Noise free JSON format for sealed traits with Play 2.2 library

Question

I need to get a simple JSON serialization solution with minimum ceremony. So I was quite happy finding this forthcoming Play 2.2 library. This works perfectly with plain case classes, e.g.

import play.api.libs.json._

sealed trait Foo
case class Bar(i: Int) extends Foo
case class Baz(f: Float) extends Foo

implicit val barFmt = Json.format[Bar]
implicit val bazFmt = Json.format[Baz]

But the following fails:

implicit val fooFmt = Json.format[Foo]   // "No unapply function found"

How would I set up the alleged missing extractor for Foo?

Or would you recommend any other standalone library that handles my case more or less fully automatically? I don't care whether that is with macros at compile time or reflection at runtime, as long as it works out of the box.

Answer 1

Here is a manual implementation of the Foo companion object:

implicit val barFmt = Json.format[Bar]
implicit val bazFmt = Json.format[Baz]

object Foo {
  def unapply(foo: Foo): Option[(String, JsValue)] = {
    val (prod: Product, sub) = foo match {
      case b: Bar => (b, Json.toJson(b)(barFmt))
      case b: Baz => (b, Json.toJson(b)(bazFmt))
    }
    Some(prod.productPrefix -> sub)
  }

  def apply(`class`: String, data: JsValue): Foo = {
    (`class` match {
      case "Bar" => Json.fromJson[Bar](data)(barFmt)
      case "Baz" => Json.fromJson[Baz](data)(bazFmt)
    }).get
  }
}
sealed trait Foo
case class Bar(i: Int  ) extends Foo
case class Baz(f: Float) extends Foo

implicit val fooFmt = Json.format[Foo]   // ça marche!

Verification:

val in: Foo = Bar(33)
val js  = Json.toJson(in)
println(Json.prettyPrint(js))

val out = Json.fromJson[Foo](js).getOrElse(sys.error("Oh no!"))
assert(in == out)

---

Alternatively the direct format definition:

implicit val fooFmt: Format[Foo] = new Format[Foo] {
  def reads(json: JsValue): JsResult[Foo] = json match {
    case JsObject(Seq(("class", JsString(name)), ("data", data))) =>
      name match {
        case "Bar"  => Json.fromJson[Bar](data)(barFmt)
        case "Baz"  => Json.fromJson[Baz](data)(bazFmt)
        case _      => JsError(s"Unknown class '$name'")
      }

    case _ => JsError(s"Unexpected JSON value $json")
  }

  def writes(foo: Foo): JsValue = {
    val (prod: Product, sub) = foo match {
      case b: Bar => (b, Json.toJson(b)(barFmt))
      case b: Baz => (b, Json.toJson(b)(bazFmt))
    }
    JsObject(Seq("class" -> JsString(prod.productPrefix), "data" -> sub))
  }
}

---

Now ideally I would like to automatically generate the apply and unapply methods. It seems I will need to use either reflection or dive into macros.