Jackson deserializer - change null collection to empty one

Question

I have an entity that contains collection as attribute:

public class Entity {

    @JsonProperty(value=\"homes\")
    @JsonDeserialize(as=HashSet.class, cont         


        

Answer 1

As of Jackson 2.9, it looks like null-handling for specific properties can be configured with @JsonSetter, for example:

@JsonSetter(nulls = Nulls.AS_EMPTY)
public void setStrings(List strings) {
    this.strings = strings;
}

Similar configuration can also be applied globally for collections:

ObjectMapper mapper = objectMapperBuilder()
    .changeDefaultNullHandling(n -> n.withContentNulls(Nulls.AS_EMPTY))
    .build();

Or by type:

ObjectMapper mapper = objectMapperBuilder()
    .withConfigOverride(List.class,
        o -> o.setNullHandling(JsonSetter.Value.forContentNulls(Nulls.AS_EMPTY)))
    .build();

I haven't been able to try the feature out, so this is based on the feature discussion and examination of unit tests. YMMV.