JsonManagedReference vs JsonBackReference

Question

I would like to know the difference between @JsonManagedReference and @JsonBackReference in Jackson?

Answer 1

• @JsonManagedReference -> Manages the forward part of the reference and the fields marked by this annotation are the ones that get Serialised
• @JsonBackReference -> Manages the reverse part of the reference and the fields/collections marked with this annotation are not serialised.

Use case: You have a one-many or many-many relationships in your entities/tables and not using the above would lead to errors like

Infinite Recursion and hence stackoverflow - > Could not write content: Infinite recursion (StackOverflowError)

The above errors occurs because Jackson (or someother similiar) tries to serialise both ends of the relationship and ends up in a recursion.

@JsonIgnore performs similiar functions but the above mentioned annotations are preferable.