Symfony Serializer of DateTime Response String

Question

When attempting to perform a doctrine query and serialze it to json (not using JSM, using the symfony serializer) I get the following in the json:

\"\"due\":{\"timez

Answer 1

You have 2 ways to get RFC3339 Datetime format ...

Option 1:

Add DateTimeNormalizer as normalizer. An example is https://symfony.com/doc/current/components/serializer.html#recursive-denormalization-and-type-safety.

Change

$normalizer = array(new ObjectNormalizer());

by

$normalizer = array(new DateTimeNormalizer(), new ObjectNormalizer());

Option 2

More simple is using "serializer" container service ... your code will look like ...

public function blahAction(Request $request)
{
    $currentUser = $this->getUser();
    $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
    $blahs = $em->getRepository('AppBundle:blah')->findAllByStatus($currentUser,'TODO');
    $response = new Response($this->get('serializer')->serialize($blahs, 'json'));
    $response->headers->set('Content-Type', 'application/json');
    return $response;
}

.. or, if your prefer autowiring way (this code is unchecked)

public function blahAction(Request $request, \Symfony\Component\Serializer\SerializerInterface $serializer)
{
    $currentUser = $this->getUser();
    $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
    $blahs = $em->getRepository('AppBundle:blah')->findAllByStatus($currentUser,'TODO');
    $response = new Response($serializer->serialize($blahs, 'json'));
    $response->headers->set('Content-Type', 'application/json');
    return $response;
}

Answer 2

In Symfony 5.1 it's recomended to add a callback function to specify datetime field format.For example:

use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Serializer;
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Encoder\JsonEncoder;
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Normalizer\ObjectNormalizer;
use Symfony\Component\Serializer\Normalizer\AbstractNormalizer;


$dateCallback = function ($innerObject, $outerObject, string $attributeName, string $format = null, array $context = []) {
        return $innerObject instanceof \DateTime ? $innerObject->format(\DateTime::ISO8601) : '';
    };

    $defaultContext = [
        AbstractNormalizer::CALLBACKS => [
            'created_at' => $dateCallback,
            'updated_at' => $dateCallback
        ],
        AbstractNormalizer::CIRCULAR_REFERENCE_HANDLER =>
            function ($articles, $format, $context)  {
                return $articles->getId();
            }
    ];

    $encoders = [new JsonEncoder()];
    $normalizers = [
        new ObjectNormalizer(null, null, null,
            null, null, null,
            $defaultContext)
    ];

    $serializer = new Serializer(
        $normalizers, $encoders
    );

    $articles = $serializer->serialize($articles, 'json');

Where $articles = array of App\Entity\Article objects

You can specify datetime format you need in your callback function.

Answer 3

Another option is to pass arguments to the default DateTimeNormalizer in services.yaml:

  Symfony\Component\Serializer\Normalizer\DateTimeNormalizer:
    arguments:
      $defaultContext:
        datetime_format: 'Y-m-d\TH:i:s.v\Z'