how to configure spring mvc 3 to not return "null" object in json response?

a sample of json response looks like this:

{"publicId":"123","status":null,"partner":null,"description":null}

It would be nice to truncate out all null objects in 开发者_JS百科the response. In this case, the response would become {"publicId":"123"}.

Any advice? Thanks!

P.S: I think I can do that in Jersey. Also I believe they both use Jackson as the JSON processer.

Added Later: My configuration:

<?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:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
    xsi:schemaLocation="
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-3.0.xsd">

    <!-- Scans the classpath of this application for @Components to deploy as beans -->
    <context:component-scan base-package="com.SomeCompany.web" />

    <!-- Application Message Bundle -->
    <bean id="messageSource" class="org.springframework.context.support.ReloadableResourceBundleMessageSource">
        <property name="basename" value="/WEB-INF/messages/messages" />
        <property name="cacheSeconds" value="0" />
    </bean>

    <!-- Configures Spring MVC -->
    <import resource="mvc-config.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"
    xsi:schemaLocation="
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc-3.0.xsd">

    <!-- Configures the @Controller programming model -->
    <mvc:annotation-driven />

    <!-- Forwards requests to the "/" resource to the "welcome" view -->
    <!--<mvc:view-controller path="/" view-name="welcome"/>-->

    <!-- Configures Handler Interceptors -->    
    <mvc:interceptors>
        <!-- Changes the locale when a 'locale' request parameter is sent; e.g. /?locale=de -->
        <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.LocaleChangeInterceptor" />
    </mvc:interceptors>

    <!-- Saves a locale change using a cookie -->
    <bean id="localeResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.i18n.CookieLocaleResolver" />

    <!--<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ContentNegotiatingViewResolver">
        <property name="mediaTypes">
            <map>
                <entry key="atom" value="application/atom+xml"/>
                <entry key="html" value="text/html"/>
                <entry key="json" value="application/json"/>
                <entry key="xml" value="text/xml"/>
            </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" />
                <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.xml.MarshallingView" >
                    <property name="marshaller">
                        <bean class="org.springframework.oxm.jaxb.Jaxb2Marshaller" />
                    </property>
                </bean>
            </list>
        </property>
    </bean>
-->
  <!-- Resolves view names to protected .jsp resources within the /WEB-INF/views directory -->
    <bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
        <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/views/"/>
        <property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/>
    </bean>

My code:

@Controller
public class SomeController {
    @RequestMapping(value = "/xyz", method = {RequestMethod.GET, RequestMethod.HEAD},
    headers = {"x-requested-with=XMLHttpRequest","Accept=application/json"}, params = "!closed")
    public @ResponseBody
    List<AbcTO> getStuff(
          .......
    }
}

Yes, you can do this for individual classes by annotating them with @JsonSerialize(include=JsonSerialize.Inclusion.NON_NULL) or you can do it across the board by configuring your ObjectMapper, setting the serialization inclusion to JsonSerialize.Inclusion.NON_NULL.

Here is some info from the Jackson FAQ: http://wiki.fasterxml.com/JacksonAnnotationSerializeNulls.

Annotating the classes is straightforward, but configuring the ObjectMapper serialization config slightly trickier. There is some specific info on doing the latter here.

Doesn't answer the question but this is the second google result.

If anybody comes here and wants do do it for Spring 4 (as it happened to me), you can use the annotation

@JsonInclude(Include.NON_NULL)

on the returning class.

As mentioned in the comments, and in case anyone is confused, the annotation should be used in the class that will be converted to JSON.

If using Spring Boot for REST, you can do it in application.properties:

spring.jackson.serialization-inclusion=NON_NULL

source

Java configuration for the above. Just place the below in your @Configuration class.

@Bean
public Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder objectMapperBuilder() {
    Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder builder = new Jackson2ObjectMapperBuilder();
    builder.serializationInclusion(JsonInclude.Include.NON_NULL);
    return builder;
}