tstone/play-rwjson

A few bits to make working with JSON in Play a bit easier.

RWJson for Play

A few bits to make working with JSON in Play a bit easier.

Drop Empty Values from JSON Objects

Consider this common scenario:

case class Person(name: String, age: Option[Int])

implicit def PersonWrites = new Writes[Person] {
  def writes(person: Person) = Json.obj(
    "name" -> person.name,
    "age" -> person.age
  )
}

What happens if a person's age is set to None? Out of the box, the JSON writers will require that a Writes[Option[A]] will be implemented. More than likely it will end up looking something like:

implicit def OptionWrites(implicit aWrites: Writes[A]) = new Writes[Option[A]] {
  def writes(opt: Option[A]) = opt match {
    case None => JsUndefined
    case Some(a) => aWrites.writes(a)
  }
}

This results in the JSON rendering out with undefined values:

// Person("Bob", None)
{
  "name": "Bob",
  "age": undefined
}

Often times it would be more preferable to just omit the object properties for which there aren't a value:

// Person("Bob", None)
{
  "name": "Bob"
}

This behavior is provided in DropEmptyJson. The simpliest way to use it is to replace any instance of Writes[A] with DropEmptyWrites[A].

// BEFORE:
implicit def PersonWrites = new Writes[Person] {
  def writes(person: Person) = ...
}

// AFTER:
implicit def PersonWrites = new DropEmptyWrites[Person] {
  def writes(person: Person) = ...
}

Default Behavior

The following are considered "empty" by default:

• None
• Nil (an empty Seq)
• A JsObject with no properties

Extending Empty

For any large project it will probably be necessary to extend the definition of what is considered empty. This can be accomplished by defining an implicit function with a type signature of (String, A) => JsProperty (where A is the type for which empty will be defined).

Example

trait MultipleChoiceAnswer
case class Answer(value: Char) extends MultipleChoiceAnswer
case object NoAnswer extends MultipleChoiceAnswer

In this case it might be necessary to consider NoAnswer as empty. Defining the following implicit function in scope will allow that behavior:

implicit def MultipleChoiceAnswerToJsProperty[A](kv: (String, MultipleChoiceAnswer))(implicit json: Writes[MultipleChoiceAnswer]) = kv match {
  case (key, NoAnswer)  => JsProperty(key, None)
  case (key, a: Answer) => JsProperty(key, json.writes(a))
}

As long as (String, A) can be implicitly converted to JsProperty, the behavior of dropping empty values will work. Note that in the implementation of def MultipleChoiceAnswerToJsProperty, the function does not define the Writes[MultipleChoiceAnswer]. This allows a separation of defining what values are "empty" and defining how "non-empty" values are written.