How to format LocalDate object using Jackson?

By Wayan in Jackson 2 Comments

We have a Recording class which has a Java 8 java.time.LocalDate property. We need to deserialize and serialize this property from and to JSON string. To do this we can use the @JsonDeserialize and @JsonSerialize annotations to annotate the LocalDate property of the Recording class.

@JsonDeserialize(using = LocalDateDeserializer.class)
@JsonSerialize(using = LocalDateSerializer.class)
private LocalDate releaseDate;

To use the annotation we need to create a class to deserialize and serialize the value. To create a deserializer class we create a class that extends StdDeserializer. The serializer class extends the StdSerializer class. Below is the definition of the LocalDateSerializer and LocalDateDeserializer class.

package org.kodejava.example.jackson;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonGenerator;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.SerializerProvider;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ser.std.StdSerializer;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;

public class LocalDateSerializer extends StdSerializer<LocalDate> {

    public LocalDateSerializer() {
        super(LocalDate.class);
    }

    @Override
    public void serialize(LocalDate value, JsonGenerator generator, SerializerProvider provider) throws IOException {
        generator.writeString(value.format(DateTimeFormatter.ISO_LOCAL_DATE));
    }
}

package org.kodejava.example.jackson;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParser;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.DeserializationContext;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.deser.std.StdDeserializer;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.time.LocalDate;

public class LocalDateDeserializer extends StdDeserializer<LocalDate> {

    protected LocalDateDeserializer() {
        super(LocalDate.class);
    }

    @Override
    public LocalDate deserialize(JsonParser parser, DeserializationContext context) throws IOException {
        return LocalDate.parse(parser.readValueAs(String.class));
    }
}

And here is the complete definition of the Recording class.

package org.kodejava.example.jackson;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.annotation.JsonDeserialize;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.annotation.JsonSerialize;

import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.util.Objects;

public class Recording {
    private Long id;
    private String title;

    @JsonDeserialize(using = LocalDateDeserializer.class)
    @JsonSerialize(using = LocalDateSerializer.class)
    private LocalDate releaseDate;

    private Artist artist;
    private Label label;

    public Recording() {
    }

    public Recording(Long id, String title, LocalDate releaseDate) {
        this.id = id;
        this.title = title;
        this.releaseDate = releaseDate;
    }

    // Getters and Setters
}

Maven Dependencies

<!-- http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/fasterxml/jackson/core/jackson-databind/2.8.6/jackson-databind-2.8.6.jar -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
    <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
    <version>2.8.6</version>
</dependency>

How to pretty print JSON string using Jackson?

By Wayan in Jackson 4 Comments

The following example demonstrates how to pretty print the JSON string produces by Jackson library. To produce well formatted JSON string we create the ObjectMapper instance and enable the SerializationFeature.INDENT_OUTPUT feature. To enable this feature we need to call the enable() method of the ObjectMapper and provide the feature to be enabled.

ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper().enable(SerializationFeature.INDENT_OUTPUT);
String json = mapper.writeValueAsString(recording);
System.out.println(json);

On the second example below we format unformatted JSON string. To do this we use the ObjectMapper‘s readValue(String, Class<T>) method which accept the JSON string and Object.class as the value type. The readValue() method return an Object. To format the JSON object we call mapper.writerWithDefaultPrettyPrinter().writeValueAsString(Object). This will produce a pretty formatted JSON.

ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
Object jsonObject = mapper.readValue(json, Object.class);
String prettyJson = mapper.writerWithDefaultPrettyPrinter().writeValueAsString(jsonObject);
System.out.println(prettyJson);

Below is the complete code snippets.

package org.kodejava.example.jackson;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonProcessingException;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.SerializationFeature;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.Month;

public class JsonIndentOutput {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        JsonIndentOutput.formatObjectToJsonString();
        JsonIndentOutput.formatJsonString();
    }

    private static void formatObjectToJsonString() {
        Recording recording = new Recording();
        recording.setId(1L);
        recording.setTitle("Yellow Submarine");
        recording.setReleaseDate(LocalDate.of(1969, Month.JANUARY, 17));
        recording.setArtist(new Artist(1L, "The Beatles"));
        recording.setLabel(new Label(1L, "Apple"));

        ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper().enable(SerializationFeature.INDENT_OUTPUT);
        try {
            String json = mapper.writeValueAsString(recording);
            System.out.println(json);
        } catch (JsonProcessingException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    private static void formatJsonString() {
        String json = "{\"id\":1,\"title\":\"Yellow Submarine\",\"releaseDate\":\"1969-01-17\",\"artist\":{\"id\":1,\"name\":\"The Beatles\"},\"label\":{\"id\":1,\"name\":\"Apple\"}}";
        ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
        try {
            Object jsonObject = mapper.readValue(json, Object.class);
            String prettyJson = mapper.writerWithDefaultPrettyPrinter().writeValueAsString(jsonObject);
            System.out.println(prettyJson);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

The code snippet above will pretty print the following JSON string:

{
  "id" : 1,
  "title" : "Yellow Submarine",
  "releaseDate" : "1969-01-17",
  "artist" : {
    "id" : 1,
    "name" : "The Beatles"
  },
  "label" : {
    "id" : 1,
    "name" : "Apple"
  }
}

Here are the structure of Recording class.

package org.kodejava.example.jackson;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.annotation.JsonDeserialize;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.annotation.JsonSerialize;

import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.util.Objects;

public class Recording {
    private Long id;
    private String title;

    @JsonDeserialize(using = LocalDateDeserializer.class)
    @JsonSerialize(using = LocalDateSerializer.class)
    private LocalDate releaseDate;

    private Artist artist;
    private Label label;

    public Recording() {
    }

    public Recording(Long id, String title, LocalDate releaseDate) {
        this.id = id;
        this.title = title;
        this.releaseDate = releaseDate;
    }

    // Getters and Setters
}

Maven Dependencies

<!-- http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/fasterxml/jackson/core/jackson-databind/2.8.6/jackson-databind-2.8.6.jar -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
    <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
    <version>2.8.6</version>
</dependency>