how to configure spring mvc 3 to not return "null" object in json response?

Question

a sample of json response looks like this:

{"publicId":"123","status":null,"partner":null,"description":null} 

It would be nice to truncate out all null objects in the response. In this case, the response would become {"publicId":"123"}.

Any advice? Thanks!

P.S: I think I can do that in Jersey. Also I believe they both use Jackson as the JSON processer.

Added Later: My configuration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"     xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"     xsi:schemaLocation="         http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd         http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd">      <!-- Scans the classpath of this application for @Components to deploy as beans -->     <context:component-scan base-package="com.SomeCompany.web" />      <!-- Application Message Bundle -->     <bean id="messageSource" class="org.springframework.context.support.ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource">         <property name="basename" value="/WEB-INF/messages/messages" />         <property name="cacheSeconds" value="0" />     </bean>      <!-- Configures Spring MVC -->     <import resource="mvc-config.xml" /> 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"     xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"     xmlns:mvc="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"     xsi:schemaLocation="         http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd         http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd">      <!-- Configures the @Controller programming model -->     <mvc:annotation-driven />      <!-- Forwards requests to the "/" resource to the "welcome" view -->     <!--<mvc:view-controller path="/" view-name="welcome"/>-->      <!-- Configures Handler Interceptors -->         <mvc:interceptors>         <!-- Changes the locale when a 'locale' request parameter is sent; e.g. /?locale=de -->         <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.LocaleChangeInterceptor" />     </mvc:interceptors>      <!-- Saves a locale change using a cookie -->     <bean id="localeResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.CookieLocaleResolver" />      <!--<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ContentNegotiatingViewResolver">         <property name="mediaTypes">             <map>                 <entry key="atom" value="application/atom+xml"/>                 <entry key="html" value="text/html"/>                 <entry key="json" value="application/json"/>                 <entry key="xml" value="text/xml"/>             </map>         </property>         <property name="viewResolvers">             <list>                 <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">                     <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/views/"/>                     <property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/>                 </bean>             </list>         </property>         <property name="defaultViews">             <list>                 <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.json.MappingJacksonJsonView" />                 <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.xml.MarshallingView" >                     <property name="marshaller">                         <bean class="org.springframework.oxm.jaxb.Jaxb2Marshaller" />                     </property>                 </bean>             </list>         </property>     </bean> -->   <!-- Resolves view names to protected .jsp resources within the /WEB-INF/views directory -->     <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">         <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/views/"/>         <property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/>     </bean> 

My code:

@Controller public class SomeController {     @RequestMapping(value = "/xyz", method = {RequestMethod.GET, RequestMethod.HEAD},     headers = {"x-requested-with=XMLHttpRequest","Accept=application/json"}, params = "!closed")     public @ResponseBody     List<AbcTO> getStuff(           .......     } } 

Answer 1

Yes, you can do this for individual classes by annotating them with @JsonSerialize(include=JsonSerialize.Inclusion.NON_NULL) or you can do it across the board by configuring your ObjectMapper, setting the serialization inclusion to JsonSerialize.Inclusion.NON_NULL.

Here is some info from the Jackson FAQ: http://wiki.fasterxml.com/JacksonAnnotationSerializeNulls.

Annotating the classes is straightforward, but configuring the ObjectMapper serialization config slightly trickier. There is some specific info on doing the latter here.

Answer 2

Doesn't answer the question but this is the second google result.

If anybody comes here and wants do do it for Spring 4 (as it happened to me), you can use the annotation

@JsonInclude(Include.NON_NULL) 

on the returning class.

As mentioned in the comments, and in case anyone is confused, the annotation should be used in the class that will be converted to JSON.