TableCellEditor that Supports Both Date and Calendar

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to write a TableCellEditor that supports both the Date and Calendar Classes (i.e., my table could have either Dates or Calendar objects, and I want this cell editor to work seamlessly with either one).
Here is a simplified version of my code:
public class DateCellEditor extends AbstractCellEditor implements TableCellEditor {
/** The editor component. */
private DateChooser editor;
private Calendar cal;
public DateCellEditor() {
super();
editor = new DateChooser();
cal = Calendar.getInstance();
public Object getCellEditorValue() {
cal.setTime(editor.getDateValue());
return cal;
public Component getTableCellEditorComponent (JTable table,
                                                                                                                        Object value,
                                                                                                                        boolean isSelected,
                                                                                                                        int row,
                                                                                                                        int column) {
if (value != null) {
if (value instanceof Calendar)
     editor.setDateValue(((Calendar)value).getTime());
     else if (value instanceof Date)
     editor.setDateValue((Date)value);
return editor;
As you can see, I've already modified getTableCellEditorComponent to accepted object of class Date or Calendar. My problem arises in the getCellEditorValue method. How do I know which type of object to return? In the code sample above, I'm returning a Calendar object, but I'm not sure how to code this method to return either Calendar OR Date.
By the way, editor.getDateValue() returns a Date object.
I could easily write two separate TableCellEditors, but I would prefer a more elegant solution. Any ideas?
Thanks!
Karen Prengaman

Answer 1

If you really must have both objects and don't want to convert one into another, you could add a function like
setMode(int modetype) {}
where modetype is either DATE or CALENDAR, and then return the set type when the user calls getValueAt