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.SSS'Z'").create();
//This is the format I want, which according to the ISO8601 standard - Z specifies UTC - 'Zulu' time

Date now=new Date();          
System.out.println(now);       
System.out.println(now.getTimezoneOffset());
System.out.println(gson.toJson(now));

Here is my Output

Thu Sep 25 18:21:42 BST 2014           // Time now - in British Summer Time 
-60                                    // As expected : offset is 1hour from UTC    
"2014-09-25T18:21:42.026Z"             // Uhhhh this is not UTC ??? Its still BST !!

The gson result I want and what I was expecting

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

I can clearly just subtract 1hr before the call toJson but this seems to be a hack. How can I configure gson to always convert to UTC ?

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

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.

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

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 5

None of the answers were working for me in Kotlin so I did my own implementation:

val SERVER_DATE_FORMAT = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss" // Adjust as per your use case

val gson = GsonBuilder()
    .setDateFormat(SERVER_DATE_FORMAT)
    .registerTypeAdapter(Date::class.java, object : JsonSerializer<Date> {
        private val utcDateFormat = SimpleDateFormat(
            SERVER_DATE_FORMAT,
            Locale.ENGLISH
        ).apply {
            timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC")
        }

        // Avoid using local date formatter (with timezone) to send UTC date
        override fun serialize(src: Date?, typeOfSrc: Type?, context: JsonSerializationContext?): JsonElement {
            return JsonPrimitive(src?.let { utcDateFormat.format(it) })
        }
    })
    .create()
val gsonConverterFactory = GsonConverterFactory.create(gson)

val retrofit = Retrofit.Builder()
    .baseUrl("Your URL")
    .addConverterFactory(gsonConverterFactory)
    .build()

I hope this can be useful for somebody else!