Java Spring Jackons Date serialization - spring

Question

I'm using Spring MVC and Jackson for JSON de/serialization. But im facing a problem with serializing a date.
By default Jackson serialize a date as an epoch. But i want to serialize it as a ISO date (i.e. 06-10-2011 11:00:00).
The code below is my spring config, but it does not work. It's still returning an epoch date.
So my question is, how can I serialize to a non-epoch date?
<!-- JSON -->
<bean id="jsonConverter" class="org.springframework.http.converter.json.MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter">
<property name="supportedMediaTypes" value="application/json" />
<property name="objectMapper" ref="jacksonObjectMapper" />
</bean>
<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="setSerializationInclusion" />
<property name="arguments">
<list>
<value type="org.codehaus.jackson.map.annotate.JsonSerialize.Inclusion">NON_NULL</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.MethodInvokingFactoryBean">
<property name="targetObject" ref="jacksonSerializationConfig" />
<property name="targetMethod" value="setDateFormat" />
<property name="arguments">
<list>
<value type="java.text.SimpleDateFormat">yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.MethodInvokingFactoryBean">
<property name="targetObject" ref="jacksonSerializationConfig" />
<property name="targetMethod" value="enable" />
<property name="arguments">
<list>
<value type="org.codehaus.jackson.map.SerializationConfig.Feature">WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

Answer 1

Much simpler way to do this now in Spring 3.1.
public class CustomObjectMapper extends ObjectMapper {
public CustomObjectMapper() {
configure(SerializationConfig.Feature.WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS, false);
setDateFormat(new ISO8601DateFormat());
}
}
And then register this as a bean and customize the mvc:annotation-driven element.
<mvc:annotation-driven>
<mvc:message-converters>
<bean class="org.springframework.http.converter.json.MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter">
<property name="objectMapper" ref="customObjectMapper"/>
</bean>
</mvc:message-converters>
</mvc:annotation-driven>
<bean id="customObjectMapper" class="CustomObjectMapper"/>

Answer 2

Solution using Spring 3.1.3 and Jackson 2.1.0 that works for me (based on Ryans answer and Kornys notes with additional change in Java code "SerializationConfig.Feature" -> "SerializationFeature")
public class DateObjectMapper extends ObjectMapper {
public DateObjectMapper() {
configure(SerializationFeature.WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS, false);
}
Configuration:
<mvc:annotation-driven>
<mvc:message-converters>
<bean class="org.springframework.http.converter.json.MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter">
<property name="objectMapper" ref="dateObjectMapper"/>
</bean>
</mvc:message-converters>
</mvc:annotation-driven>
<bean id="dateObjectMapper" class="DateObjectMapper"/>

Answer 3

I found the following to work with Spring Platform 2.0 (Spring 4.2) and Jackson 2.6.3
pom.xml
<dependency>
<groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
<artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.datatype</groupId>
<artifactId>jackson-datatype-joda</artifactId>
</dependency>
applicationContext.xml
<mvc:annotation-driven>
<mvc:message-converters>
<beans:bean class="org.springframework.http.converter.json.MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter">
<beans:property name="objectMapper">
<beans:bean class="org.springframework.http.converter.json.Jackson2ObjectMapperFactoryBean">
<beans:property name="featuresToDisable">
<beans:array>
<util:constant static-field="com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.SerializationFeature.WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS"/>
</beans:array>
</beans:property>
</beans:bean>
</beans:property>
</beans:bean>
</mvc:message-converters>
</mvc:annotation-driven>

Answer 4

I've fixed my problem. So for reference to others with a similar problem.
I've deleted the following elements in the spring context config xml:
<mvc:annotation-driven/>
and
<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.MethodInvokingFactoryBean">
<property name="targetObject" ref="jacksonSerializationConfig" />
<property name="targetMethod" value="setDateFormat" />
<property name="arguments">
<list>
<value type="java.text.SimpleDateFormat">yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ</value>
</list>
</property>
Then I added the following:
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.DefaultAnnotationHandlerMapping">
<property name="order" value="1" />
</bean>
and changed the following:
<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.MethodInvokingFactoryBean">
<property name="targetObject" ref="jacksonSerializationConfig" />
<property name="targetMethod" value="enable" />
<property name="arguments">
<list>
<value type="org.codehaus.jackson.map.SerializationConfig.Feature">WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS</value>
</list>
</property>
in
<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>
After this Spring was able to serialize my date into json as a ISO date.