This version is still in development and is not considered stable yet. For the latest stable version, please use Spring Framework 6.0.25!

Jackson JSON

Spring offers support for the Jackson JSON library.

JSON Views

See equivalent in the Reactive stack

Spring MVC provides built-in support for Jackson’s Serialization Views, which allow rendering only a subset of all fields in an Object. To use it with @ResponseBody or ResponseEntity controller methods, you can use Jackson’s @JsonView annotation to activate a serialization view class, as the following example shows:

  • Java

  • Kotlin

@RestController
public class UserController {

	@GetMapping("/user")
	@JsonView(User.WithoutPasswordView.class)
	public User getUser() {
		return new User("eric", "7!jd#h23");
	}
}

public class User {

	public interface WithoutPasswordView {};
	public interface WithPasswordView extends WithoutPasswordView {};

	private String username;
	private String password;

	public User() {
	}

	public User(String username, String password) {
		this.username = username;
		this.password = password;
	}

	@JsonView(WithoutPasswordView.class)
	public String getUsername() {
		return this.username;
	}

	@JsonView(WithPasswordView.class)
	public String getPassword() {
		return this.password;
	}
}
@RestController
class UserController {

	@GetMapping("/user")
	@JsonView(User.WithoutPasswordView::class)
	fun getUser() = User("eric", "7!jd#h23")
}

class User(
		@JsonView(WithoutPasswordView::class) val username: String,
		@JsonView(WithPasswordView::class) val password: String) {

	interface WithoutPasswordView
	interface WithPasswordView : WithoutPasswordView
}
@JsonView allows an array of view classes, but you can specify only one per controller method. If you need to activate multiple views, you can use a composite interface.

If you want to do the above programmatically, instead of declaring an @JsonView annotation, wrap the return value with MappingJacksonValue and use it to supply the serialization view:

  • Java

  • Kotlin

@RestController
public class UserController {

	@GetMapping("/user")
	public MappingJacksonValue getUser() {
		User user = new User("eric", "7!jd#h23");
		MappingJacksonValue value = new MappingJacksonValue(user);
		value.setSerializationView(User.WithoutPasswordView.class);
		return value;
	}
}
@RestController
class UserController {

	@GetMapping("/user")
	fun getUser(): MappingJacksonValue {
		val value = MappingJacksonValue(User("eric", "7!jd#h23"))
		value.serializationView = User.WithoutPasswordView::class.java
		return value
	}
}

For controllers that rely on view resolution, you can add the serialization view class to the model, as the following example shows:

  • Java

  • Kotlin

@Controller
public class UserController extends AbstractController {

	@GetMapping("/user")
	public String getUser(Model model) {
		model.addAttribute("user", new User("eric", "7!jd#h23"));
		model.addAttribute(JsonView.class.getName(), User.WithoutPasswordView.class);
		return "userView";
	}
}
@Controller
class UserController : AbstractController() {

	@GetMapping("/user")
	fun getUser(model: Model): String {
		model["user"] = User("eric", "7!jd#h23")
		model[JsonView::class.qualifiedName] = User.WithoutPasswordView::class.java
		return "userView"
	}
}