Ability to change active JsonView on submodels

I have two very simplified model objects here…

class User {
  @JsonView({ Views.Detail.class, Views.Summary.class })
  String name;

  @JsonView({ Views.Detail.class })
  Set<Post> posts = new HashSet<>();
}

and

class Post {
  @JsonView({ Views.Detail.class, Views.Summary.class })
  Date publishDate;

  @JsonView({ Views.Detail.class, Views.Summary.class })
  String title;

  @JsonView({ Views.Detail.class })
  Set<Comment> comments = new HashSet<>();
}

I have a JAXRS endpoint annotated with @JsonView, so serialization is being handled outside of my direct control. I would like to serialize User at the Detail view, but have its collections (in this case, posts) serialize using the Summary view.

I looked at making my own JsonSerializer, but looking at the SerializerProvider, I haven’t found a way to change the active view and I’d hate to have to make another view class. Any pointers? Or any other way to think about this?

(ps - where’s a good place to post questions like this? I don’t really want to clutter the Issues queue unless it requires new code. I posted on StackOverflow but saw nothing there)

[chrisregnier]

I’ve just stumbled across a very similar problem, but I ruled out using views exactly because there’d be oddities with trying to change the view dynamically. Plus specifying a static tree of views from the top level really couples code together too much. What I was thinking might work better is to change JsonView to take a map of views to serializers. Then you can treat a property slightly different for each view.

class MyObj {
  @JsonView(view=Public.class, serialize=@JsonSerialize(using=MyPublicSerializer.class))
  @JsonView(view=Internal.class, serialize=@JsonSerialize(converter=FooToBar.class))
  public Foo foo;
}

with the ability to merge multiple views on the same property #38 I think this gives a powerful way to specify how you want a property to be treated different based on view. (I’m reusing the JsonSerialize annotation so you can specify all sorts of different ways to serialize the data. As well, I’m sure there’d be a deserialize property too.)

In my case I’m trying to serialize the inner property differently based on view, which I’d set on my JAX-RS endpoint. I believe this covers the intent of what’s being requested here; although this doesn’t quite give the ability to change the views dynamically, which I don’t think is the right direction.

[cowtowncoder]

I don’t have anything specific planned at this point.