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.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.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));
    }
}

Let’s create a simple class that convert Recording object into JSON string and apply the date formatter defined in the LocalDateSerializer class.

package org.kodejava.jackson;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonProcessingException;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
import org.kodejava.jackson.support.Recording;

import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.Month;

public class RecordingToJson {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Recording recording = new Recording();
        recording.setId(1L);
        recording.setTitle("Twist and Shout");
        recording.setReleaseDate(LocalDate.of(1964, Month.FEBRUARY, 3));

        ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
        try {
            String json = mapper.writeValueAsString(recording);
            System.out.println("JSON = " + json);
        } catch (JsonProcessingException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

The output of the code snippet above is:

JSON = {"id":1,"title":"Twist and Shout","releaseDate":"1964-02-03"}

And here is the complete definition of the Recording class.

package org.kodejava.jackson.support;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.annotation.JsonDeserialize;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.annotation.JsonSerialize;
import org.kodejava.jackson.LocalDateDeserializer;
import org.kodejava.jackson.LocalDateSerializer;

import java.time.LocalDate;

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

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

    // Getters and Setters

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Recording{" +
                "id=" + id +
                ", title='" + title + '\'' +
                ", releaseDate=" + releaseDate +
                '}';
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-core</artifactId>
        <version>2.15.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-annotations</artifactId>
        <version>2.15.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
        <version>2.15.2</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>