How to produce JSON output with Jersey 1.6 using JAXB

Question

@XmlRootElement
public class Todo {
    private String s = "test";

    public String getS() {
        return s;
    }

    public void setS(String s) {
        this.s = s;
    }

}

and service:

@Path("/test")
public class Service {

    @GET
    @Produces({MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON })
    public List<Todo> getAllGadgets() {
        return Arrays.asList(new Todo[] { new Todo() });
    }

}

my web.xml:

<servlet>
    <servlet-name>Jersey REST Service</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>com.sun.jersey.spi.container.servlet.ServletContainer</servlet-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>com.sun.jersey.config.property.packages</param-name>
        <param-value>com.test</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>Jersey REST Service</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/rest/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

All this work if I set MediaType.APPLICATION_XML for Produces annotation. But for JSON I get the following exception:

SEVERE: Mapped exception to response: 500 (Internal Server Error) javax.ws.rs.WebApplicationException: com.sun.jersey.api.MessageException: A message body writer for Java class java.util.Arrays$ArrayList, and Java type java.util.List, and MIME media type application/json was not found

I use Jersey 1.6 and, according to the tutorial, JSON format should work with JAXB without any additional programming. What's wrong?

Solution 1

I solved this. All I needed to do was to add jersey-json-1.6.jar library to the project (this is not required part of jersey)

Solution 2

Add the following param to the jersey servlet in web.xml file, this is required for the latest 1.x versions of jersey-servlet.

    <init-param>
        <param-name>com.sun.jersey.api.json.POJOMappingFeature</param-name>
        <param-value>true</param-value>
    </init-param>

Solution 3

I use Google App Engine and have struggled a lot with this also, if you use jersey-bundle-1.17.jar most of the stuff work until you add

<init-param>
    <param-name>com.sun.jersey.api.json.POJOMappingFeature</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
</init-param>

you will get a lot of strange messages. This is because you miss some jackson jars. If you go to jersey homepage and download the zip and the bundle. Just drop the bundle and from the zip you need to add the 4 jackson jars in your classpath and you should get everything working without any error.

Adding jackson-jaxrs-1.9.2.jar solve this error below

SEVERE: The registered message body writers compatible with the MIME media type are:
application/json ->

Adding jackson-xc-1.9.2.jar solve this warrning below

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/codehaus/jackson/xc/JaxbAnnotationIntrospector

I hope this helps somebody.

Solution 4

The other answers didn't work for me, but I finally got it to work with JSON.

I was using the jersey-bundle-1.17.jar (also tried with the asm-3.1.jar and jersey-json-1.17.jar added to classpath and still didn't work). I finally tried downloading the zip that includes 12 different jars. Once I added all 12 jars to my classpath I finally got rid of the error and works great returning JSON.

I hope this helps somebody.

Update: Here is a link to the zip file that contains the 12 jar files: jersey-archive-1.17.zip

Another Update for Maven Users: Add the following to your pom.xml to get the 12 jars individually:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.sun.jersey</groupId>
        <artifactId>jersey-servlet</artifactId>
        <version>1.17.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.sun.jersey</groupId>
        <artifactId>jersey-client</artifactId>
        <version>1.17.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.sun.jersey</groupId>
        <artifactId>jersey-json</artifactId>
        <version>1.17.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.sun.jersey</groupId>
        <artifactId>jersey-core</artifactId>
        <version>1.17.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.sun.jersey</groupId>
        <artifactId>jersey-server</artifactId>
        <version>1.17.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.jackson</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-core-asl</artifactId>
        <version>1.9.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.jackson</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-mapper-asl</artifactId>
        <version>1.9.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.jackson</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-jaxrs</artifactId>
        <version>1.9.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.jackson</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-xc</artifactId>
        <version>1.9.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.jettison</groupId>
        <artifactId>jettison</artifactId>
        <version>1.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.ws.rs</groupId>
        <artifactId>jsr311-api</artifactId>
        <version>1.1.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>asm</groupId>
        <artifactId>asm</artifactId>
        <version>3.1</version>
    </dependency>

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Comments

[GuiSim]

Thanks for this. I kept searching for a much more complex cause.

[Puneet]

This doesnt work for me.I still get SEVERE: A message body writer for Java type, class java.util.ArrayList, and MIME media type, application/json, was not found. This is while running a test that uses an InMemoryContainer, so I wonder if it has something to do with that.

[Milos Pesic]

I had to change jersey-server to 1.9, jersey-core 1.9 and jersey-json to 1.9 jars.

[Anuj Verma]

how to do it for application/xml

[Riggy]

I had everything from the accepted answer, and am using jersey v1.13; this is what solved my issue. Thanks!

[hba]

Using Maven - I had to add: <dependency <groupId>com.sun.jersey</groupId> <artifactId>jersey-json</artifactId> <version>1.17</version> </dependency>

[Rahul Shelke]

Can you provide name or link of that zip file containing 12 jar files?

[11101101b]

Sure thing. I just added a link to the zip file.

[Rahul Shelke]

it gives me: 400 - Bad Request

[11101101b]

Haha, sorry... Google moved the file. I added another reference to one on a public Maven 2 repository, so you should be good now.

[Rana Ghosh]

I think I'm in the same situation as you here. Is there any way to get this working with maven dependencies?

[11101101b]

@tieTYT I have added the dependencies individually so you can just drop them into your pom.xml file.

[Rana Ghosh]

Thanks a lot. I don't know why there are so many different answers that "worked". Jersey must have changed a lot of things between versions.

[Rana Ghosh]

I created a new question for this that I'd like you to answer here: stackoverflow.com/questions/18646747/… This can help others. I went through a lot of trial and error to get this working before I noticed your answer way at the bottom.

[11101101b]

Yeah, sometimes it's the answers lower-down on the list that actually end-up working. I added my answer to your other question. I'm glad I was able to help.

[petertc]

I use jackson-jaxrs 1.9.13 + cxf-bundle-jaxrs 2.7.11. The problem I encounter is that the first request always fail, and successive requests are all success. During debugging, I notice NoClassDefFoundError exception like yours. Adding jackson-xc-1.9.2 solve the problem. I think it's jackson dependency problem