Merging Two JSON Documents Using Jackson

Question

Is it possible to merge two JSON documents with the Jackson JSON library? I am basically using the Jackson mapper with simple Java Maps.

I\'ve tried to search in Goo

Answer 1

Inspired by Arn's answer. Editing it to add the case where a node may have a array of nodes in it.

public static JsonNode merge(JsonNode mainNode, JsonNode updateNode) {

    Iterator fieldNames = updateNode.fieldNames();

    while (fieldNames.hasNext()) {
        String updatedFieldName = fieldNames.next();
        JsonNode valueToBeUpdated = mainNode.get(updatedFieldName);
        JsonNode updatedValue = updateNode.get(updatedFieldName);

        // If the node is an @ArrayNode
        if (valueToBeUpdated != null && valueToBeUpdated.isArray() && 
            updatedValue.isArray()) {
            // running a loop for all elements of the updated ArrayNode
            for (int i = 0; i < updatedValue.size(); i++) {
                JsonNode updatedChildNode = updatedValue.get(i);
                // Create a new Node in the node that should be updated, if there was no corresponding node in it
                // Use-case - where the updateNode will have a new element in its Array
                if (valueToBeUpdated.size() <= i) {
                    ((ArrayNode) valueToBeUpdated).add(updatedChildNode);
                }
                // getting reference for the node to be updated
                JsonNode childNodeToBeUpdated = valueToBeUpdated.get(i);
                merge(childNodeToBeUpdated, updatedChildNode);
            }
        // if the Node is an @ObjectNode
        } else if (valueToBeUpdated != null && valueToBeUpdated.isObject()) {
            merge(valueToBeUpdated, updatedValue);
        } else {
            if (mainNode instanceof ObjectNode) {
                ((ObjectNode) mainNode).replace(updatedFieldName, updatedValue);
            }
        }
    }
    return mainNode;
}