 000000001-) no longer throws NumberFormatException.
• Modernised build — Java 11, SLF4J, commons-lang3, JUnit 5 with comprehensive test coverage.
• PIT mutation testing — live quality badges and a published mutation report on every release.
• New documentation site — full Markdown docs at jeyben.github.io/fixedformat4j (Quick Start, Annotations reference, Examples, FAQ, Changelog).

[Unreleased] — 1.8.0

Breaking changes

• Removed deprecated protected FixedFormatManagerImpl#readDataAccordingFieldAnnotation (#109) — The method was deprecated since #77 (1.7.0) and was never on the live load() path, which has used ClassMetadataCache exclusively since that release. Only consumers that extend FixedFormatManagerImpl and override or call this method are affected; consumers using the FixedFormatManager interface are unaffected.

  Migration: subclassers should drive parsing through FixedFormatManager#load(Class, String) instead.

• @Record(align) now uses RecordAlign instead of Align (#81) — A new two-value enum RecordAlign { LEFT, RIGHT } replaces Align as the type of @Record#align(). Because Align includes the INHERIT sentinel, which has no meaning at the record level, the old type admitted a combination that was only detectable at runtime (and was rejected with a FixedFormatException since 1.7.1). RecordAlign makes that mistake impossible at compile time and removes the runtime check.

  Migration: replace Align.LEFT / Align.RIGHT with RecordAlign.LEFT / RecordAlign.RIGHT on every @Record annotation that specifies the align attribute:

  // Before (1.7.x)
  @Record(length = 20, align = Align.RIGHT)
  public class MyRecord { … }
  
  // After (1.8.0+)
  @Record(length = 20, align = RecordAlign.RIGHT)
  public class MyRecord { … }
  

  Records that do not specify align are unaffected — the default (RecordAlign.LEFT) preserves the existing behaviour. The Align enum itself is unchanged and continues to be used for @Field(align = …).

New features

• FixedFormatReader — file and stream processing (#82, #95) — Reads fixed-format records from files, streams, or Readers line-by-line, routing each line to one or more @Record-annotated classes via LinePattern discriminators. Three factories cover the common cases: LinePattern.prefix("HDR"), LinePattern.positional(int[], String) for multi-position checks (e.g. type code at offset 0..2 plus a sub-type at offset 7..8), and LinePattern.matchAll() for catch-all routing. Patterns are bucketed into hash tables at build time, so per-line routing is near O(1) regardless of how many record types are registered. FixedFormatReader is unparameterized.

  Two output shapes:

  • read() — returns ReadResult, a type-safe class-keyed container; get(Class<R>) returns List<R> with no cast required. Also provides getAll(), contains(Class<?>), and classes().
  • process(source, HandlerRegistry) — push-style; dispatches each parsed record to the typed Consumer<R> registered in a per-call HandlerRegistry. Classes absent from the registry are silently ignored. Because the registry is supplied at call time, the same reader is safe to use from multiple threads.

  Every shape accepts Reader, InputStream, or Path; stream overloads default to UTF-8.

  Three configurable strategies: MultiMatchStrategy (firstMatch / throwOnAmbiguity / allMatches), UnmatchStrategy (skip / throwException), and ParseErrorStrategy (throwException / skipAndLog). An excludeLines(Predicate<String>) pre-filter runs before pattern matching and bypasses UnmatchStrategy.

  RecordMapping<T> is the public value type carrying the class and pattern for each registered mapping; it is surfaced as the parameter and return type of MultiMatchStrategy.resolve(). Consumers implementing a custom MultiMatchStrategy must reference it directly.

  FixedFormatIOException (extends FixedFormatException) is thrown on underlying IOException.

  import com.ancientprogramming.fixedformat4j.io.read.LinePattern;
  
  FixedFormatReader reader = FixedFormatReader.builder()
      .addMapping(HeaderRecord.class, LinePattern.prefix("HDR"))
      .addMapping(DetailRecord.class, LinePattern.prefix("DTL"))
      .build();
  
  ReadResult result = reader.read(Path.of("data.txt"));
  List<HeaderRecord> headers = result.get(HeaderRecord.class); // no cast
  List<DetailRecord> details = result.get(DetailRecord.class); // no cast
  

  See File processing for a complete guide.

Bug fixes

• Classloader leak prevention via ClassValue (#89) — The three JVM-level caches (ClassMetadataCache, FixedFormatManagerImpl.VALIDATED_CLASSES, and AbstractPatternFormatter.PATTERN_LENGTH_CACHE) were backed by static ConcurrentHashMap<Class<?>, …> instances. A ConcurrentHashMap holds strong references to its keys, so a Class used as a key can never be garbage-collected — even after all application references to it are gone. In multi-classloader environments (OSGi, servlet containers, Spring Boot DevTools, Jakarta EE) this causes the child ClassLoader that defined the record class to be retained indefinitely, leaking all classes it loaded.

  All three caches are now backed by ClassValue<T>. Computed values are stored inside the Class object itself; when the record class’s defining ClassLoader becomes unreachable the cached metadata is collected with it — no external map, no leak.

  No API or behaviour change. Existing annotated record classes, custom formatters, and serialized fixed-width data are unaffected.

1.7.2 (2026-04-20)

Behaviour changes

• @Field(nullChar = …) now activates when nullChar == paddingChar (#84) — The activation gate for null-aware handling is relaxed so that setting nullChar equal to paddingChar is a supported, idiomatic configuration — the “blank-is-null” convention. Previously this combination was documented as a no-op; it now enables the same load and export semantics as the distinct-sentinel configuration.

  Typical uses:

  // All spaces means null (e.g. optional date)
  @Field(offset = 1, length = 8, paddingChar = ' ', nullChar = ' ')
  public Date getInvoiceDate() { … }
  
  // All zeros means null (e.g. optional numeric with zero-padding)
  @Field(offset = 9, length = 5, align = Align.RIGHT, paddingChar = '0', nullChar = '0')
  public Integer getQuantity() { … }
  

  Migration: the prior nullChar != paddingChar activation rule is removed from the javadoc. Records that intentionally set nullChar == paddingChar to get no-op behaviour (none known) should omit nullChar instead.

1.7.1 (2026-04-18)

Breaking changes

• @Field.align() default changed from Align.LEFT to Align.INHERIT — The raw annotation value returned by fieldAnnotation.align() is now Align.INHERIT for any field that does not set align explicitly. The effective runtime behaviour is unchanged — the framework resolves INHERIT to LEFT via the enclosing @Record’s align default — but code that reads the annotation directly (annotation processors, reflection tools, custom bootstrap code) and passes the result to Align.apply() or Align.remove() will now receive an UnsupportedOperationException.

  Migration: read FormatInstructions.getAlignment() instead of the raw annotation (it is already resolved), or guard against Align.INHERIT before calling apply/remove.

• Align.INHERIT new enum constant — The Align enum gains a third value. switch statements over Align without an explicit default arm now have an unhandled case. Add a default: branch (or an explicit case INHERIT:) that throws or delegates appropriately.

New features

• Opt-in nullChar attribute on @Field to represent null values (#29) — Adds a nullChar attribute to the @Field annotation that lets callers distinguish a genuinely-absent field from a zero or empty value.

  Activation rule: null-aware handling is enabled only when nullChar differs from paddingChar. The default value ('\0') is a sentinel that can never appear in a regular fixed-width payload, so all existing records retain their pre-1.7.1 behaviour unchanged.

  • On load — if every character in the field slice equals nullChar, the setter is not invoked and the field stays null. Configuring nullChar on a primitive-typed field throws FixedFormatException at validation time.
  • On export — if the getter returns null, the field is emitted as length copies of nullChar, bypassing the formatter entirely.

  For repeating fields (count > 1) the check is applied per element: each slot is evaluated independently. Primitive array element types (e.g. int[]) cannot hold null and are unaffected.

  // Null and zero are now distinguishable:
  // "     " (spaces) → null   "00042" → 42
  @Field(offset = 1, length = 5, align = Align.RIGHT, paddingChar = '0', nullChar = ' ')
  public Integer getAmount() { … }
  

• Record-level default alignment via @Record(align = …) (#30) — Adds an align attribute to the @Record annotation that sets a default alignment for all fields in the record. Individual fields may still override it with an explicit @Field(align = …). The effective runtime behaviour for existing records is unchanged: @Record.align() defaults to Align.LEFT, and fields that inherit that default continue to behave as they did before. See the breaking-change note above regarding the raw @Field.align() annotation value.

  // Before — alignment repeated on every field
  @Record(length = 20)
  public class MyRecord {
    @Field(offset = 1, length = 10, align = Align.RIGHT, paddingChar = '0')
    public Integer getField1() { … }
  
    @Field(offset = 11, length = 10, align = Align.RIGHT, paddingChar = '0')
    public Integer getField2() { … }
  }
  
  // After — alignment declared once at record level
  @Record(length = 20, align = Align.RIGHT)
  public class MyRecord {
    @Field(offset = 1, length = 10, paddingChar = '0')
    public Integer getField1() { … }
  
    @Field(offset = 11, length = 10, paddingChar = '0')
    public Integer getField2() { … }
  }
  

Bug fixes

• Null nested @Record field now exports as padding instead of throwing (#45) — Exporting a parent record whose nested @Record field is null previously threw a FixedFormatException. It now outputs the field’s paddingChar repeated for the declared @Field length, consistent with how all other formatters handle null values.

1.7.0 (2026-04-18)

Breaking changes

• AbstractFixedFormatter.getRemovePadding removed — deprecated in 1.6.1 and now deleted. Rename any override to stripPadding; the signature is identical. The call chain is now parse() → stripPadding() directly.

  // Before (1.6.x)
  @Override
  protected String getRemovePadding(String value, FormatInstructions instructions) { … }
  
  // After (1.7.0+)
  @Override
  protected String stripPadding(String value, FormatInstructions instructions) { … }
  

New features

• Enum support via @FixedFormatEnum (#67) — Annotate any getter that returns an enum type with @FixedFormatEnum to control how the value is serialised in the fixed-width record. Two modes are available through the EnumFormat enum:

  • LITERAL (default) — stores and reads the enum constant name (Enum.name() / valueOf()).
  • NUMERIC — stores and reads the ordinal as a zero-padded integer (Enum.ordinal() / index lookup).

  public enum Status { ACTIVE, INACTIVE }
  
  // LITERAL (default): stores "ACTIVE" / "INACTIVE"
  @Field(offset = 1, length = 8)
  @FixedFormatEnum
  public Status getStatus() { … }
  
  // NUMERIC: stores "0" / "1"
  @Field(offset = 1, length = 1)
  @FixedFormatEnum(EnumFormat.NUMERIC)
  public Status getStatus() { … }
  

Performance improvements

• Field metadata caching (#77) — ClassMetadataCache precomputes and caches all field descriptors per annotated class on first use, eliminating repeated annotation scanning on every load() / export() call. The cache is process-wide and thread-safe.

• MethodHandle dispatch (#75) — Getter and setter invocation now uses MethodHandle instead of Method.invoke(), reducing per-call overhead after JIT warmup.

• Reduced string allocations (#76) — Padding and sign handling rewritten to minimise intermediate String object creation per field.

1.6.1 (2026-04-10)

Bug fixes

• DateFormatter (and LocalDateFormatter / LocalDateTimeFormatter) no longer over-strips padding characters (#33) — When the configured paddingChar happened to be a character that also appears in the formatted date string (e.g. paddingChar = '0' with a time value whose seconds component is 00), the previous stripPadding implementation removed those characters from the parsed string, leaving it too short and causing a ParseException. The fix introduces AbstractPatternFormatter, which overrides stripPadding to remove only leading/trailing padding characters rather than all occurrences of the character.

Deprecations

• AbstractFixedFormatter.getRemovePadding deprecated — The method has been renamed to stripPadding, which better reflects its behaviour (it transforms a string, not returns a value). The old name carried a misleading get prefix that implied a zero-argument accessor.

  getRemovePadding remains callable and fully functional in 1.6.1; it now delegates to stripPadding. It will be removed in 1.7.0.

  Migration: rename any override of getRemovePadding to stripPadding — the signature is identical:

  // Before (1.6.0 and earlier)
  @Override
  protected String getRemovePadding(String value, FormatInstructions instructions) { … }
  
  // After (1.6.1+)
  @Override
  protected String stripPadding(String value, FormatInstructions instructions) { … }
  

  Call chain in 1.6.1: parse() → getRemovePadding() → stripPadding()

  Call chain in 1.7.0: parse() → stripPadding() (direct; getRemovePadding removed)

1.6.0 (2026-04-09)

New features

• Repeating fields — A single @Field annotation can now map consecutive same-format slots in a record to a Java array or ordered Collection via the new count attribute. Set count to the number of repetitions; the getter/setter must return T[], List<T>, LinkedList<T>, Set<T>, SortedSet<T>, or Collection<T>. Each slot occupies length characters, starting at offset + length * index.

  // Three 5-character product codes packed consecutively from position 1
  @Field(offset = 1, length = 5, count = 3)
  public String[] getProductCodes() { return productCodes; }
  
  // Same field mapped to a List
  @Field(offset = 1, length = 5, count = 3)
  public List<String> getProductCodes() { return productCodes; }
  

  The new strictCount attribute (default true) controls what happens when the collection size does not match count at export time: true throws a FixedFormatException; false logs a warning and exports min(count, actualSize) elements.

  // Lenient: export however many elements are present, up to count
  @Field(offset = 1, length = 5, count = 3, strictCount = false)
  public List<String> getProductCodes() { return productCodes; }
  

  See Repeating fields in the annotation reference and Example 7 for a full walkthrough.

• LocalDateTime support — java.time.LocalDateTime is now a first-class field type handled automatically by ByTypeFormatter. No custom formatter needed. @FixedFormatPattern is optional — only specify it when your format differs from the default (yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss).

  // Default pattern — no @FixedFormatPattern needed
  @Field(offset = 1, length = 19)
  public LocalDateTime getCreatedAt() { return createdAt; }
  
  // Custom pattern — only required when overriding the default
  @Field(offset = 1, length = 14)
  @FixedFormatPattern("yyyyMMddHHmmss")
  public LocalDateTime getCreatedAt() { return createdAt; }
  

  String "2026-04-09T14:30:00" parses to LocalDateTime.of(2026, 4, 9, 14, 30, 0); exporting writes "2026-04-09T14:30:00" back.

1.5.0 (2026-04-08)

New features

• Field-level @Field and @Fields annotations — @Field and @Fields can now be placed directly on Java fields in addition to getter methods. The manager discovers them at runtime and derives the getter/setter by the get/is naming convention. This enables clean usage with Lombok (@Getter/@Setter) and reduces boilerplate in plain POJOs.

  // Plain POJO — annotate the field instead of the getter
  @Record
  public class EmployeeRecord {
      @Field(offset = 1, length = 10)
      private String name;
  
      @Field(offset = 11, length = 8)
      @FixedFormatPattern("yyyyMMdd")
      private LocalDate hireDate;
  
      public String getName() { return name; }
      public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; }
      public LocalDate getHireDate() { return hireDate; }
      public void setHireDate(LocalDate hireDate) { this.hireDate = hireDate; }
  }
  
  // With Lombok — no getter/setter boilerplate needed
  @Getter @Setter @NoArgsConstructor
  @Record
  public class EmployeeRecord {
      @Field(offset = 1, length = 10)
      private String name;
  
      @Field(offset = 11, length = 8)
      @FixedFormatPattern("yyyyMMdd")
      private LocalDate hireDate;
  }
  

  If both the field and its getter carry @Field, an error is logged (configuration mismatch) and the field annotation is used.

1.4.0 (2026-04-05)

New features

• LocalDate support — java.time.LocalDate is now a first-class field type handled automatically by ByTypeFormatter. No custom formatter needed. Configure the date pattern with @FixedFormatPattern (default: yyyyMMdd).

  @Field(offset = 1, length = 8)
  @FixedFormatPattern("yyyyMMdd")
  public LocalDate getEventDate() { return eventDate; }
  

  String "20260405" parses to LocalDate.of(2026, 4, 5); exporting writes "20260405" back.

Breaking changes

• Java 11 minimum — Java 8 is no longer supported. The minimum required runtime is Java 11.
• Logging: SLF4J replaces Commons Logging — The library no longer depends on Apache Commons Logging. Logging is now done via SLF4J. If your project relied on the transitive commons-logging dependency, you will need to add an SLF4J binding instead (e.g. logback-classic or slf4j-simple). See Get It for details.

Documentation

• Added Quick Start guide, Examples page, and an enriched Annotations reference.

1.3.4 (2010-12-14)

Bug fixes

• Issue #23 — Removed unnecessary restriction of generic type T to java.lang.Number in AbstractNumberFormatter.
• Issue #24 — Reverted the paddingChar honouring change introduced in 1.3.3 (issue #22).

1.3.3 (2010-12-14)

New features

• Issue #20 — AbstractDecimalFormatter now supports explicit rounding.

Bug fixes

• Issue #16 — @FixedFormatDecimal with more than 3 decimal places truncated the fractional digits.
• Issue #21 — AbstractDecimalFormatter DecimalFormat usage was not thread-safe.
• Issue #22 — AbstractDecimalFormatter hard-coded '0' as the padding character instead of honouring the paddingChar annotation setting.

1.3.2 (2010-12-03)

Bug fixes

• Issue #18 — Sign.APPEND.apply failed to detect the minus symbol correctly.

1.3.1

Bug fixes

• Issue #14 — Fixed NullPointerException during export.

1.3.0

New features

• Issue #7 — Nested @Record support: a class annotated with @Record can now contain fields whose type is itself a @Record-annotated class. Useful for grouping logically related domain objects (e.g. card details inside a larger record).
• Issue #10 — ParseException now exposes getter methods so callers can retrieve structured failure details and build localised error messages rather than relying on the English exception message.
• Issue #13 — Support for skipping unparseable fields within records.
• Added built-in Short/short formatter; registered in ByTypeFormatter.

1.2.2 (2008-10-17)

Bug fixes

• Issue #9 — Fixed a loading failure when the input string was slightly shorter than the offset of the last field in the record.

1.2.1 (2008-10-15)

New features

• Issue #8 — Added support for annotated static nested classes and inner classes.
• Issue #6 — Added support for primitive types (int, boolean, float, etc.) in addition to their boxed counterparts. (contributed by Marcos Lois Bermúdez)

Bug fixes

• Fixed a runtime failure when a getter or setter declared an interface or abstract class as its type and the format manager could not determine the concrete data type. (contributed by Marcos Lois Bermúdez)

1.2.0 (2008-06-12)

New features

• Issue #5 — Getters starting with is (in addition to get) can now carry @Field annotations.
• Improved error reporting on parse failures: error messages now include the full format context (class name, method name, and all relevant annotation settings).

1.1.1 (2008-05-29)

New features

• Added the ability to leave numbers unsigned; unsigned is now the default.

Changes

• Issue #4 — FixedFormatter interface generified. Custom formatters must be updated to specify the type parameter.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a bug when parsing numbers from strings with prepended signs.
• Fixed various smaller bugs in the built-in formatters.

1.1.0 (2008-05-26)

New features

• Introduced the ability to parse and format signed numbers (Sign.PREPEND, Sign.APPEND).

1.0.0 (2008-05-25)

Initial release of fixedformat4j.