Jackson deserialization - with contained ArrayList<T> - json

Question

Good day,
I am currently integration attempting to consume a REST service that produces JSON (written in .NET) using Jackson (with Jersey). The JSON consists of a possible error message and an array of objects. Below is a sample of the JSON returned as produced by Jersey's logging filter:
{
"error":null,
"object":"[{\"Id\":16,\"Class\":\"ReportType\",\"ClassID\":\"4\",\"ListItemParent_ID\":4,\"Item\":\"Pothole\",\"Description\":\"Pothole\",\"Sequence\":1,\"LastEditDate\":null,\"LastEditor\":null,\"ItemStatus\":\"Active\",\"ItemColor\":\"#00AF64\"}]"
}
I have two classes to represent the type (the outer ListResponse):
public class ListResponse {
public String error;
public ArrayList<ListItem> object;
public ListResponse() {
}
}
and (the inner ListItem):
public class ListItem {
#JsonProperty("Id")
public int id;
#JsonProperty("Class")
public String classType;
#JsonProperty("ClassID")
public String classId;
#JsonProperty("ListItemParent_ID")
public int parentId;
#JsonProperty("Item")
public String item;
#JsonProperty("Description")
public String description;
#JsonAnySetter
public void handleUnknown(String key, Object value) {}
public ListItem() {
}
}
The class that invokes and returns the JSON looks like this:
public class CitizenPlusService {
private Client client = null;
private WebResource service = null;
public CitizenPlusService() {
initializeService("http://localhost:59105/PlusService/");
}
private void initializeService(String baseURI) {
// Use the default client configuration.
ClientConfig clientConfig = new DefaultClientConfig();
clientConfig.getClasses().add(JacksonJsonProvider.class);
client = Client.create(clientConfig);
// Add a logging filter to track communication between server and client.
client.addFilter(new LoggingFilter());
// Add the base URI
service = client.resource(UriBuilder.fromUri(baseURI).build());
}
public ListResponse getListItems(String id) throws Exception
{
ListResponse response = service.path("GetListItems").path(id).accept(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_TYPE, MediaType.APPLICATION_XML_TYPE).get(ListResponse.class);
return response;
}
}
The important call here is the getListItems method. Running the code in a test harness, produces the following:
org.codehaus.jackson.map.JsonMappingException: Can not deserialize instance of java.util.ArrayList out of VALUE_STRING token
at [Source: java.io.StringReader#49497eb8; line: 1, column: 14] (through reference chain: citizenplus.types.ListResponse["object"])
Please assist.
Regards,
Carl-Peter Meyer

Answer 1

You may be missing a #JsonDeserialize attribute as the type information does get lost in generics at run-time. Also you should avoid using concrete classes for collections if you can.
public class ListResponse {
public String error;
#JsonDeserialize(as=ArrayList.class, contentAs=ListItem.class)
public List<ListItem> object;
}

Answer 2

Your problem is that the 'object' property value is a String and not an array! The string contains a JSON array but Jackson expects a native array (without the wrapping quotes).
I had the same problem and I created a custom deserializer, which will deserialize a string value to a generic collection of the desired type:
public class JsonCollectionDeserializer extends StdDeserializer<Object> implements ContextualDeserializer {
private final BeanProperty property;
/**
* Default constructor needed by Jackson to be able to call 'createContextual'.
* Beware, that the object created here will cause a NPE when used for deserializing!
*/
public JsonCollectionDeserializer() {
super(Collection.class);
this.property = null;
}
/**
* Constructor for the actual object to be used for deserializing.
*
* #param property this is the property/field which is to be serialized
*/
private JsonCollectionDeserializer(BeanProperty property) {
super(property.getType());
this.property = property;
}
#Override
public JsonDeserializer<?> createContextual(DeserializationContext ctxt, BeanProperty property) throws JsonMappingException {
return new JsonCollectionDeserializer(property);
}
#Override
public Object deserialize(JsonParser jp, DeserializationContext ctxt) throws IOException, JsonProcessingException {
switch (jp.getCurrentToken()) {
case VALUE_STRING:
// value is a string but we want it to be something else: unescape the string and convert it
return JacksonUtil.MAPPER.readValue(StringUtil.unescapeXml(jp.getText()), property.getType());
default:
// continue as normal: find the correct deserializer for the type and call it
return ctxt.findContextualValueDeserializer(property.getType(), property).deserialize(jp, ctxt);
}
}
}
Note that this deserializer will also work if the value actually is an array and not a string, because it delegates the actual deserialization accordingly.
In your example you would now have to annotate your collection field like so:
public class ListResponse {
public String error;
#JsonDeserialize(using = JsonCollectionDeserializer.class)
public ArrayList<ListItem> object;
public ListResponse() {}
}
And that should be it.
Note: JacksonUtil and StringUtil are custom classes, but you can easily replace them. For example by using new ObjectMapper() and org.apache.commons.lang3.StringEscapeUtils.

Answer 3

The register subTypes works!
#JsonTypeInfo(use=JsonTypeInfo.Id.NAME, include=JsonTypeInfo.As.PROPERTY, property="type")
public interface Geometry {
}
public class Point implements Geometry{
private String type="Point";
....
}
public class Polygon implements Geometry{
private String type="Polygon";
....
}
public class LineString implements Geometry{
private String type="LineString";
....
}
GeoJson geojson= null;
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
mapper.disable(DeserializationConfig.Feature.FAIL_ON_UNKNOWN_PROPERTIES);
mapper.registerSubtypes(Polygon.class,LineString.class,Point.class);
try {
geojson=mapper.readValue(source, GeoJson.class);
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}