TIBCO BW6 custom function with dateTime return type

Question

I'm building a custom function for BW6 that should parse ISO 8601 formatted string to a dateTime object.

So far I have built this function:

  @XPathFunction(helpText = "Parse a ISO 8601 datetime string",
      parameters = {
          @XPathFunctionParameter(name = "isoDateTimeString", optional = false)
      },
      returnType = "dateTime")
  public Date parseIsoDateTime(String isoDateTimeString) throws ParseException {
    StringBuilder dateFormatBuilder = new StringBuilder();
    dateFormatBuilder.append("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss");
    if (isoDateTimeString.contains(".")) {
      dateFormatBuilder.append(".SSS");
    }
    DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat(dateFormatBuilder.toString());

    return dateFormat.parse(isoDateTimeString);
  }

When I run this function an exception is thrown by BW

09:02:42.412 ERROR [bwEngThread:In-Memory Process Worker-1] com.tibco.bw.core - TIBCO-BW-CORE-500050: The BW process [demo.parse-datetime.module.Process] instance faulted, JobId [bw0a100], ProcessInstanceId [bw0a100], ParentProcessInstanceId [-], Module [demo.parse-datetime.module:1.0.0.qualifier], Application [demo.parse-datetime:1.0].  
   <CausedBy> TIBCO-BW-CORE-500058: Activity [SetDateTimeValue] XML related error.  
   <CausedBy> com.tibco.pvm.dataexch.xml.util.exceptions.PmxException: PVM-XML-106017: Expression Evaluation Error: 'bxcom:parseIsoDateTime($dateTimeAsString)'
   <CausedBy> java.lang.ClassCastException: java.util.Date cannot be cast to com.tibco.xml.data.primitive.XmlAtomicValue

So how can I return an XML dateTime object from a custom xslt function in BW6.

Answer 1

You need to create a Plug-in Project to allow Custom XPath Function. (You will need the ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks™ Plug-in Development Kit)

Create Custom XPath Functions

If you want to use them Design time, you'll need to export the Plugin Project and include the jar as a dependency.

Using Custom XPath Function at Design Time and Run Time