Spring @JsonIgnore not working

Question

How can I get @JsonIgnore to work I have a class. And even if I put the annotation there it has no effect on the output. I am using Jackson.

public class QuestionBlock implements ComparableByID{       int ID;      String title;     String description;     boolean deleted;     boolean isDraft;     boolean visible;     Timestamp modifiedDate;     String modifiedBy;       private List<Question> questions =  new ArrayList<>();      @JsonIgnore     private List<Survey> surveys =  new ArrayList<>();      ...      @JsonIgnore     public List<Survey> getSurveys() {         return surveys;     }      @JsonIgnore     public void setSurveys(List<Survey> surveys) {         this.surveys = surveys;     }  } 

This is my Controller method:

@RequestMapping(value = "/questionBlock/{id}",produces = "application/json;charset=UTF-8")     @ResponseBody     public QuestionBlock getQuestionBlock(@PathVariable("id") int id) {         return surveyService.getQuestionBlock(id);     } 

Here is my servlet-context.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"     xmlns:beans="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"     xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context" xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx"     xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.2.xsd     http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd     http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.2.xsd     http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.2.xsd">      <mvc:annotation-driven />       <mvc:resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/resources/" />     <mvc:resources location="/, classpath:/META-INF/web-resources/"         mapping="/resources/**" />      <context:property-placeholder location="classpath*:META-INF/*.properties" />       <context:component-scan base-package="com.adam.czibere" />        <bean class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close" id="myDataSource" name="dataSource">         <property name="driverClassName" value="${database.driverClassName}" />         <property name="url" value="${database.url}" />         <property name="username" value="${database.username}" />         <property name="password" value="${database.password}" />         <property name="testOnBorrow" value="true" />         <property name="testOnReturn" value="true" />         <property name="testWhileIdle" value="true" />         <property name="timeBetweenEvictionRunsMillis" value="1800000" />         <property name="numTestsPerEvictionRun" value="3" />         <property name="minEvictableIdleTimeMillis" value="1800000" />         <property name="validationQuery" value="SELECT 1" />     </bean>       <bean id="mySessionFactory"         class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate4.LocalSessionFactoryBean">         <property name="dataSource" ref="myDataSource" />         <property name="packagesToScan">             <array>                 <value>com.adam.czibere</value>             </array>         </property>         <property name="hibernateProperties">             <value>                 hibernate.dialect=org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect             </value>         </property>     </bean>      <bean id="transactionManager"         class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate4.HibernateTransactionManager">         <property name="sessionFactory" ref="mySessionFactory" />     </bean>       <tx:annotation-driven transaction-manager="transactionManager"/>  <bean         class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ContentNegotiatingViewResolver">         <property name="mediaTypes">             <map>                 <entry key="html" value="text/html" />                 <entry key="json" value="application/json" />             </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">                     <property name="prefixJson" value="false" />                     <property name="objectMapper" ref="jacksonObjectMapper" />                 </bean>             </list>         </property>     </bean>     <bean id="jacksonObjectMapper" class="org.codehaus.jackson.map.ObjectMapper" />     <bean         class="org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.annotation.AnnotationMethodHandlerAdapter">         <property name="messageConverters">             <list>                 <bean                     class="org.springframework.http.converter.json.MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter">                     <property name="prefixJson" value="false" />                     <property name="supportedMediaTypes" value="application/json" />                 </bean>             </list>         </property>     </bean> </beans> 

Answer 1

I have finally found a solution. I changed the import statement from

import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotate.JsonIgnore;  // com. instead of org. 

to

import org.codehaus.jackson.annotate.JsonIgnore; 

Basically you have to make sure you are using the same class everywhere.

Answer 2

The annotation should only be on the 'get' methods. You seem to have @Json... annotations on your private fields.