JSON Serializing date in a custom format (Can not construct instance of java.util.Date from String value)

Question

could not read JSON: Can not construct instance of java.util.Date from String 
value \'2012-07-21 12:11:12\': not a valid representation(\"yyyy-MM-dd\'T\'HH:mm:ss.SS         


        

Answer 1

Yet another way is to have a custom Date object which takes care of its own serialization.

While I don't really think extending simple objects like Date, Long, etc. is a good practice, in this particular case it makes the code easily readable, has a single point where the format is defined and is rather more than less compatible with normal Date object.

public class CustomFormatDate extends Date {

    private DateFormat myDateFormat = ...; // your date format

    public CustomFormatDate() {
        super();
    }

    public CustomFormatDate(long date) {
        super(date);
    }

    public CustomFormatDate(Date date) {
        super(date.getTime());
    }


    @JsonCreator
    public static CustomFormatDate forValue(String value) {
        try {
            return new CustomFormatDate(myDateFormat.parse(value));
        } catch (ParseException e) {
            return null;
        }
    }

    @JsonValue
    public String toValue() {
        return myDateFormat.format(this);
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return toValue();
    }
}