Displaying Date types in the grid control

Question

I have a grid control and one of the column is displaying
'Date' type data. I am able to see the Date values in the grid, if
I define the return type of the getter function as String format.
But the problem with this is, when I click on the Date column
header, the grid is sorting the rows while treating the Date values
as String values. And when I change the return type of the getter
method as Date type (java.util.Date), I don't see any Date values
in the grid. Do I need to do any additional coding to display the
date values as Date types to display the data and then to be able
to sort the grid on Date types.
Please help.

Answer 1

You should return Date values to the Flex application and
store them in the dataProvider associated with that DataGrid. For
Date-values you have a couple of choices:
1. Actually store the time (a long Number - milliseconds
since Jan 1970) and use a labelFunction on the column to format
that values as a Date. This way sorting will treat the value as a
number, but it will appear as a Date.
2. Write your own Sort compare method for that column. Check
the docs on Sort and SortField.