JAX-RS JSON java.util.Date Unmarshall

Question

Hi, I'm using Jersey (jax-rs), to build a REST rich application.

Everything is great, but I really don't understand how to set in JSON Marshalling and Unmarshalling converting option for dates and numbers.

I have a User class:

@XmlRootElement
public class User {
    private String username;
    private String password;
    private java.util.Date createdOn;

    // ... getters and setters
}

When createdOn property is serialized, a string like this: '2010-05-12T00:00:00+02:00', but I need to choose date Pattern both, to marshall and unmarshall.

Someone knows hot to do that?

Thank's a lot, Davide.

Answer 1

What you get is a date ISO 8601 format, which is a standard. Jersey will parse it for you on the server. For javascript here is an extension to js date to parse that.

Answer 2

You could write an XmlAdapter:

• http://bdoughan.blogspot.com/2010/07/xmladapter-jaxbs-secret-weapon.html

Your particular XmlAdapter would look something like:

import java.util.Date;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.adapters.XmlAdapter;

public class JsonDateAdapter extends XmlAdapter<String, Date> {

    @Override
    public Date unmarshal(String v) throws Exception {
        // TODO convert from your format
    }

    @Override
    public String marshal(Date v) throws Exception {
        // TODO convert to your format
    }

}

Then on your date property set the following annotation:

@XmlJavaTypeAdapter(JsonDateAdapter.class)
public getDate() {
   return date;
}