eclipse-ee4j / eclipse-ee4j/yasson

@JsonbProperty("propertyName") is not respecting new JsonbConfig().withNullValues(true)

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#476 6 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub
Dominant language
Java
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Description

Hi there,

I just ran into an issue wich took me some time to debug. As of my opinion, this is not the expected behavior:

### Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a Class with a property and annotate it with `@JsonbProperty("propertyName")`
2. Initialize an Instance of that class with a null value in that property
3. Initialize a JSON-B Mapper with a custom config: `new JsonbConfig().withNullValues(true)`
4. Serialize the object

This issue occurred using yasson 1.0.5

### Expected outcome:
Object is serialized with the property included and value `null`.

### Actual outcome:
Object is serialized without the property.

### One step further:
5. Remove the `@JsonbProperty("propertyName")` from the field
6. Serialize again and watch the property appearing in the serialized json

As I debugged though the code of Yasson, I came across the reason why this behavior shows up:
The Annotation `@JsonbProperty` has a property `nillable` with the default value being `false`

Although I would rather expect the default value being `null` and to respect the global configuration when omitting the annotation parameter, I see that this would be a breaking change. Instead I would suggest to add a new Annotation like `@JsonbPropertyName` with only the property name being possible to customize.

**Please advise if this behavior is known and if so what could be a mitigation.**

Kind regards,

Yannick

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Reproduce the issue with a class using @JsonbProperty("propertyName"), a null property, and new JsonbConfig().withNullValues(true), then compare serialization with and without the annotation. Inspect Yasson's handling of the annotation's nillable default and determine a compatible behavior or API change; done means the annotated property is serialized as null under the stated configuration, with coverage for the reproduction.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java
Domain
backend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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