ZonedDateTime round trip via Jackson produces unequal ZonedDateTime

Question

Given the following Unit tests:

@Test
public void zonedDateTimeCorrectlyRestoresItself() {

    // construct a new instance of ZonedDateTime
    ZonedDateTime now = ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneId.of("Z"));
    // offset = {ZoneOffset@3820} "Z"
    // zone   = {ZoneOffset@3820} "Z"

    String converted = now.toString();

    // restore an instance of ZonedDateTime from String
    ZonedDateTime restored = ZonedDateTime.parse(converted);
    // offset = {ZoneOffset@3820} "Z"
    // zone   = {ZoneOffset@3820} "Z"

    assertThat(now).isEqualTo(restored); // ALWAYS succeeds
}

@Test
public void jacksonIncorrectlyRestoresZonedDateTime()  {

    ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
    objectMapper.findAndRegisterModules();
    objectMapper.disable(DeserializationFeature.ADJUST_DATES_TO_CONTEXT_TIME_ZONE);

    // construct a new instance of ZonedDateTime
    ZonedDateTime now = ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneId.of("Z"));
    // offset = {ZoneOffset@3820} "Z"
    // zone   = {ZoneOffset@3820} "Z"


    String converted = objectMapper.writeValueAsString(now);

    // restore an instance of ZonedDateTime from String
    ZonedDateTime restored = objectMapper.readValue(converted, ZonedDateTime.class);
    // offset = {ZoneOffset@3820} "Z"
    // zone   = {ZoneOffset@3821} "UTC"

    assertThat(now).isEqualTo(restored); // NEVER succeeds
}

And this workaround:

@Test
public void usingDifferentComparisonStrategySucceeds() throws Exception  {

    ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
    objectMapper.findAndRegisterModules();
    objectMapper.disable(DeserializationFeature.ADJUST_DATES_TO_CONTEXT_TIME_ZONE);

    // construct a new instance of ZonedDateTime
    ZonedDateTime now = ZonedDateTime.now(ZoneId.of("Z"));
    // offset = {ZoneOffset@3820} "Z"
    // zone   = {ZoneOffset@3820} "Z"

    String converted = objectMapper.writeValueAsString(now);

    // restore an instance of ZonedDateTime from String
    ZonedDateTime restored = objectMapper.readValue(converted, ZonedDateTime.class);
    // offset = {ZoneOffset@3820} "Z"
    // zone   = {ZoneOffset@3821} "UTC"

    // the comparison succeeds when a different comparison strategy is used
    // checks whether the instants in time are equal, not the java objects
    assertThat(now.isEqual(restored)).isTrue(); 
}

I guess I'm trying to figure out why internally Jackson just doesn't call ZonedDateTime.parse()? Personally I think this is a bug with Jackson but I'm not confident enough to open an issue for it just yet without some feedback.

Answer 1

Quoting Wikipedia for ISO 8601:

If the time is in UTC, add a Z directly after the time without a space. Z is the zone designator for the zero UTC offset. "09:30 UTC" is therefore represented as "09:30Z" or "0930Z". "14:45:15 UTC" would be "14:45:15Z" or "144515Z".

UTC time is also known as Zulu time, since Zulu is the NATO phonetic alphabet word for Z.

Z is not a Zone. UTC is the Zone, which is then represented using Z in a formatted string.

Don't ever use ZoneId.of("Z"). It's wrong.