Java Spring Jackons Date serialization

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"/>