Role base Json output in Spring Boot - json

Question

Is is possible to exclude JsonProperties in the output of a Spring Boot Rest call based on a defined condition? (eg. the role of the user)
Example:
public class Employee{
#JsonProperty
private String name;
#JsonProperty
private String fieldForManagerOnly;
#JsonProperty
private String fieldForEmployeeOnly;
}
I want to have the fieldForManagerOnly only serialized in the JSON output when the user has the ROLE manager.
I've already tried the solution with the #JsonView (as described in Latest Jackson integration improvements in Spring) but that solution is very limited as the #JsonView is bound to one controler method and I want to have only one controller method.

Answer 1

I've solved the problem myself. I used the JsonView solution but instead of an annotation I select the JsonView from code.
First you need an interface for the Views.
public class JsonViews {
public interface EmployeeView {}
public interface ManagerView {}
}
Mark the fields in the Model class with the #JsonView annotations.
public class Employee{
#JsonProperty
private String name;
#JsonView(JsonViews.ManagerView.class)
private String fieldForManagerOnly;
#JsonView(JsonViews.EmployeeView.class)
private String fieldForEmployeeOnly;
}
In your controller set the JsonView to use based on the role (or some other condition):
#RequestMapping(value = "/{employeeId}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public ResponseEntity<MappingJacksonValue> getEmployee(#PathVariable long employeeId) {
Employee employee = employeeService.getEmployee(employeeId);
MappingJacksonValue jacksonValue = new MappingJacksonValue(employeeResourceAssembler.toResource(employee));
if (getRole().equals("MANAGER")) {
jacksonValue.setSerializationView(JsonViews.ManagerView.class);
} else if (getRole().equals("EMPLOYEE")) {
jacksonValue.setSerializationView(JsonViews.EmployeeView.class);
}
return new ResponseEntity<>(jacksonValue, HttpStatus.OK);
}

Answer 2

Annotate the field with
#JsonInclude(JsonInclude.Include.NON_NULL)
and make sure to set the field fieldForManagerOnly to null if the current user is not a manager.