Json – REST with Spring and Jackson full data binding

jacksonjsonrestspringspring-mvc

I'm using Spring MVC to handle JSON POST requests. Underneath the covers I'm using the MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter built on the Jackson JSON processor and enabled when you use the mvc:annotation-driven.

One of my services receives a list of actions:

@RequestMapping(value="/executeActions", method=RequestMethod.POST)
    public @ResponseBody String executeActions(@RequestBody List<ActionImpl> actions) {
        logger.info("executeActions");
        return "ACK";
    }

I have found that Jackson maps the requestBody to a List of java.util.LinkedHashMap items (simple data binding). Instead, I would like the request to be bound to a List of typed objects (in this case "ActionImpl").

I know this is easy to do if you use Jackson's ObjectMapper directly:

List<ActionImpl> result = mapper.readValue(src, new TypeReference<List<ActionImpl>>() { });

but I was wondering what's the best way to achieve this when using Spring MVC and MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter. Any hints?

Thanks

Best Answer

I have found that you can also work around the type erasure issue by using an array as the @RequestBody instead of a collection. For example, the following would work:

public @ResponseBody String executeActions(@RequestBody ActionImpl[] actions) { //... }

JsonIgnoreProperties [2017 Update]:

You can now use JsonIgnoreProperties to suppress serialization of properties (during serialization), or ignore processing of JSON properties read (during deserialization). If this is not what you're looking for, please keep reading below.

(Thanks to As Zammel AlaaEddine for pointing this out).

JsonManagedReference and JsonBackReference

Since Jackson 1.6 you can use two annotations to solve the infinite recursion problem without ignoring the getters/setters during serialization: @JsonManagedReference and @JsonBackReference.

Explanation

For Jackson to work well, one of the two sides of the relationship should not be serialized, in order to avoid the infite loop that causes your stackoverflow error.

So, Jackson takes the forward part of the reference (your Set<BodyStat> bodyStats in Trainee class), and converts it in a json-like storage format; this is the so-called marshalling process. Then, Jackson looks for the back part of the reference (i.e. Trainee trainee in BodyStat class) and leaves it as it is, not serializing it. This part of the relationship will be re-constructed during the deserialization (unmarshalling) of the forward reference.

You can change your code like this (I skip the useless parts):

Business Object 1:

@Entity
@Table(name = "ta_trainee", uniqueConstraints = {@UniqueConstraint(columnNames = {"id"})})
public class Trainee extends BusinessObject {

    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "trainee", fetch = FetchType.EAGER, cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
    @Column(nullable = true)
    @JsonManagedReference
    private Set<BodyStat> bodyStats;

Business Object 2:

@Entity
@Table(name = "ta_bodystat", uniqueConstraints = {@UniqueConstraint(columnNames = {"id"})})
public class BodyStat extends BusinessObject {

    @ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.EAGER, cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
    @JoinColumn(name="trainee_fk")
    @JsonBackReference
    private Trainee trainee;

Now it all should work properly.

If you want more informations, I wrote an article about Json and Jackson Stackoverflow issues on Keenformatics, my blog.

EDIT:

Another useful annotation you could check is @JsonIdentityInfo: using it, everytime Jackson serializes your object, it will add an ID (or another attribute of your choose) to it, so that it won't entirely "scan" it again everytime. This can be useful when you've got a chain loop between more interrelated objects (for example: Order -> OrderLine -> User -> Order and over again).

In this case you've got to be careful, since you could need to read your object's attributes more than once (for example in a products list with more products that share the same seller), and this annotation prevents you to do so. I suggest to always take a look at firebug logs to check the Json response and see what's going on in your code.

Sources:

Keenformatics - How To Solve JSON infinite recursion Stackoverflow (my blog)
Jackson References
Personal experience

Best Answer

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Java – Infinite Recursion with Jackson JSON and Hibernate JPA issue

JsonIgnoreProperties [2017 Update]:

JsonManagedReference and JsonBackReference

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