ReactiveMongo & Play: How to compare two DateTime instances - json

Question

I use Play-ReactiveMongo to interact with MongoDB... and I'm wondering how to compare two dates considering that I don't use BSON in my application. Let me provide you with an example:
def isTokenExpired(tokenId: String): Future[Boolean] = {
var query = collection.genericQueryBuilder.query(
Json.obj(
"_id" -> Json.obj("$oid" -> tokenId),
"expirationTime" -> Json.obj("$lte" -> DateTime.now(DateTimeZone.UTC))
)
).options(QueryOpts(skipN = 0))
query.cursor[JsValue].collect[Vector](1).map {
case Some(_) => true
case _ => false
}
}
isTokenExpired does not work as expected since expirationTime is considered a String – I've an implicit Writes that serializes a DateTime as "yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.SSSZ"... and this is correct since I want a human-readable JSON.
That said, how do I get a document from a collection that has a DateTime less than another DateTime? The following doesn't seem to work:
Json.obj(
"_id" -> Json.obj("$oid" -> tokenId),
"expirationTime" -> Json.obj("$lte" -> Json.obj("$date" -> DateTime.now(DateTimeZone.UTC).getMillis))
)
Thanks.

Answer 1

I've an implicit Writes that serializes a DateTime as "yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.SSSZ"... and this is correct since I want a human-readable JSON.
If you store your DateTime as a string in MongoDB then $lte won't compare the dates.
You should store your DateTime as as date in MongoDB (with $date) so you can use your second query (the one with $lte and $date).
I want a human-readable JSON
Why do you need human-readable JSON? I don't see any reason against the date datatype (If you need human-readable JSON in your API then convert your date field there).
The MongoDB dates are readable. Output in MongoDB shell:
PRIMARY> db.mycollection.findOne()
{
"creation" : ISODate("2014-01-16T14:45:27.441Z")
}