How to serialize a List content to a flat JSON object with Jackson?

Question

Given the following POJOs ..

public class City {

    private String title;
    private List people;
}

...

public         


        

Answer 1

Based on this link I suspect the field-level annotation only delegates writing the value not entire properties.

A (rather kludgey) workaround might be to have a custom serializer for the entire City class:

@JsonSerialize(using = CitySerializer.class)
public class City {
    private String title;
    @JsonIgnore
    private List people;
}

...and then

public class CitySerializer extends JsonSerializer {

    private static final int START_INDEX = 1;

    @Override
    public void serialize(City city, 
                          JsonGenerator generator, 
                          SerializerProvider provider) throws IOException {
        generator.writeStartObject();

        // Write all properties (except ignored) 
        JavaType javaType = provider.constructType(City.class);
        BeanDescription beanDesc = provider.getConfig().introspect(javaType);
        JsonSerializer