Backbone.js Collection.sync & spring endpoints - json

Question

I have a backbone.js client app and Spring on the app tier. In Backbone I'm using a Collection of 'ServerConfig' objects... the URL of the backbone collection points to a spring endpoint.
The 'GET' request returns an ArrayList of a POJO called 'ServerRuntimeConfig' which ultimately ends up returning a JSON response with the following response body:
[{"useIUX":true,"serverDomainName":"localhost","selected":true}]
The 'PUT' request, which is called when I do a 'sync' on the collection sends the following JSON request with the below request body (same as the GET):
[{"useIUX":true,"serverDomainName":"localhost","selected":true}]
The problem is that I can't get spring to automatically map the JSON collection into a collection of POJOs on the PUT... so I've had to do it manually.
Here is the GET end point
#RequestMapping(value = "/runtimeConfigs",
method = RequestMethod.GET,
produces = "application/json")
#ResponseBody
public ArrayList<ServerRuntimeConfig> handleConfigRequest(
HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response) {
// first grab all of the hostnames from the properties file
ArrayList<String> allServersDomains = new ArrayList();
List<String> servers = Arrays.asList(
StringUtils.tokenizeToStringArray(
this.getAppProperties().get("serverList"), ","));
allServersDomains.addAll(servers);
MyTTJMXClient jmxClient = new MyTTJMXClient();
return jmxClient.readRemoteConfigurations(allServersDomains);
}
Here is the PUT endpoint
#RequestMapping(value = "/runtimeConfigs",
method = RequestMethod.PUT,
consumes = "application/json",
produces = "application/json")
#ResponseBody
public ArrayList<ServerRuntimeConfig> handleConfigUpdate(
#RequestBody String body,
HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response) {
String jsonSource = body;
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
ArrayList<ServerRuntimeConfig> serverConfigs = new ArrayList();
try {
serverConfigs = mapper.readValue(jsonSource,
new TypeReference<ArrayList<ServerRuntimeConfig>>() { } );
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
MyTTJMXClient jmxClient;
jmxClient = new MyTTJMXClient();
return jmxClient.setRemoteConfigurations(serverConfigs);
}
Is there a way to avoid the manual Jackson mapping I'm doing in the PUT endpoint? I tried the following endpoint signature but serverConfigs is always null
#RequestMapping(value = "/runtimeConfigs",
method = RequestMethod.PUT,
consumes = "application/json",
produces = "application/json")
#ResponseBody
public ArrayList<ServerRuntimeConfig> handleConfigUpdate(
ArrayList<ServerRuntimeConfig> serverConfigs,
HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response) {
Again, the manual Jackson mapping does the trick, but it's not using the awesomeness that is Spring.
Has anyone else out there built a Spring end point that automatically maps Backbone/JSON collections to POJOs?

Answer 1

Assuming the mapping you've used in your PUT method works,
Try to change your method signature from:
#ResponseBody
public ArrayList<ServerRuntimeConfig> handleConfigUpdate(
ArrayList<ServerRuntimeConfig> serverConfigs,
HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response) {
to:
#ResponseBody
public ArrayList<ServerRuntimeConfig> handleConfigUpdate(
#RequestBody ArrayList<ServerRuntimeConfig> serverConfigs,
HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response) {
The #RequestBody annotation is the important part here. It will automatically use spring's converter (in this case, jackson) to populate the variable.