I am using annotated Spring 3.1 MVC code (spring-mvc) and when i send date object through the @RequestBody the date is showing up as numeric.
This is my controller
@Controller
@RequestMapping("/test")
public class MyController {
@InitBinder
public void initBinder(WebDataBinder binder) {
binder.registerCustomEditor(Date.class,
new CustomDateEditor(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd"),true));
}
@RequestMapping(value = "/getdate", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public @ResponseBody Date getDate(@RequestParam("dt") Date dt, Model model) {
// dt is properly constructed here..
return new Date();
}
}
When i pass in date, i am able to receive the date in the format.
But my browser displays date as numeric
1327682374011
How do i make it display date in the format I have registered for the webbinder?
I saw in some forum that I should use jackson mapper, but cant i alter the existing mapper?
In order to override the default date formatting strategy of Jakson following are the step to follow:
- Extend
JsonSerializer
to create a new class for handling date formatting
- Override
serialize(Date date, JsonGenerator gen, SerializerProvider provider)
function to format date in your desired format and write it back to generator instance (gen)
- Annotate your date getter object to use your extended json serializer using
@JsonSerialize(using = CustomDateSerializer.class)
Code:
//CustomDateSerializer class
public class CustomDateSerializer extends JsonSerializer<Date> {
@Override
public void serialize(Date value, JsonGenerator gen, SerializerProvider arg2) throws
IOException, JsonProcessingException {
SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
String formattedDate = formatter.format(value);
gen.writeString(formattedDate);
}
}
//date getter method
@JsonSerialize(using = CustomDateSerializer.class)
public Date getDate() {
return date;
}
Source: http://blog.seyfi.net/2010/03/how-to-control-date-formatting-when.html
Alternatively if you are using jackson and want an ISO-8601 date on all dates (not just those you annotate), you can disable the default of writing dates as timestamps.
<bean id="jacksonObjectMapper" class="org.codehaus.jackson.map.ObjectMapper"/>
<bean id="jacksonSerializationConfig" class="org.codehaus.jackson.map.SerializationConfig" factory-bean="jacksonObjectMapper" factory-method="getSerializationConfig" />
<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.MethodInvokingFactoryBean">
<property name="targetObject" ref="jacksonSerializationConfig" />
<property name="targetMethod" value="disable" />
<property name="arguments">
<list>
<value type="org.codehaus.jackson.map.SerializationConfig.Feature">WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
Then if you want to convert your dates into some other format than the default, you can do this:
<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.MethodInvokingFactoryBean">
<property name="targetObject" ref="jacksonSerializationConfig" />
<property name="targetMethod" value="setDateFormat" />
<property name="arguments">
<list>
<bean class="java.text.SimpleDateFormat">
<constructor-arg value="yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ"/>
</bean>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
Here is a more standard way to configure this, using ISO8601 dates, which is what I would recommend for your API.
<!-- you can't call it objectMapper for some reason -->
<bean name="jacksonObjectMapper" class="org.springframework.http.converter.json.Jackson2ObjectMapperFactoryBean">
<property name="featuresToDisable">
<array>
<util:constant static-field="com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.SerializationFeature.WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS"/>
</array>
</property>
</bean>
<!-- setup spring MVC -->
<mvc:annotation-driven>
<mvc:message-converters register-defaults="true">
<bean class="org.springframework.http.converter.json.MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter">
<property name="objectMapper" ref="jacksonObjectMapper"/>
</bean>
</mvc:message-converters>
</mvc:annotation-driven>
Here is additional documentation:
- Jackson FAQ
- Spring's Jackson2ObjectMapperFactoryBean