Moonwlker

Moonwlker is a facade for the Jackson JSON library.

It enables you to serialize and deserialize JSON objects without annotations in the classes. This is helpful if you don't have access to the classes, or don't want to annotate them to keep them free of JSON concerns.

You can also (de)serialize objects with an all arguments constructor, without the need for a no-argument constructor or setters. And you can (de)serialize type hierarchies.

This project is in an early stage. The API may change.

Getting started

Moonwlker is available on Maven Central.

If you are using Maven, include the following in your POM:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.requirementsascode</groupId>
  <artifactId>moonwlker</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.7</version>
</dependency>

If you are using Gradle, include the following in your build.gradle:

implementation 'org.requirementsascode:moonwlker:0.0.7'

At least Java 8 is required, download and install it if necessary.

Basic usage and defaults

To create a Jackson ObjectMapper with Moonwlker, use this syntax:

import org.requirementsascode.moonwlker.MoonwlkerModule;
...
ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
objectMapper.registerModule(MoonwlkerModule.builder().build());

This creates an object mapper that ignores unknown properties when deserializing by default.

All arguments constructor / immutable objects

The standard way in which Jackson supports all arguments constructors is to use the @JsonCreator and @JsonProperties annotations. Moonwlker changes that: it enables you to deserialize objects that have a single, all arguments default constructor.

To enable this feature, you need to pass in the -parameters compiler argument when compiling your class files. In Gradle, include this in your build file:

gradle.projectsEvaluated {
 tasks.withType(JavaCompile) {
     options.compilerArgs << "-parameters"
 }
}

This article describes how to do that in Maven and your IDE.

After you've done that, create an ObjectMapper as described in Basic usage.

Here's what the example Dog class looks like:

public class Dog extends Animal {
  private final String name;
  private final String command;

  public Dog(BigDecimal price, String name, String command) {
    super(price);
    this.name = name;
    this.command = command;
  }
  
  public String name() {
    return name;
  }

  public String command() {
    return command;
  }
}

See this test class for details on how to deserialize objects with an all arguments constructor.

Normally, Jackson has special behavior for single argument constructors. Moonwlker changes that: it treats single argument constructors the same to simplify deserialization.

Integrate into Spring Boot application

To change the default ObjectMapper in a Spring Boot application, register the Moonwlker module as a bean:

@SpringBootApplication
public class GreeterApplication {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    SpringApplication.run(GreeterApplication.class, args);
  }

  @Bean
  ObjectMapper objectMapper() {
    ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
    objectMapper.registerModule(MoonwlkerModule.builder().build());    
    return objectMapper;
  } 
}

(De)serialization of type hierarchies

Build your Jackson object mapper with Moonwlker like this:

ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();

MoonwlkerModule module =
  MoonwlkerModule.builder()
    .fromProperty("type").toSubclassesOf(Person.class)
    .build();

objectMapper.registerModule(module);

In the above example, Person is the super class. The created ObjectMapper (de)serializes objects of direct or indirect subclasses of that super class. The type JSON property needs to specify the relative class name of the object to be created by Moonwlker (i.e. Employee):

String jsonString = "{ \"type\" : \"Employee\", \"firstName\" : \"Jane\", \"lastName\" : \"Doe\" , \"employeeNumber\" : \"EMP-2020\"}";
Employee employee = (Employee) objectMapper.readValue(jsonString, Object.class);

Use a simple class name like above if the sub class is in the same package as the super class. Use a package prefix if the sub class is in a direct or indirect sub package of the super class' package. For example, this JSON string could be used if Employee was in the company subpackage of the package that Person is in:

String jsonString = "{ \"type\" : \"company.Employee\", \"firstName\" : \"Jane\", \"lastName\" : \"Doe\" , \"employeeNumber\" : \"EMP-2020\"}";

You can also specify multiple base classes like so:

MoonwlkerModule module =
  MoonwlkerModule.builder()
    .fromProperty("type").toSubclassesOf(Animal.class, Person.class)
    .build();

See this test class for details on how to deserialize classes in the same package as their super class.

You can also define specific packages where subclasses can be found, like so:

MoonwlkerModule module = 
  MoonwlkerModule.builder()
    .fromProperty("type") 
    .toSubclassesOf(Person.class).in("org.requirementsascode.moonwlker.testobject.person")
    .toSubclassesOf(Animal.class).in("org.requirementsascode.moonwlker.testobject.animal")
      .build();