Easy JSON (un)marshalling in Scala with Jackson

There's a nice add-on module for Jackson to support Scala data types. Here's the dependencies:

libraryDependencies += "com.fasterxml.jackson.core" % "jackson-databind" % "2.2.2",
libraryDependencies += "com.fasterxml.jackson.module" %% "jackson-module-scala" % "2.2.2"

I've written a little convenience wrapper around it to demonstrate its use

import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.{DeserializationFeature, ObjectMapper}
import com.fasterxml.jackson.module.scala.experimental.ScalaObjectMapper
import com.fasterxml.jackson.module.scala.DefaultScalaModule

object JsonUtil {
  val mapper = new ObjectMapper() with ScalaObjectMapper
  mapper.registerModule(DefaultScalaModule)
  mapper.configure(DeserializationFeature.FAIL_ON_UNKNOWN_PROPERTIES, false)

  def toJson(value: Map[Symbol, Any]): String = {
    toJson(value map { case (k,v) => k.name -> v})
  }

  def toJson(value: Any): String = {
    mapper.writeValueAsString(value)
  }

  def toMap[V](json:String)(implicit m: Manifest[V]) = fromJson[Map[String,V]](json)

  def fromJson[T](json: String)(implicit m : Manifest[T]): T = {
    mapper.readValue[T](json)
  }
}

Now you can easily (un)marshall any valid JSON structure:

/*
 * (Un)marshalling a simple map 
 */
 val originalMap = Map("a" -> List(1,2), "b" -> List(3,4,5), "c" -> List())
 val json = JsonUtil.toJson(originalMap)
 // json: String = {"a":[1,2],"b":[3,4,5],"c":[]}
 val map = JsonUtil.toMap[Seq[Int]](json)
 // map: Map[String,Seq[Int]] = Map(a -> List(1, 2), b -> List(3, 4, 5), c -> List())

/*
 * Unmarshalling to a specific type of Map
 */
val mutableSymbolMap = JsonUtil.fromJson[collection.mutable.Map[Symbol,Seq[Int]]](json)
// mutableSymbolMap: scala.collection.mutable.Map[Symbol,Seq[Int]] = Map('b -> List(3, 4, 5), 'a -> List(1, 2), 'c -> List())

/*
 * (Un)marshalling nested case classes
 */
case class Person(name: String, age: Int)
case class Group(name: String, persons: Seq[Person], leader: Person)

val jeroen = Person("Jeroen", 26)
val martin = Person("Martin", 54)

val originalGroup = Group("Scala ppl", Seq(jeroen,martin), martin)
// originalGroup: Group = Group(Scala ppl,List(Person(Jeroen,26), Person(Martin,54)),Person(Martin,54))

val groupJson = JsonUtil.toJson(originalGroup)
// groupJson: String = {"name":"Scala ppl","persons":[{"name":"Jeroen","age":26},{"name":"Martin","age":54}],"leader":{"name":"Martin","age":54}}

val group = JsonUtil.fromJson[Group](groupJson)
// group: Group = Group(Scala ppl,List(Person(Jeroen,26), Person(Martin,54)),Person(Martin,54))

If you really want to have fun, you can even monkey patch Scala classes to simplify (un)marshalling

object MarshallableImplicits {

  implicit class Unmarshallable(unMarshallMe: String) {
    def toMap: Map[String,Any] = JsonUtil.toMap(unMarshallMe)
    def toMapOf[V]()(implicit m: Manifest[V]): Map[String,V] = JsonUtil.toMapOf[V](unMarshallMe)
    def fromJson[T]()(implicit m: Manifest[T]): T =  JsonUtil.fromJson[T](unMarshallMe)
  }

  implicit class Marshallable[T](marshallMe: T) {
    def toJson: String = JsonUtil.toJson(marshallMe)
  }
}

If you import the implicit conversions you can call toJson on any object and toMap or fromJson on any String.

import utils.MarshallableImplicits._

case class Person(name:String, age: Int)

val jeroen = Person("Jeroen", 26)


val jeroenJson = jeroen.toJson
// jeroenJson:  String = {"name":"Jeroen","age":26}

val jeroenMap = jeroenJson.toMap
// jeroenMap: Map[String,Any] = Map(name -> Jeroen, age -> 26)

Happy coding :)