Java Date to UTC using gson

Question

I can\'t seem to get gson to convert a Date to UTC time in java.... Here is my code...

Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().setDateFormat(\"yyyy-MM-dd\'T\'HH:mm:ss.         


        

Answer 1

After some further research, it appears this is a known issue. The gson default serializer always defaults to your local timezone, and doesn't allow you to specify the timezone. See the following link.....

https://code.google.com/p/google-gson/issues/detail?id=281

The solution is to create a custom gson type adaptor as demonstrated in the link:

// this class can't be static
public class GsonUTCDateAdapter implements JsonSerializer<Date>,JsonDeserializer<Date> {

    private final DateFormat dateFormat;

    public GsonUTCDateAdapter() {
      dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'", Locale.US);      //This is the format I need
      dateFormat.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));                               //This is the key line which converts the date to UTC which cannot be accessed with the default serializer
    }

    @Override public synchronized JsonElement serialize(Date date,Type type,JsonSerializationContext jsonSerializationContext) {
        return new JsonPrimitive(dateFormat.format(date));
    }

    @Override public synchronized Date deserialize(JsonElement jsonElement,Type type,JsonDeserializationContext jsonDeserializationContext) {
      try {
        return dateFormat.parse(jsonElement.getAsString());
      } catch (ParseException e) {
        throw new JsonParseException(e);
      }
    }
}

Then register it as follows :

  Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().registerTypeAdapter(Date.class, new GsonUTCDateAdapter()).create();
  Date now=new Date();
  System.out.println(gson.toJson(now));

This now correctly outputs the Date in UTC

"2014-09-25T17:21:42.026Z"

Thanks go to the link author.

Answer 2

I adapted the marked solution and parametrized the DateFormat:

import com.google.gson.JsonDeserializationContext;
import com.google.gson.JsonDeserializer;
import com.google.gson.JsonElement;
import com.google.gson.JsonParseException;
import com.google.gson.JsonPrimitive;
import com.google.gson.JsonSerializationContext;
import com.google.gson.JsonSerializer;

import java.lang.reflect.Type;
import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.util.Date;

public class GsonDateFormatAdapter implements JsonSerializer<Date>, JsonDeserializer<Date> {

    private final DateFormat dateFormat;

    public GsonDateFormatAdapter(DateFormat dateFormat) {
        this.dateFormat = dateFormat;
    }

    @Override
    public synchronized JsonElement serialize(Date date, Type type, JsonSerializationContext jsonSerializationContext) {
        return new JsonPrimitive(dateFormat.format(date));
    }

    @Override
    public synchronized Date deserialize(JsonElement jsonElement, Type type,JsonDeserializationContext jsonDeserializationContext) {
        try {
            return dateFormat.parse(jsonElement.getAsString());
        } catch (ParseException e) {
            throw new JsonParseException(e);
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

The solution that worked for me for this issue was to create a custom Date adapter (P.S be carefull so that you import java.util.Date not java.sql.Date!)

public class ColonCompatibileDateTypeAdapter implements JsonSerializer<Date>, JsonDeserializer< Date> {
private final DateFormat dateFormat;

public ColonCompatibileDateTypeAdapter() {
  dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ") {
        @Override
        public StringBuffer format(Date date, StringBuffer toAppendTo, FieldPosition pos) {
            StringBuffer rfcFormat = super.format(date, toAppendTo, pos);
            return rfcFormat.insert(rfcFormat.length() - 2, ":");
        }

        @Override
        public Date parse(String text, ParsePosition pos) {
            if (text.length() > 3) {
                text = text.substring(0, text.length() - 3) + text.substring(text.length() - 2);
            }
            return super.parse(text, pos);
        }
    };


}

@Override public synchronized JsonElement serialize(Date date, Type type,
    JsonSerializationContext jsonSerializationContext) {
  return new JsonPrimitive(dateFormat.format(date));
}

@Override public synchronized Date deserialize(JsonElement jsonElement, Type type,
    JsonDeserializationContext jsonDeserializationContext) {
  try {
      return dateFormat.parse(jsonElement.getAsString());
  } catch (ParseException e) {
    throw new JsonParseException(e);
  }
}}

and then use it while creating GSON object

Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().registerTypeAdapter(Date.class, new ColonCompatibileDateTypeAdapter()).create();

Answer 4

The Z in your dateformat is in single-quotes, it must be unquoted to be replaced by the actual timezone.

Furthermore, if you want your date in UTC, convert it first.