Jackson bidirectional relationship (One-to-many) not working

Question

I\'m using Spring(xml+annotations), Hibernate(annotations) in this web service project. The database relationship diagram, models, expected and actual output are given below

Answer 1

Because you are using the @JsonBackReference on the Customer property in the Loan entity, the Customer object will not included in the serialization. Use the @JsonManagedReference for the Customer in the Loan object and use @JsonBackReference on the Loan property in the Customer entity.

This will serialize the Customer property of your Loan entity. But the Customer object serialization will not contains the Loan property. You need to pick one side of the relationship to serialize.

To allow both side, use @JsonIdentityInfo annotation in your entity and remove the @JsonBackReference and @JsonManagedReference. You entities will be something like:

@JsonIdentityInfo(generator = ObjectIdGenerators.PropertyGenerator.class, property = "customerId")
public class Customer implements Serializable {
    ...
}

The property of the @JsonIdentityInfo refer to your entity id property, for Customer this will be customerId. Do this for Loan and Item also.