Spring MVC -> JSON response

Question

I hava a JAVA EE backend and I am using Spring MVC. I have a AJAX call like this:

function getAllProjects() {
        $.getJSON("project/getall", function(allProjects) {
            ???
        });
    }

My backend system:

@RequestMapping(value="/getall", method=RequestMethod.GET)
public @ResponseBody ??? getAllProjects() {
    ???
}

What is the content I have to implement so it will work? In the backend system I have from a database call the unique id and the name of the project, for example:

1 => My Test Project
4 => Another One
23 => One More Test

The id and the project name should be returned to the frontend system, so I can build a HTML ul/li list in this kind:

<ul>
    <li><a href="/1">My Test Project</a></li>
    <li><a href="/4">Another One</a></li>
    <li><a href="/23">One More Test</a></li>
</ul>

Does anyone know how this can be done?

Answer 1

You need to:

• Add Jackson JSON Mapper to the classpath
• Add <mvc:annotation-driven> to your config
• Return Map<Integer, String>

For more complex cases when you need to configure mapping process for each handler method you may use MappingJacksonJsonView instead of @ResponseBody, as Stepen C suggested.

Answer 2

You need to read Chapter 15.5 of the Spring User Guide which describes how to configure MVC views, and Chapter 16.10 which briefly describes the JSON Mapping View. Then read the javadocs for MappingJacksonJsonView etc.