Deserializing JSON object bi-directional one-to-many with Jackson ObjectMapper

Question

I am trying to deserialize an JSON object like

{ 
  "name":"aaa",
  "children": [ 
    {"name":"bbb"}
  ]
}

Into Java objects where the child has a reference to the parent object, e.g.:

public class Parent {
  public String name;
  public List<Child> children;
}
public class Child {
  public String name;
  public Parent parent;
}

// ...
new ObjectMapper().readValue(<JSON>, Parent.class);

When deserializing it like this, Child#parent will not point back to the parent object. I read about two approaches while doing my online research, but non seems to work.

1. Adding a constructor arg to the Child class to set the parent object

public class Child {
  public String name;
  public Parent parent;
  public Child(Parent parent) {
    this.parent = parent;
  }
}

When doing this I get the error:

Exception in thread "main" com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.exc.InvalidDefinitionException: 
  Cannot construct instance of `Child` (no Creators, like default construct, exist): 
  cannot deserialize from Object value (no delegate- or property-based Creator)
  at [Source: (String)"{"name":"aaa","children":[{"name":"bbb"}]}"; line: 1, column: 27] 
  (through reference chain: Parent["children"]->java.util.ArrayList[0])

2. Using the @JsonBackReference and @JsonManagedReference annotations

public class Parent {
  public String name;
  @JsonBackReference
  public List<Child> children;
}
public class Child {
  public String name;
  @JsonManagedReference
  public Parent parent;
}

This fails with:

Exception in thread "main" com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.exc.InvalidDefinitionException: 
  Cannot handle managed/back reference 'defaultReference':
  back reference type (java.util.List) not compatible with managed type (Child)
  at [Source: (String)"{"name":"aaa","children":[{"name":"bbb"}]}"; line: 1, column: 1]

The JavaDoc of @JsonBackReference says it cannot be applied to collections so it obviously does not work, but I wonder why there are so many examples online where it is applied to a collection.

Question How can I achieve that a child object get's its parent/owner object automatically set when the object graph is deserialized. I actually would prefer to somehow get the first approach working somehow, as it does not pollute require to pollute the classes with framework specific annotations.

Answer 1

I took some more time to dig into the Jackson source code I came up with a generalized solution using a custom BeanDeserializer. The custom deserializer checks if the corresponding Java class for the JSON node to be serialized has a single-argument constructor that can take the parent object and uses it to instantiated the object.

import org.apache.commons.lang3.reflect.ConstructorUtils;

public static class CustomBeanDeserializer extends BeanDeserializer {
  private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

  public CustomBeanDeserializer(BeanDeserializerBase src) {
    super(src);
  }

  @Override
  protected Object deserializeFromObjectUsingNonDefault(JsonParser p, DeserializationContext ctxt) throws IOException {
    Object parentObject = getParentObject(p);
    if (parentObject != null) {
      // determine constructor that takes parent object
      Constructor<?> ctor = ConstructorUtils.getMatchingAccessibleConstructor(_beanType.getRawClass(), parentObject.getClass());
      if (ctor != null) {
        try {
          // instantiate object
          Object bean = ctor.newInstance(parentObject);
          p.setCurrentValue(bean);
          // deserialize fields
          if (p.hasTokenId(JsonTokenId.ID_FIELD_NAME)) {
            String propName = p.getCurrentName();
            do {
              p.nextToken();
              SettableBeanProperty prop = _beanProperties.find(propName);
              if (prop == null) {
                handleUnknownVanilla(p, ctxt, bean, propName);
                continue;
              }
              try {
                prop.deserializeAndSet(p, ctxt, bean);
              } catch (final Exception e) {
                wrapAndThrow(e, bean, propName, ctxt);
              }
            } while ((propName = p.nextFieldName()) != null);
          }
          return bean;
        } catch (ReflectiveOperationException ex) {
          ex.printStackTrace();
        }
      }
    }
    return super.deserializeFromObjectUsingNonDefault(p, ctxt);
  }

  private Object getParentObject(JsonParser p) {
    JsonStreamContext parentCtx = p.getParsingContext().getParent();
    if (parentCtx == null)
      return null;

    Object parentObject = parentCtx.getCurrentValue();
    if (parentObject == null)
      return null;

    if (parentObject instanceof Collection || parentObject instanceof Map || parentObject.getClass().isArray()) {
      parentCtx = parentCtx.getParent();
      if (parentCtx != null) {
        parentObject = parentCtx.getCurrentValue();
      }
    }
    return parentObject;
  }
}

The deserializer can be used like this:

ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
SimpleModule myModule = new SimpleModule();
myModule.setDeserializerModifier(new BeanDeserializerModifier() {
  @Override
  public JsonDeserializer<?> modifyDeserializer(DeserializationConfig cfg, BeanDescription beanDescr, JsonDeserializer<?> deserializer) {
    if (deserializer instanceof BeanDeserializerBase)
      return new CustomBeanDeserializer((BeanDeserializerBase) deserializer);
    return deserializer;
  }
});
objectMapper.registerModule(myModule);

objectMapper.readValue(<JSON>, Parent.class);

I am still interested in a better solution requiring less custom code.