show null attributes json response spring data rest?

Question

Imagine I have an entity like this.

public class Person{
  Long Id,
  String name,
  String city,
  Long age

  //getters, setters, constructor
}

When I create a repository and output using GET request for an entry for city is null, below is my json response.

{
  "name": "jon",
  "age": 34
}

But I want this instead.

{
  "name": "jon",
  "city": null,
  "age": 34
}

i.e. showing null attributes.

What is the easiest work around?

Answer 1

Ensure that you don't have the following configuration in your ObjectMapper:

mapper.setSerializationInclusion(Include.NON_NULL);

If you have it, remove it or change to Include.ALWAYS.

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Also check your application.properties. If you're using Spring Boot 1.3, the serialization inclusion is configured via the spring.jackson.serialization-inclusion property.

Jackson 2.7 and Spring Boot 1.4 uses a property named spring.jackson.default-property-inclusion.

Ensure that the value of such properties is non_null.

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Alternativaly, annotate your class as follows:

@JsonInclude(Include.ALWAYS)
public class Person {
    ...
}