Serialize Date in a JSON REST web service as ISO-8601 string

Question

I have a JAX-RS application using JBoss AS 7.1, and I POST/GET JSON and XML objects which include Dates (java.util.Date):

@XmlRootElement
@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessField.FIELD)
public class MyObject implements Serializable
{
    @XmlSchemaType(name = "dateTime")
    private Date date;
    ...
}

When I use @Produce("application/xml") on the get method, the objets are serialized as XML and the dates are converted into ISO-8601 strings (e.g. "2012-12-10T14:50:12.123+02:00").

However, if I use @Produce("application/json") on the get method, the dates in the JSON objects are timestamps (e.g. "1355147452530") instead of ISO-8601 strings.

How can I do to configure the JAX-RS implementation (RESTEasy) to serialize dates in JSON format as ISO-8601 strings instead of timestamps ?

Thank you for your answers.

Note: I also tried to use a custom JAX-RS provider to do the JSON serialization for Dates

@Provider
@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
public class CustomJsonDateProvider implements MessageBodyWriter<Date>
{
    ...
}

This provider seems to be registered by RESTeasy on JBoss startup:

[org.jboss.jaxrs] Adding JAX-RS provider classes: package.CustomJsonDateProvider
...
[org.jboss.resteasy.cdi.CdiInjectorFactory] No CDI beans found for class package.CustomJsonDateProvider. Using default ConstructorInjector.

but it is never used !

score 15 · Answer 1 · answered May 22 '13 at 13:53

15

I assume your json parser is Jackson, try:

@JsonFormat(shape=JsonFormat.Shape.STRING, pattern="yyyy-MM-dd,HH:00", timezone="CET")
public Date date;

(since Jackson 2.0)

answered May 22 '13 at 13:53

Dan

407
4
16

1

This wasn't working for me until I added `@JsonSerialize(as = Date.class)` before `@JsonFormat` annotation. – Iqbal May 24 '18 at 10:00

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered May 27 '13 at 07:48

The default JBoss parser is Jettison, but I wasn't able to change the date format. So I switched to Jackson and added the following class to my project to configure it:

@Provider
@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
public class JacksonConfig implements ContextResolver<ObjectMapper>
{
    private final ObjectMapper objectMapper;

    public JacksonConfig()
    {
        objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
        objectMapper.configure(SerializationConfig.Feature.WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESPAMPS, false);
    }

    @Override
    public ObjectMapper getContext(Class<?> objectType)
    {
        return objectMapper;
    }
}

My JBoss EAP 7 JAX-RS implentation is RESTEasy and I did'nt want to add a Jackson dependency. After one day of research, I ended up with your solution (`JacksonConfig`). I added Maven dependency `com.fasterxml.jackson.corejackson-databind2.8.7` and used a custom date format `objectMapper.setDateFormat(new SimpleDateFormat("dd.MM.yyyy"))` instead of the default one set with `objectMapper.configure()` — Julien Kronegg, Mar 02 '18 at 14:38

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Sep 30 '15 at 11:00

Sorry people for yelling out loud - I found the answers here

http://wiki.fasterxml.com/JacksonFAQDateHandling,

here

http://wiki.fasterxml.com/JacksonFAQ#Serializing_Dates,

here

http://wiki.fasterxml.com/JacksonHowToCustomSerializers

here

http://jackson.codehaus.org/1.1.2/javadoc/org/codehaus/jackson/map/util/StdDateFormat.html

Using the @JsonSerialize(using= ... ) way:

public class JsonStdDateSerializer
extends JsonSerializer<Date> {

  private static final DateFormat iso8601Format =
    StdDateFormat.getBlueprintISO8601Format();

  @Override
  public void serialize(
    Date date, JsonGenerator jgen, SerializerProvider provider)
  throws IOException, JsonProcessingException {

    // clone because DateFormat is not thread-safe
    DateFormat myformat = (DateFormat) iso8601Format.clone();
    String formattedDate = myformat.format(date);
    jgen.writeString(formattedDate);
  }
}

This is a direct copy paste from another question's answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11233594/2155085 — Casey, Feb 08 '23 at 16:49

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 23 '18 at 15:21

0

Declare the same Serializer used by Soap/XML:

@XmlElement(name = "prealert_date")
@XmlSchemaType(name = "dateTime")
@JsonSerialize(using = XMLGregorianCalendarSerializer.class)
protected XMLGregorianCalendar prealertDate;

edited Apr 23 '18 at 15:21

Jules Dupont

7,259
7
39
39

answered Apr 23 '18 at 13:56

Bertrand RODRIGUES

1
1

Serialize Date in a JSON REST web service as ISO-8601 string

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