Jackson JSON Processor

Add a feature and annotation to allow generic handling of "" as null

Details

  • Type: New Feature New Feature
  • Status: Reopened Reopened
  • Priority: Minor Minor
  • Resolution: Unresolved
  • Affects Version/s: None
  • Fix Version/s: 1.8.0
  • Component/s: None
  • Labels:
    None
  • Number of attachments :
    0

Description

Currently JSON null is generically handled to result in null objects. Empty strings have no special generic handling, although some deserializers (most notable Date deserializers, see JACKSON-202) map them to nulls as well.
Given that some frameworks use empty Strings interchangeably with missing values and nulls, it may be useful to enabled generic handling of empty Strings to results in null values at least in places where JSON object would be expected (for "bean"/POJO types). This could be further configurable by introducing an annotation that can attach to classes (for all instances) and properties (fields, setters).

Activity

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Tatu Saloranta added a comment -

Actually to begin with, maybe it'd be enough to just add general on/off Feature first, and see if that might be enough. Especially as this would work pretty well even if it only handled case of empty beans.

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Tatu Saloranta added a comment - Actually to begin with, maybe it'd be enough to just add general on/off Feature first, and see if that might be enough. Especially as this would work pretty well even if it only handled case of empty beans.
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Tatu Saloranta added a comment -

Implemented by adding DeserializationConfig.Feature.ACCEPT_EMPTY_STRING_AS_NULL_OBJECT.

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Tatu Saloranta added a comment - Implemented by adding DeserializationConfig.Feature.ACCEPT_EMPTY_STRING_AS_NULL_OBJECT.
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Torin McCabe added a comment -

If you have a java bean with a string property that property is not converted from an empty string into null even with the feature enabled. I think this new feature should be used by the StringDeserializer class as well. For now I am just wrapping the StringDeserializer and returning null for empty string by overriding StdDeserializerProvider.findValueDeserializer().

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Torin McCabe added a comment - If you have a java bean with a string property that property is not converted from an empty string into null even with the feature enabled. I think this new feature should be used by the StringDeserializer class as well. For now I am just wrapping the StringDeserializer and returning null for empty string by overriding StdDeserializerProvider.findValueDeserializer().
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Tatu Saloranta added a comment -

Hmmh. Interesting. I am not quite sure what to think about this – may need to ask other users whether this behavior would be intuitive or not.
I can see how it might be useful, once again with scripting languages that may not always distinguish between null and empty string.

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Tatu Saloranta added a comment - Hmmh. Interesting. I am not quite sure what to think about this – may need to ask other users whether this behavior would be intuitive or not. I can see how it might be useful, once again with scripting languages that may not always distinguish between null and empty string.

People

  • Assignee:
    Tatu Saloranta
    Reporter:
    Tatu Saloranta
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Dates

  • Created:
    Updated: