Play framework 2.2.3 - Joda DateTime Json Conversion

[Sandeep Virdi]

Hi all I am new to play framework, if someone knows of a better approach then mentioned below please let me know.

So I have a model  and Reads/Writes/Format for it

case class Schedule (startDate: DateTime, endDate: DateTime)

object ScheduleSerializers {

  val userDateFormatter = "dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss"

  val nonImplicitUserFormatter = DateTimeFormat.forPattern("dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss")

  implicit val jodaDateTimeReads = Reads.jodaDateReads(userDateFormatter)

  implicit val jodaDateTimeWrites = Writes.jodaDateWrites(userDateFormatter)

  implicit val readSchedule: Reads[Schedule] = (

    (__ \ "startDate").read[String].map[DateTime](dt => DateTime.parse(dt, nonImplicitUserFormatter)) and

      (__ \ "endDate").read[String].map[DateTime](dt => DateTime.parse(dt, nonImplicitUserFormatter))

    )(Schedule)

  implicit val writeSchedule: Writes[Schedule] = (

    (__ \ "startDate").write[String].contramap[DateTime](dt => nonImplicitUserFormatter.print(dt)) and

      (__ \ "endDate").write[String].contramap[DateTime](dt => nonImplicitUserFormatter.print(dt))

    )(unlift(Schedule.unapply))

  implicit val formatSchdule = Format(readSchedule, writeSchedule)

}

Now I open the play console and do this 

val sch = Json.parse(""" {

     | 

     |   "schedule" : { "starDate" : "04/02/2011 20:27:05" , "endDate" : "04/02/2011 20:27:05" }

     | }

     | """)

sch: play.api.libs.json.JsValue = {"schedule":{"starDate":"04/02/2011 20:27:05","endDate":"04/02/2011 20:27:05"}}

sch.validate[Schedule]

res0: play.api.libs.json.JsResult[models.experiment.Schedule] = JsError(List((/endDate,List(ValidationError(error.path.missing,WrappedArray()))), (/startDate,List(ValidationError(error.path.missing,WrappedArray())))))

I am getting an Error, but if I try to parse a single date for ex: 

scala> val singleDate = Json.parse(""" "04/02/2011 20:27:05" """)

singleDate: play.api.libs.json.JsValue = "04/02/2011 20:27:05"

singleDate.validate[DateTime]

res1: play.api.libs.json.JsResult[org.joda.time.DateTime] = JsSuccess(2011-02-04T20:27:05.000-08:00,)

I am confused as to why 'singleDate' works but the validation on the 'Schedule' model fails. 

Thanks in advance, any help will be appreciated.

- Sandeep Virdi

[Fernando Correia]

I use these implicit definitions to serialize Joda time to/from JSON:

  private lazy val ISODateTimeFormatter = ISODateTimeFormat.dateTime.withZone(DateTimeZone.UTC)

  private lazy val ISODateTimeParser = ISODateTimeFormat.dateTimeParser

  implicit val DateTimeFormatter = new Format[DateTime] {

    def reads(j: JsValue) = JsSuccess(ISODateTimeParser.parseDateTime(j.as[String]))

    def writes(o: DateTime): JsValue = JsString(ISODateTimeFormatter.print(o))

  } 

With that, a case class that has a DateTime field is serialized like this:

  implicit val CustomerUpdateRequestFormatter = Json.format[CustomerUpdateRequest]