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JAX-RS - Returning JSON Response

[Last Updated: Jan 28, 2016]

JAX-RS runtime provides XML conversion support out of the box (as we saw in the last tutorial). On the other hand there's no default MessageBodyWriter/MessageBodyReader provider for JSON. But the good news is JAX-RS provides extension points to hookup custom MessageBodyWriter/MessageBodyReader provider. One very easy way to achieve that is to use Jersey support for common media type representations. Jersey JSON support comes as a set of extension modules.

  • MOXy
  • Java API for JSON Processing (JSON-P)
  • Jackson
  • Jettison

JSON binding support via MOXy is a default and preferred way of supporting JSON binding in a Jersey application. When JSON MOXy module is on the class-path, Jersey will automatically discover the module and seamlessly enable JSON binding support via MOXy in your applications.
To return JSON response from our JAX-RS application we have to go through following least necessary steps.

  1. Create a simple Java class to be used as JSON response. Here we can use a class annotated with JAXB annotation (like we did in our last tutorial). This is the easiest approach, if you want to produce/consume both JSON and XML data format. With JAXB beans we will be able to use the same Java model to generate JSON as well as XML representations.
    @XmlRootElement
    public class Customer {
        private String id;
        private String name;
        private String address;
        private String phoneNumber;
    
        public Customer() {
        }
    
        public Customer(String id) {
            this.id = id;
        }
          ... getters and setters
    }
    

  2. Add @Produces annotation on our service method to declare the media-type as "application/json":
    @GET
    @Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
    public List<Customer> getCustomers() {
            ....
     }

  3. Add the maven dependency of MOXy module.
  4. <dependency>
        <groupId>org.glassfish.jersey.media</groupId>
        <artifactId>jersey-media-moxy</artifactId>
        <version>2.22.1</version>
    </dependency>

Example Project

Dependencies and Technologies Used:

  • jersey-core-server 2.22.1: Jersey core server implementation.
  • jersey-container-servlet 2.22.1: Jersey core Servlet 3.x implementation.
  • jersey-media-moxy 2.22.1: Jersey JSON entity providers support module based on EclipseLink MOXy.
  • jersey-test-framework-provider-jdk-http 2.22.1: Jersey Test Framework - JDK HTTP container.
  • DataFactory 0.8: Library to generate data for testing.
  • JDK 1.8
  • Maven 3.0.4

Rest Json Response Select All Download
  • jaxrs-returning-json-response
    • src
      • main
        • java
          • com
            • logicbig
              • example
                • api
                  • CustomerRestService.java
        • test
          • java
            • com
              • logicbig
                • example

    To test the application either run the JUnit test CustomerRestServiceTest or run the embedded tomcat server: d:\examples\jaxrs-returning-json-response>mvn clean install tomcat7:run-war and then use the following resource link in your browser.

    http://localhost:8080//jaxrs-returning-json-response/api/customers

    Output:

    See Also