Jackson: How do I post-process JsonNode during serialization?

Question

I am attempting to implement the HL7 FHIR spec's assertion that JSON representing a FHIR model will not have empty objects nor empty arrays . For the sake of not making the lives of my consumers any harder, I'm not strictly enforcing this during deserialization, but I want to ensure the serialized JSON produced by my library conforms as specified. I am using Java and Jackson ObjectMapper to serialize Objects into JSON. My understanding from writing a custom serializer is that the Object is at one point represented as JsonNode, regardless of what you are converting to.

What I would like to do is intercept the JsonNode as it exits the serializer, make some adjustments to it (find and remove empty arrays and objects), and then let it continue on its way. I need to do this in an environment where I can't tweak the ObjectMapper, because I don't have access to it. And further, the complex hierarchy of models in this library use Jackson's default serialization with annotations etc. heavily, and I cannot eliminate this.

If I go the route of defining a custom serializer for the base type, let's say "Resource", then I have a problem, because I still need the original serializer's output in order to generate my modified output. And further, that needs to accommodate any custom serializers that may already exist on various types within the model.

I got pretty far with the above option using https://www.baeldung.com/jackson-call-default-serializer-from-custom-serializer and the last option, implementing BeanSerializerModifier, but I ran into the issue where I can't control the ObjectMapper that my library consumers use.

Example POJOs (Using Lombok for accessors):

@Data
@JsonInclude(JsonInclude.Include.NON_EMPTY)
@JsonIgnoreProperties(ignoreUnknown = true)
abstract class Resource {
  private FhirString id;
  private List<Extension> extension;

  @JsonProperty(access = JsonProperty.Access.READ_ONLY)
  public abstract ResourceType getResourceType();
}

@Data
@Builder
class SomethingElse extends Resource {
  FhirUri someProperty;
  CodeableConcept someCode;
  List<Reference> someReferences;

  @Override
  public ResourceType getResourceType() {
    return ResourceType.SOMETHING_ELSE;
  }
}

And an example instance of the SomethingElse class:

SomethingElse somethingElse = SomethingElse.builder()
    .someProperty(FhirUri.from("some-simple-uri"))
    .someCode(new CodeableConcept())
    .someReference(List.of(new Reference()))
    .build();
somethingElse.setId(FhirString.randomUuid());
somethingElse.setExtension(new ArrayList<>());

When I tell any mapper (or, for example, use a Spring service) to map the SomethingElse class into JsonNode, I can, for example, end up with empty objects and arrays, like this:

ObjectMapper mapper = getUntouchableMapper();
JsonNode somethingElseNode = mapper.valueToTree(somethingElse);
System.out.println(somethingElseNode.toString());

Becomes:

{
  "resourceType": "SomethingElse",
  "id": "00000000-0002-0004-0000-000000000000",
  "someProperty": "some-simple-uri",
  "someCode": {},
  "someReferences": [{}],
  "extension": []
}

According to FHIR, this should actually look like:

{
  "resourceType": "SomethingElse",
  "id": "00000000-0002-0004-0000-000000000000",
  "someProperty": "some-simple-uri"
}

To summarize

How do I preserve the serialization mechanisms already in place, regardless of the ObjectMapper used, and somehow remove empty lists and objects from outgoing JSON produced by the Jackson serialization process?

Edit: I also tried @JsonInclude(JsonInclude.Include.NON_EMPTY) , which did omit empty list implementations. However, the vast majority of data in this library is represented by POJOs that serialize to maps and primitives, and this annotation only works if they are represented directly by maps and primitives in the model.

Answer 1

The solution is to use a custom @JsonInclude , which is new in Jackson 2.9 . Thank you @dai for pointing me back towards this functionality.

On the base Resource class, this looks like:

@JsonInclude(value = JsonInclude.Include.CUSTOM, valueFilter = FhirJsonValueFilter.class)
class Resource implements FhirTypeInterface {
  ...

  @Override
  public boolean isEmpty() {
    //Details omitted for simplicity
  }
}

For visibility, the interface used above:

interface FhirTypeInterface {
  boolean isEmpty();
}

And my custom definition for FhirJsonValueFilter implements all of the functionality of JsonInclude.Include.NON_EMPTY but also adds functionality for checking against a method implemented by FHIR types (implementation of this is not relevant to the answer).

public class FhirJsonValueFilter {
    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object value) {
        return !getWillInclude(value);
    }

    /**
     * Returns true for an object that matched filter criteria (will be 
     * included) and false for those to omit from the response.
     */
    public boolean getWillInclude(Object value) {
        //Omit explicit null values
        if (null == value) {
            return false;
        }

        //Omit empty collections
        if (Collection.class.isAssignableFrom(value.getClass())) {
            return !((Collection) value).isEmpty();
        }

        //Omit empty maps
        if (Map.class.isAssignableFrom(value.getClass())) {
            return !((Map) value).isEmpty();
        }

        //Omit empty char sequences (Strings, etc.)
        if (CharSequence.class.isAssignableFrom(value.getClass())) {
            return ((CharSequence) value).length() > 0;
        }

        //Omit empty FHIR data represented by an object
        if (FhirTypeInterface.class.isAssignableFrom(value.getClass())) {
            return !((FhirTypeInterface) value).isEmpty();
        }

        //If we missed something, default to include it
        return true;
    }
}

Note that the custom omission filter uses Java's Object.equals functionality, where true means to omit the property, and I've used a second method to reduce confusion in this answer.