Date formatting control

[guykatz]

Hi all;
what is the portable way of controlling the default jaxrs date formatting (serialzation).
One of my jaxrs GET endpoints returns a 3rd party object (which I do not have control over). this object has has a java.util.Date property.

I need to be able to change the default serialization for that date (control its json output formatting) because on the consumer of this endpoint expects a specific format.
thanks for your help!

[jamezp]

What version of RESTEasy are you using and which JSON provider?

[guykatz]

thanks for the ellaborate answer.
apperantly I still dont get how to get this one working
using my wildfly 23 app server, I added to my JAX RS Application extention class your static class (copy pasted form your example at the top)
that didnt work,
I then figured i probably need to register it and I am registering it via getSIngletons like so:

@ApplicationPath("/microstream")
public class RestApiApplicationMicrostream extends Application {
    Set<Object> singletons = Set.of(new MicrostreamRootResource(),new JsonbContextResolver());
    @Override
    public Set<Object> getSingletons() {
       return singletons;
    }
    @Provider
    public static class JsonbContextResolver implements ContextResolver<Jsonb> {
        @Override
        public Jsonb getContext(final Class<?> type) {
            return JsonbBuilder.create(new JsonbConfig().withDateFormat("dd-MMM-yyyy'T'HH:mm:SSS", Locale.getDefault()));
        }
    }
}
...

this also doesnt work.
the GET I am executing is:

    @GET 
    @Path("/raw/filesStatistics")
    @Produces("application/json")
    public ViewerStorageFileStatistics getRawStatistics() {
        return tps.restRawStatistics();
    }

the 3rd party object I am returning is: https://docs.microstream.one/api/7.0/one/microstream/storage/restadapter/types/ViewerStorageFileStatistics.html
this object has a creationTime property which is what I strugle with - it is serialized as a long like so:

{
...
creationTime: 1683223199297,
...
}

I have compile about 30 different ways and couldnt achieve what I needed.
I must be missing something small or doing something wrong.
your help is appreciated.
thanks!

[jamezp]

Oh, you know I should try testing with Jakarta EE 8. There may have been some different defaults there. I'll have to setup a new example that runs on WildFly 23 to give it a try.

[guykatz]

Thanks.
I have seen some older posts say I should set a feature on the object mapper like so:
objectMapper.configure(SerializationFeature.WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS, false)
I will try to also see of this makes an impact

[jamezp]

That is used if you default to using Jackson instead of Jakarta JSON Binding.

[guykatz]

That is used if you default to using Jackson instead of Jakarta JSON Binding.

Hmm....
Since I am not in full control pf the server maybe someone configured something.
Os there a programmatic way pf checking which binding is used?

[guykatz]

@jamezp hi
first of all, thanks for all the help here. I really appreciate it and I know it took some time...
I have found a reference in my server to jackson in code of one of the programmers so even though I dont see any special configurtation in the wilfdly config files to make jackson the provider I assumed it was actually the provider and was able to manipulate the format using the folloiwing provider code:

    public DateObjectMapperContextResolver() {
        mapper = new ObjectMapper();
        mapper.configure(SerializationFeature.WRITE_DATES_AS_TIMESTAMPS,false);
        mapper.setDateFormat(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'"));
    }

so all is good regarding this for now.
thanks again for your assistance.

[jamezp]

Awesome @guykatz! There are a few ways to trigger the server to use Jackson. One way is via the WildFly configuration. However, maybe you've got something annotated with a Jackson annotation.

Either way, that DateObjectMapperContextResolver looks correct to me. I'm glad you found it :)