Json-glib serialize a boolean with value false when using gobject_serialize

Question

I'm trying to serialize the class below:

public class Person : GLib.Object {
    public string name { get; set; }
    public int age { get; set; }
    public bool alive { get; set; }

    public Person (string name, int age, bool alive = true) {
        Object (
            name: name,
            age: age,
            alive: alive
        );
    }
}

public int main () {
    var person = new Person ("mike", 33, false);
    var node = Json.gobject_serialize (person);

    string obj = Json.to_string (node, true);
    print (obj+"\n");

    return 0;
}

While i expect the output be...

{
    "name": "mike",
    "age": 32,
    "alive": false
}

I'm getting...

{
  "name": "mike",
  "age": 32
}

How do i get the Boolean serialized even if the value is false?

Answer 1

The default serialization function of json-glib doesn't serialize a property if it contains its default value. For boolean properties, this is false, unless explicitly specified otherwise.

To make sure that serialization does happen in this case, you should explicitly implement the Serializable.serialize_property() method yourself.