grails rest client converting string to java.util.Date - json

Question

I'm trying to use a rest-service created in grails 2.5.5 which has a Date property as follows:
import grails.rest.*
#Resource(uri='/restDomain', readOnly=true)
class RestDomain {
Date myDate
}
But when calling from another grails app (v2.5.5 or v3.1.9) like this:
new RestBuilder().get('http://localhost:8080/restApp/restDomain.json').json.collect {
new RestDomain(it)
}
I get a Cannot cast object '2016-01-20T12:36:57Z' with class 'java.lang.String' to class 'java.util.Date' error.
I've already added this in application.yml (grails v3.1.9) at the very bottom of the file
---
grails:
databinding:
dateFormats:
- yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssX
- yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSX
and this in Config.groovy (grails v2.5.5)
grails.databinding.dateFormats = ["yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssX", "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSX"]
but doesn't seem to work at all
Note: In both client apps I have the corresponding src/groovy/restApp/RestDomain.groovy class as follows:
package restApp
class RestDomain {
Date myDate
}
Note 2: The grails 3.1.9 client app has compile 'org.grails:grails-datastore-rest-client:6.0.0.M1' dependency the in build.gradle dependencies section, and the grails 2.5.5 client app has compile ':rest-client-builder:2.1.1' in the BuildConfig.groovy plugins section
Any help getting it to work in a Grails 2.5.x or Grails 3.1.x app would be really appreciated

Answer 1

The 'Z' at the end of your date string signifies that the time zone is UTC which is not a valid ISO 8601 time zone specification that you could parse with the 'X' in your time formats. It is a literal that should be parseable with
yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'

Answer 2

Adding an answer to provide a workaround on how I resolved this, but I will not mark it as the accepted answer because it is not the ideal way to solved it, so here it is:
Added this in my client controller (I guess that the bindData method is the key here):
new RestBuilder().get('http://localhost:8080/restApp/restDomain.json').json.collect {
def restDomainInstance = new RestDomain()
bindData(restDomainInstance, it)
restDomainInstance
}
and changed RestDomain.groovy to this
package restApp
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat
import org.grails.databinding.BindUsing
class RestDomain {
#BindUsing({ obj, source ->
new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssX")
.parse(source.getPropertyValue('myDate'))
})
Date myDate
}
The X in the SimpleDateFormat is for recognizing the timezone as UTC, so the jvm converts it to its current timezone later (in my case: -04:00 GMT)