Jackson Annotations - @JsonValue

Overview

@JsonValue annotation allows to serialize an entire object using its single method.

Example - Serialization without using @JsonValue

JacksonTester.java

package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.io.IOException; 
import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonValue; 
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper; 

public class JacksonTester {
   public static void main(String args[]){
      ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper(); 
      try { 
         Student student = new Student("Mark", 1);    
         String jsonString = mapper 
            .writerWithDefaultPrettyPrinter() 
            .writeValueAsString(student); 
         System.out.println(jsonString); 
      }
      catch (IOException e) { 
         e.printStackTrace(); 
      }   
   }
}
class Student {
   private String name;
   private int rollNo;
   public Student(String name, int rollNo){
      this.name = name;
      this.rollNo = rollNo;
   }
   public String getName(){
      return name;
   } 
   public int getRollNo(){
      return rollNo;
   }
   public String toString(){
      return "{ name : " + name + " }";
   }
}

Output

Run the JacksonTester and verify the output −

{
  "name" : "Mark",
  "rollNo" : 1
}

Example - Serialization with @JsonValue

JacksonTester.java

package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.io.IOException; 
import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonValue; 
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper; 

public class JacksonTester {
   public static void main(String args[]){
      ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper(); 
      try { 
         Student student = new Student("Mark", 1);    
         String jsonString = mapper 
            .writerWithDefaultPrettyPrinter() 
            .writeValueAsString(student); 
         System.out.println(jsonString); 
      }
      catch (IOException e) { 
         e.printStackTrace(); 
      }   
   }
}
class Student {
   private String name;
   private int rollNo;
   public Student(String name, int rollNo){
      this.name = name;
      this.rollNo = rollNo;
   }
   public String getName(){
      return name;
   } 
   public int getRollNo(){
      return rollNo;
   }
   @JsonValue
   public String toString(){
      return "{ name : " + name + " }";
   }
}

Output

Run the JacksonTester and verify the output −

"{ name : Mark }" 

Here using @JsonValue annotation, we've controlled the default Serialization by toString() method.