I was facing the same issue. Here is my solution via custom deserialization:
new GsonBuilder().registerTypeAdapter(Date.class, new DateDeserializer());
private static final String[] DATE_FORMATS = new String[] {
"MMM dd, yyyy HH:mm:ss",
"MMM dd, yyyy"
};
private class DateDeserializer implements JsonDeserializer<Date> {
@Override
public Date deserialize(JsonElement jsonElement, Type typeOF,
JsonDeserializationContext context) throws JsonParseException {
for (String format : DATE_FORMATS) {
try {
return new SimpleDateFormat(format, Locale.US).parse(jsonElement.getAsString());
} catch (ParseException e) {
}
}
throw new JsonParseException("Unparseable date: \"" + jsonElement.getAsString()
+ "\". Supported formats: " + Arrays.toString(DATE_FORMATS));
}
}