spring boot Joda DateTime Serialisation - datetime

Question

I'm trying to serialize Joda DateTime properties as ISO-8601 using Spring Boot v1.2.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT
Here is my very simple REST Application.
#RestController
#Configuration
#ComponentScan
#EnableAutoConfiguration
public class Application {
class Info{
private DateTime dateTime;
public Info(){
dateTime = new DateTime();
}
public DateTime getDateTime() {
return dateTime;
}
public void setDateTime(DateTime dateTime) {
this.dateTime = dateTime;
}
}
#RequestMapping("/info")
Info info() {
return new Info();
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
}
#Bean
public Module getModule(){
return new JodaModule();
}
}
The dateTime is being serialized as a timestamp e.g. {"dateTime":1415954873412}
I've tried adding
#Bean
#Primary
public ObjectMapper getObjectMapper() {
ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
objectMapper.configure(SerializationFeature.WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS,
false);
return objectMapper;
}
but that didn't help either. So how do I configure Jackson in Spring Boot to serialize using the ISO-8601 format?
BTW: I only added the following dependencies to my Gradle build
compile("joda-time:joda-time:2.4")
compile("org.jadira.usertype:usertype.jodatime:2.0.1")
compile("com.fasterxml.jackson.datatype:jackson-datatype-joda:2.4.2");

Answer 1

Since you're using Spring Boot 1.2 you should be able to simply add the following to your application.properties file:
spring.jackson.serialization.write_dates_as_timestamps=false
This will give output in the form:
{
"dateTime": "2014-11-18T19:01:38.352Z"
}
If you need a custom format you can configure the JodaModule directly, for example to drop the time part:
#Bean
public JodaModule jacksonJodaModule() {
JodaModule module = new JodaModule();
DateTimeFormatterFactory formatterFactory = new DateTimeFormatterFactory();
formatterFactory.setIso(ISO.DATE);
module.addSerializer(DateTime.class, new DateTimeSerializer(
new JacksonJodaFormat(formatterFactory.createDateTimeFormatter()
.withZoneUTC())));
return module;
}

Answer 2

With Spring Boot 1.2 you can use a fluent builder for building ObjectMapper instance:
#Bean
public ObjectMapper objectMapper(Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder builder) {
return builder
.featuresToDisable(SerializationFeature.WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS)
.build();
}
As for JodaModule, it will be autoconfigured when com.fasterxml.jackson.datatype:jackson-datatype-joda is on classpath.

Answer 3

Pass a new JodaModule() to the constructor of your object mapper.
Annotate your Info methods with the ISO pattern
#JsonFormat(shape = JsonFormat.Shape.STRING, pattern = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ")
or I think you can use this if you're using spring
#JsonFormat(shape = JsonFormat.Shape.STRING, pattern = DateTimeFormat.ISO.DATE_TIME)

Answer 4

Add this to your application.* in your resources. (I use yamel so it's .yml for me, but should be .properties by default)
spring.jackson.date-format: yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ
Or whatever format you want.

Answer 5

There is also a joda-date-time-format property (I think this property appeared for the first time in Spring boot 1.3.x versions) that you can set in your application.properties which will work for jackson serialization/deserialization:
From: https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/html/common-application-properties.html
spring.jackson.joda-date-time-format= # Joda date time format string. If not configured, "date-format" will be used as a fallback if it is configured with a format string.
So if you want to use the ISO format you can set it like this:
spring.jackson.joda-date-time-format=yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ
You can have different number of 'Z' which changes the way the time zone id or offset hours are shown, from the joda time documentation (http://joda-time.sourceforge.net/apidocs/org/joda/time/format/DateTimeFormat.html):
Zone: 'Z' outputs offset without a colon, 'ZZ' outputs the offset with a colon, 'ZZZ' or more outputs the zone id.