Avoid Jackson serialization on non fetched lazy objects

Question

I have a simple controller that return a User object, this user have a attribute coordinates that have the hibernate property FetchType.LAZY.

When I try to get this

Answer 1

As of Spring 4.2 and using Spring Boot and javaconfig, registering the Hibernate4Module is now as simple as adding this to your configuration:

@Bean
public Module datatypeHibernateModule() {
  return new Hibernate4Module();
}

ref: https://spring.io/blog/2014/12/02/latest-jackson-integration-improvements-in-spring

Answer 2

If you use XML config and use <annotation-driven />, I found that you have to nest <message-converters> inside <annotation-driven> as recommended on the Jackson Github account.

Like so:

<annotation-driven>
  <message-converters>
    <beans:bean class="org.springframework.http.converter.json.MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter">
      <beans:property name="objectMapper">
        <beans:bean class="com.pastelstudios.json.HibernateAwareObjectMapper" />
      </beans:property>
    </beans:bean> 
  </message-converters>
</annotation-driven>

`

Answer 3

Although this question is slightly different to this one : Strange Jackson exception being thrown when serializing Hibernate object, the underlying problem can be fixed in the same way with this code:

@Provider
public class MyJacksonJsonProvider extends JacksonJsonProvider {
    public MyJacksonJsonProvider() {
        ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
        mapper.disable(SerializationFeature.FAIL_ON_EMPTY_BEANS);
        setMapper(mapper);
    }
}

Answer 4

I tried @rick's useful answer, but ran into the problem that "well-known modules" such as jackson-datatype-jsr310 weren't automatically registered despite them being on the classpath. (This blog post explains the auto-registration.)

Expanding on @rick's answer, here's a variation using Spring's Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder to create the ObjectMapper. This auto-registers the "well-known modules" and sets certain features in addition to installing the Hibernate4Module.

@Configuration
@EnableWebMvc
public class MyWebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {

    // get a configured Hibernate4Module
    // here as an example with a disabled USE_TRANSIENT_ANNOTATION feature
    private Hibernate4Module hibernate4Module() {
        return new Hibernate4Module().disable(Hibernate4Module.Feature.USE_TRANSIENT_ANNOTATION);
    }

    // create the ObjectMapper with Spring's Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder
    // and passing the hibernate4Module to modulesToInstall()
    private MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter jacksonMessageConverter(){
        Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder builder = new Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder()
                            .modulesToInstall(hibernate4Module());
        return new MappingJackson2HttpMessageConverter(builder.build());
  }

    @Override
    public void configureMessageConverters(List<HttpMessageConverter<?>> converters) {
        converters.add(jacksonMessageConverter());
        super.configureMessageConverters(converters);
    }
}

Answer 5

This is similar to accepted solution by @rick.

If you don't want to touch existing message converters configuration you can just declare a Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder bean like:

@Bean
public Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder configureObjectMapper() {
    return new Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder()
        .modulesToInstall(Hibernate4Module.class);
}

Do not forget to add the following dependency to your Gradle file (or Maven):

compile 'com.fasterxml.jackson.datatype:jackson-datatype-hibernate4:2.4.4'

Useful if you have a spring-boot application and you want to keep the ability to modify Jackson features from application.properties file.

Answer 6

Another solution for spring boot: configuration: spring.jpa.open-in-view=true