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.

Answer 3

If you are using an implementation of Jackson and its annotations are not working it's probably because you have another dependency of jackson with better precedence. Hence if you want to assure that certain implementation of jackson prevales (IMHO the best choice is the one that you have all classes already annotated with, because probably it came with other dependencies) specify this dependency in the pom of the application module. So if you have in multiple modules all your entities annotated with

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

Instead of replacing all imports just specify the corresponding dependency in the application pom:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
    </dependency>

This will clarify to Spring Boot that this is the implementation you want to use.

Answer 4

Putting @JsonProperty(access = JsonProperty.Access.WRITE_ONLY) before the field declaration solved the problem for me.

    @JsonProperty(access = JsonProperty.Access.WRITE_ONLY)
    private List<Survey> surveys =  new ArrayList<>();

I'm using jackson version 2.11.3

Answer 5

I added @Getter(onMethod_=@JsonIgnore) for boolean.

import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonFormat;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonIgnore;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonIgnoreProperties;

@Data
@Builder
@NoArgsConstructor
@AllArgsConstructor
@JsonIgnoreProperties(ignoreUnknown = true) 
public class TestClass    {

    
     @JsonIgnore 
    private String name;
    
     @Getter(onMethod_=@JsonIgnore) 
    private boolean isValid; 

}

Answer 6

I faced this issue in my project and finally I got the solution.

Replace the dependency...

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.jackson</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-jaxrs</artifactId>
        <version>1.9.13</version>
    </dependency>

Import : com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonIgnore;

I hope, It will work.

Answer 7

In my case JsonIgnore was not working only on dates. Then I understood that was because of @JsonFormat() that I was using to define the format of date. Removing that solved the issue.

Answer 8

If @JsonProperty("fieldName") is also present on the field along with @JsonIgnore, the latter is ignored. This could happen, for instance, in generated code.

@Generated("jsonschema2pojo")
public MyGeneratedClass {
    // ...
    @JsonProperty("label")          // This overrides @JsonIgnore
    @JsonIgnore(true)               // Doesn't work
    @Field(name = "label")
    private java.lang.String label;
    // ...
}

From the documentation of JsonIgnore:

... if only particular accessor is to be ignored ..., this can be done by annotating other not-to-be-ignored accessors with JsonProperty (or its equivalents).

Answer 9

You Need to change your org.codehaus.jackson version. I am currently using 1.1.1 version in which @JsonIgonre is not working. I changed it with 1.9.13 then @JsonIgnore is working fine.

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.jackson</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-jaxrs</artifactId>
        <version>1.1.1</version>
    </dependency>

    Change to 

   <dependency>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.jackson</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-jaxrs</artifactId>
        <version>1.9.13</version>
    </dependency>

And Java Code is :-

import java.io.Serializable;
import javax.persistence.Entity;
import javax.persistence.GeneratedValue;
import javax.persistence.GenerationType;
import javax.persistence.Id;
import javax.persistence.Table;
import org.codehaus.jackson.annotate.JsonIgnore;

@Entity
@Table(name="users")
public class Users implements Serializable{

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.AUTO)
    private Integer id;
    private String username;
    private String firstname;
    @JsonIgnore
    private String lastname;

    public Integer getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(Integer id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public String getUsername() {
        return username;
    }

    public void setUsername(String username) {
        this.username = username;
    }

    public String getFirstname() {
        return firstname;
    }

    public void setFirstname(String firstname) {
        this.firstname = firstname;
    }

    public String getLastname() {
        return lastname;
    }

    public void setLastname(String lastname) {
        this.lastname = lastname;
    }

}

Answer 10

I faced the same issue while working with spring and hibernate. The reason for this was that in entity class I was using org.codehaus.jackson.JsonIgnore and in spring I was using com.fasterxml.jackson.jaxrs.JsonIgnore. Fix to any one library in both layers and problem will disappear.