Using a custom extension that you yourself have implemented is no different from using one of the 'custom' extensions that Spring provides straight out of the box. Find below an example of using the custom <dateformat/> element developed in the previous steps in a Spring XML configuration file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
      xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
      xmlns:myns="http://www.mycompany.com/schema/myns"
      xsi:schemaLocation="
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
http://www.mycompany.com/schema/myns http://www.mycompany.com/schema/myns/myns.xsd">

   <!-- as a top-level bean -->
   <myns:dateformat id="defaultDateFormat" pattern="yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm" lenient="true"/>

   <bean id="jobDetailTemplate" abstract="true">
      <property name="dateFormat">
         <!-- as an inner bean -->
         <myns:dateformat pattern="HH:mm MM-dd-yyyy"/>
      </property>
   </bean>

</beans>