Date conversion when serializing from domain to JSON

[Fireball]

Given the following domain object:

import java.util.Date;
import javax.persistence.Temporal;
import javax.persistence.TemporalType;
import javax.validation.constraints.NotNull;
import org.springframework.format.annotation.DateTimeFormat;
import org.springframework.roo.addon.javabean.RooJavaBean;
import org.springframework.roo.addon.jpa.activerecord.RooJpaActiveRecord;
import org.springframework.roo.addon.json.RooJson;
import org.springframework.roo.addon.tostring.RooToString;

@RooJavaBean
@RooToString
@RooJpaActiveRecord
@RooJson
public class Person {

    @NotNull
    private String name;

    @NotNull
    private Integer age;

    @NotNull
    private Integer size;

    @Temporal(TemporalType.TIMESTAMP)
    @DateTimeFormat(style = "M-")
    private Date birthDate;
}

when calling the ROO generated toJsonArray() method I get the following JSON String

[{"age":39,"birthDate":75337200000,"id":1,"name":"tw-hra-3","size":188,"version":5},{"age":23,"birthDate":1168902000000,"id":5,"name":"tw-she","size":165,"version":0},{"age":38,"birthDate":1325458800000,"id":6,"name":"tw-mno","size":188,"version":0},{"age":31,"birthDate":311986800000,"id":7,"name":"tw-wli","size":178,"version":0},{"age":32,"birthDate":665794800000,"id":8,"name":"tw-ksc","size":178,"version":0}]

Any idea how to get formatted localized dates here?

Thank you in advance
Fireball

[Bruce.Edge]

I use JSON serialization annotations around my getter/setter methods.

@JsonSerialize(using = JsonCalendarSerializer.class)
public Calendar getExpirationDate() {
return expirationDate;
}

@JsonSerialize(using = JsonCalendarSerializer.class)
public void setExpirationDate(Calendar expirationDate) {
this.expirationDate = expirationDate;
}

Then define the serializer (found elsewhere on web):

/**
* Used to serialize Java.util.Date, which is not a common <a target="_blank" title="JSON" href="http://www.json.org/">JSON</a>
* type, so we have to create a custom serialize method;.
*
* @author Loiane Groner
* http://loianegroner.com (English)
* http://loiane.com (Portuguese)
*/
public class JsonCalendarSerializer extends JsonSerializer<Calendar> {

public static final String DATE_FORMAT = "yyyy-MM-dd";

@Override
public void serialize(Calendar date, JsonGenerator gen, SerializerProvider provider)
throws IOException, JsonProcessingException {
SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat(JsonCalendarSerializer.DATE_FORMA T);
String formattedDate = formatter.format(date.getTime());
gen.writeString(formattedDate);
}
}