Ignore fields from Java object dynamically while sending as JSON from Spring MVC

Question

I have model class like this, for hibernate

@Entity
@Table(name = "user", catalog = "userdb")
@JsonIgnoreProperties(ignoreUnknown = true)
public class User implements java.io.Serializable {

    private Integer userId;
    private String userName;
    private String emailId;
    private String encryptedPwd;
    private String createdBy;
    private String updatedBy;

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = IDENTITY)
    @Column(name = "UserId", unique = true, nullable = false)
    public Integer getUserId() {
        return this.userId;
    }

    public void setUserId(Integer userId) {
        this.userId = userId;
    }

    @Column(name = "UserName", length = 100)
    public String getUserName() {
        return this.userName;
    }

    public void setUserName(String userName) {
        this.userName = userName;
    }

    @Column(name = "EmailId", nullable = false, length = 45)
    public String getEmailId() {
        return this.emailId;
    }

    public void setEmailId(String emailId) {
        this.emailId = emailId;
    }

    @Column(name = "EncryptedPwd", length = 100)
    public String getEncryptedPwd() {
        return this.encryptedPwd;
    }

    public void setEncryptedPwd(String encryptedPwd) {
        this.encryptedPwd = encryptedPwd;
    }

    public void setCreatedBy(String createdBy) {
        this.createdBy = createdBy;
    }

    @Column(name = "UpdatedBy", length = 100)
    public String getUpdatedBy() {
        return this.updatedBy;
    }

    public void setUpdatedBy(String updatedBy) {
        this.updatedBy = updatedBy;
    }
}

In Spring MVC controller, using DAO, I am able to get the object. and returning as JSON Object.

@Controller
public class UserController {

    @Autowired
    private UserService userService;

    @RequestMapping(value = "/getUser/{userId}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    @ResponseBody
    public User getUser(@PathVariable Integer userId) throws Exception {

        User user = userService.get(userId);
        user.setCreatedBy(null);
        user.setUpdatedBy(null);
        return user;
    }
}

View part is done using AngularJS, so it will get JSON like this

{
  "userId" :2,
  "userName" : "john",
  "emailId" : "[email protected]",
  "encryptedPwd" : "Co7Fwd1fXYk=",
  "createdBy" : null,
  "updatedBy" : null
}

If I don't want to set encrypted Password, I will set that field also as null.

But I don't want like this, I dont want to send all fields to client side. If I dont want password, updatedby, createdby fields to send, My result JSON should be like

{
  "userId" :2,
  "userName" : "john",
  "emailId" : "[email protected]"
}

The list of fields which I don't want to send to client coming from other database table. So it will change based on the user who is logged in. How can I do that?

I hope You got my question.

Answer 1

Add the @JsonIgnoreProperties("fieldname") annotation to your POJO.

Or you can use @JsonIgnore before the name of the field you want to ignore while deserializing JSON. Example:

@JsonIgnore
@JsonProperty(value = "user_password")
public String getUserPassword() {
    return userPassword;
}

GitHub example