Play framework 2 Jerkson json serializer / deserializer for Date data type

DateFormatter.scala

package formatters.json

import play.api.libs.json.Json.toJson
import play.api.libs.json.JsValue
import play.api.libs.json.Format

import java.util.Date
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat

object DateFormatter {

  implicit object JsonDateFormatter extends Format[Option[Date]] {

    val dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'hh:mm:ss'Z'")

    def writes(date: Option[Date]): JsValue = {
      toJson(
        date.map(
          date => dateFormat.format(date)
        ).getOrElse(
          ""
        )
      )
    }

    def reads(j: JsValue): Option[Date] = {
      try {
        Some(dateFormat.parse(j.as[String]))
      } catch {
        case e => None
      }
    }

  }

}

to give it a try, open the repl, copy paste the above gist
and issue

import DateFormatter._

// serialize a valid date
scala> val date: Option[Date] = Some(new Date())
date: Option[java.util.Date] = Some(Wed May 30 02:55:22 ART 2012)

scala> val json = toJson(date)
json: play.api.libs.json.JsValue = "2012-05-30T02:55:22Z"

// serialize an invalid date
scala> val noDate: Option[Date] = None
noDate: Option[java.util.Date] = None

scala> val json = toJson(noDate)
json: play.api.libs.json.JsValue = ""

// deserialize a valid date
scala> val json = toJson("2012-05-30T01:00:000Z")
json: play.api.libs.json.JsValue = "2012-05-30T01:00:000Z"

scala> json.as[Option[Date]]
res3: Option[java.util.Date] = Some(Wed May 30 01:00:00 ART 2012)

// deserialize and invalid date
scala> val json = toJson("no date")
json: play.api.libs.json.JsValue = "no date"

scala> json.as[Option[Date]]
res6: Option[java.util.Date] = None

Thank you! This works great. I had to make a couple of small changes (reads() must return a JsResult) to get it to compile with Play 2.3.x. Can't do pull requests with Gists but here is my clone - https://gist.github.com/plawler/373e1abd86789dc263bd