JasperReports not converting postgresql timestamp to simple date - jasper-reports

Question

I saw this question which is similar to my question, but however the workaround still gave me an error.
I have an sql query string like this in my .jrxml file
<queryString>
<![CDATA[select sl_no,cast(action_on as date) from action_history]]>
</queryString>
I am using the Eclipse plugin JasperStudio for designing the template and am using PostgreSql for my database. Now this query is fetching data properly as expected.
My action_on is a java.sql.Timestamp type.
<field name="action_on" class="java.sql.Timestamp">
I only want the date like 22/08/15 or 22/08/2015 to be printed and don't want the time to be printed, so when I try casting or using action_on::date , I get 22/08/15 12:00 AM printed with the time always 12:00 AM. What perplexes me more is that when I try this command on my terminal , it doesn't give me the time and only the unformatted date!
Is there a workaround for this?
EDIT
I changed <field name="action_on" class="java.sql.Timestamp"> to <field name="action_on" class="java.lang.String"> and I get the date 2015-08-22 !
Is there a way to now format this?

Answer 1

I got it resolved myself , so I am posting my solution to my problem . A better solution is obviously welcome!
I converted the field type to String i.e did the EDIT to the question. To format the date you can now use
<![CDATA[select sl_no,to_char(action_on,'dd-MM-yyyy') as my_date from action_history]]>
Don't forget to replace every following instance of declaring or using action_on in your field declarations by my_date !

Answer 2

The other solution is to not format in query (but to format when you output) using pattern attribute on the textField tag
<textField pattern="dd-MM-yyyy">
<reportElement x="0" y="o" width="100" height="20"uuid="b8baea82-84c4-42fa-bccd-62abc96eeded"/>
<textElement verticalAlignment="Middle"/>
<textFieldExpression><![CDATA[$F{action_on}]]></textFieldExpression>
</textField>
The main advantage is that if you export to for example excel the column will be correctly filled with a date object (hence a user of excel can filter/sort/format on the date object).