Infinite Recursion with Jackson JSON and Hibernate JPA issue

Question

When trying to convert a JPA object that has a bi-directional association into JSON, I keep getting

org.codehaus.jackson.map.JsonMappingException: Infinite recursion (StackOverflowError)

All I found is this thread which basically concludes with recommending to avoid bi-directional associations. Does anyone have an idea for a workaround for this spring bug?

------ EDIT 2010-07-24 16:26:22 -------

Codesnippets:

Business Object 1:

@Entity
@Table(name = "ta_trainee", uniqueConstraints = {@UniqueConstraint(columnNames = {"id"})})
public class Trainee extends BusinessObject {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.TABLE)
    @Column(name = "id", nullable = false)
    private Integer id;

    @Column(name = "name", nullable = true)
    private String name;

    @Column(name = "surname", nullable = true)
    private String surname;

    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "trainee", fetch = FetchType.EAGER, cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
    @Column(nullable = true)
    private Set bodyStats;

    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "trainee", fetch = FetchType.EAGER, cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
    @Column(nullable = true)
    private Set trainings;

    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "trainee", fetch = FetchType.EAGER, cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
    @Column(nullable = true)
    private Set exerciseTypes;

    public Trainee() {
        super();
    }

    //... getters/setters ...
}

Business Object 2:

import javax.persistence.*;
import java.util.Date;

@Entity
@Table(name = "ta_bodystat", uniqueConstraints = {@UniqueConstraint(columnNames = {"id"})})
public class BodyStat extends BusinessObject {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.TABLE)
    @Column(name = "id", nullable = false)
    private Integer id;

    @Column(name = "height", nullable = true)
    private Float height;

    @Column(name = "measuretime", nullable = false)
    @Temporal(TemporalType.TIMESTAMP)
    private Date measureTime;

    @ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.EAGER, cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
    @JoinColumn(name="trainee_fk")
    private Trainee trainee;
}

Controller:

import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.Model;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestBody;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ResponseBody;

import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import javax.validation.ConstraintViolation;
import java.util.*;
import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap;

@Controller
@RequestMapping(value = "/trainees")
public class TraineesController {

    final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(TraineesController.class);

    private Map trainees = new ConcurrentHashMap();

    @Autowired
    private ITraineeDAO traineeDAO;
     
    /**
     * Return json repres. of all trainees
     */
    @RequestMapping(value = "/getAllTrainees", method = RequestMethod.GET)
    @ResponseBody        
    public Collection getAllTrainees() {
        Collection allTrainees = this.traineeDAO.getAll();

        this.logger.debug("A total of " + allTrainees.size() + "  trainees was read from db");

        return allTrainees;
    }    
}

JPA-implementation of the trainee DAO:

@Repository
@Transactional
public class TraineeDAO implements ITraineeDAO {

    @PersistenceContext
    private EntityManager em;

    @Transactional
    public Trainee save(Trainee trainee) {
        em.persist(trainee);
        return trainee;
    }

    @Transactional(readOnly = true)
    public Collection getAll() {
        return (Collection) em.createQuery("SELECT t FROM Trainee t").getResultList();
    }
}

persistence.xml


    
        false

user_1442960 · Answer

Also, using Jackson 2.0+ you can use @JsonIdentityInfo. This worked much better for my hibernate classes than @JsonBackReference and @JsonManagedReference, which had problems for me and did not solve the issue. Just add something like:

@Entity
@Table(name = "ta_trainee", uniqueConstraints = {@UniqueConstraint(columnNames = {"id"})})
@JsonIdentityInfo(generator=ObjectIdGenerators.IntSequenceGenerator.class, property="@traineeId")
public class Trainee extends BusinessObject {

@Entity
@Table(name = "ta_bodystat", uniqueConstraints = {@UniqueConstraint(columnNames = {"id"})})
@JsonIdentityInfo(generator=ObjectIdGenerators.IntSequenceGenerator.class, property="@bodyStatId")
public class BodyStat extends BusinessObject {

and it should work.

user_871953 · Answer

Now Jackson supports avoiding cycles without ignoring the fields:

Jackson - serialization of entities with birectional relationships (avoiding cycles)

user_6643647 · Answer

Working fine for me Resolve Json Infinite Recursion problem when working with Jackson

This is what I have done in oneToMany and ManyToOne Mapping

@ManyToOne
@JoinColumn(name="Key")
@JsonBackReference
private LgcyIsp Key;


@OneToMany(mappedBy="LgcyIsp ")
@JsonManagedReference
private List safety;

user_2950614 · Answer

@JsonIgnoreProperties is the answer.

Use something like this ::

@OneToMany(mappedBy = "course",fetch=FetchType.EAGER)
@JsonIgnoreProperties("course")
private Set students;

user_11423630 · Answer

You Should use @JsonBackReference with @ManyToOne entity and @JsonManagedReference with @onetomany containing entity classes.

@OneToMany(
            mappedBy = "queue_group",fetch = FetchType.LAZY,
            cascade = CascadeType.ALL
        )
    @JsonManagedReference
    private Set queues;



@ManyToOne(cascade=CascadeType.ALL)
        @JoinColumn(name = "qid")
       // @JsonIgnore
        @JsonBackReference
        private Queue_group queue_group;

user_2035999 · Answer

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are using LOMBOK, make shure to exclude attributes of collections like Set, List, etc...

Like this:

@EqualsAndHashCode(exclude = {"attributeOfTypeList", "attributeOfTypeSet"})

user_10971996 · Answer

I have the same problem after doing more analysis i came to know that, we can get mapped entity also by just keeping @JsonBackReference at OneToMany annotation

@Entity
@Table(name = "ta_trainee", uniqueConstraints = {@UniqueConstraint(columnNames = {"id"})})
public class Trainee extends BusinessObject {

@Id
@GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.TABLE)
@Column(name = "id", nullable = false)
private Integer id;

@Column(name = "name", nullable = true)
private String name;

@Column(name = "surname", nullable = true)
private String surname;

@OneToMany(mappedBy = "trainee", fetch = FetchType.EAGER, cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
@Column(nullable = true)
@JsonBackReference
private Set bodyStats;

user_1599616 · Answer

If you cannot ignore the property, try modifying the visibility of the field. In our case, we had old code still submitting entities with the relationship, so in my case, this was the fix:

    @JsonProperty(access = JsonProperty.Access.WRITE_ONLY)
    private Trainee trainee;

user_6431622 · Answer

For some reason, in my case, it wasn't working with Set. I had to change it to List and use @JsonIgnore and @ToString.Exclude to get it working.

Replace Set with List:

//before
@OneToMany(mappedBy="client")
private Set addressess;

//after
@OneToMany(mappedBy="client")
private List addressess;

And add @JsonIgnore and @ToString.Exclude annotations:

@ManyToOne
@JoinColumn(name="client_id", nullable = false)
@JsonIgnore
@ToString.Exclude
private Client client;

user_9443465 · Answer

If you use @JsonManagedReference, @JsonBackReference or @JsonIgnore annotation it ignore some fields and solve Infinite Recursion with Jackson JSON.

But if you use @JsonIdentityInfo which also avoid the Infinite Recursion and you can get all the fields values, so I suggest that you use @JsonIdentityInfo annotation.

@JsonIdentityInfo(generator= ObjectIdGenerators.UUIDGenerator.class, property="@id")

Refer this article https://www.toptal.com/javascript/bidirectional-relationship-in-json to get good understanding about @JsonIdentityInfo annotation.

user_13457596 · Answer

This post: https://www.baeldung.com/jackson-bidirectional-relationships-and-infinite-recursion has a full explanation.

If you are using Jackson with older versions, you can try @jsonmanagedreference + @jsonbackreference. If your Jackson is above 2 (1.9 also doesn't work as I know), try @JsonIdentityInfo instead.

user_57033 · Answer

I'm a late comer and it's such a long thread already. But I spent a couple of hours trying to figure this out too, and would like to give my case as another example.

I tried both JsonIgnore, JsonIgnoreProperties and BackReference solutions, but strangely enough it was like they weren't picked up.

I used Lombok and thought that maybe it interferes, since it creates constructors and overrides toString (saw toString in stackoverflowerror stack).

Finally it wasn't Lombok's fault - I used automatic NetBeans generation of JPA entities from database tables, without giving it much thought - well, and one of the annotations that were added to the generated classes was @XmlRootElement. Once I removed it everything started working. Oh well.

user_379779 · Answer

The point is to place the @JsonIgnore in the setter method as follow. in my case.

Township.java

@Access(AccessType.PROPERTY)
@OneToMany(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
@JoinColumn(name="townshipId", nullable=false ,insertable=false, updatable=false)
public List getVillages() {
    return villages;
}

@JsonIgnore
@Access(AccessType.PROPERTY)
public void setVillages(List villages) {
    this.villages = villages;
}

Village.java

@ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.EAGER)
@JoinColumn(name = "townshipId", insertable=false, updatable=false)
Township township;

@Column(name = "townshipId", nullable=false)
Long townshipId;

user_1823788 · Answer

I have faced same issue, add jsonbackref and jsonmanagedref and please make sure @override equals and hashCode methods , this definitely fix this issue.

Infinite Recursion with Jackson JSON and Hibernate JPA issue

28 Answers