Java – JsonMappingException: No suitable constructor found for type [simple type, class ]: can not instantiate from JSON object

annotationsjacksonjavajsonspring

I am getting the following error when trying to get a JSON request and process it:

org.codehaus.jackson.map.JsonMappingException: No suitable constructor found for type [simple type, class com.myweb.ApplesDO]: can not instantiate from JSON object (need to add/enable type information?)

Here is the JSON I am trying to send:

{
  "applesDO" : [
    {
      "apple" : "Green Apple"
    },
    {
      "apple" : "Red Apple"
    }
  ]
}

In Controller, I have the following method signature:

@RequestMapping("showApples.do")
public String getApples(@RequestBody final AllApplesDO applesRequest){
    // Method Code
}

AllApplesDO is a wrapper of ApplesDO :

public class AllApplesDO {

    private List<ApplesDO> applesDO;

    public List<ApplesDO> getApplesDO() {
        return applesDO;
    }

    public void setApplesDO(List<ApplesDO> applesDO) {
        this.applesDO = applesDO;
    }
}

ApplesDO:

public class ApplesDO {

    private String apple;

    public String getApple() {
        return apple;
    }

    public void setApple(String appl) {
        this.apple = apple;
    }

    public ApplesDO(CustomType custom){
        //constructor Code
    }
}

I think that Jackson is unable to convert JSON into Java objects for subclasses. Please help with the configuration parameters for Jackson to convert JSON into Java Objects. I am using Spring Framework.

EDIT: Included the major bug that is causing this problem in the above sample class – Please look accepted answer for solution.

Best Answer

So, finally I realized what the problem is. It is not a Jackson configuration issue as I doubted.

Actually the problem was in ApplesDO Class:

public class ApplesDO {

    private String apple;

    public String getApple() {
        return apple;
    }

    public void setApple(String apple) {
        this.apple = apple;
    }

    public ApplesDO(CustomType custom) {
        //constructor Code
    }
}

There was a custom constructor defined for the class making it the default constructor. Introducing a dummy constructor has made the error to go away:

public class ApplesDO {

    private String apple;

    public String getApple() {
        return apple;
    }

    public void setApple(String apple) {
        this.apple = apple;
    }

    public ApplesDO(CustomType custom) {
        //constructor Code
    }

    //Introducing the dummy constructor
    public ApplesDO() {
    }

}