Merging Two JSON Documents Using Jackson

Is it possible to merge two JSON documents with the Jackson JSON library? I am basically using the Jackson mapper with simple Java Maps.

I've tried to search in Google and Jackson's documentation but couldn't find anything.

Solution 1:

Inspired by StaxMans answer I implemented this merging method.

public static JsonNode merge(JsonNode mainNode, JsonNode updateNode) {

    Iterator<String> fieldNames = updateNode.fieldNames();
    while (fieldNames.hasNext()) {

        String fieldName = fieldNames.next();
        JsonNode jsonNode = mainNode.get(fieldName);
        // if field exists and is an embedded object
        if (jsonNode != null && jsonNode.isObject()) {
            merge(jsonNode, updateNode.get(fieldName));
        }
        else {
            if (mainNode instanceof ObjectNode) {
                // Overwrite field
                JsonNode value = updateNode.get(fieldName);
                ((ObjectNode) mainNode).put(fieldName, value);
            }
        }

    }

    return mainNode;
}

Hope this helps someone.

Solution 2:

One way is to use ObjectReader like so:

MyBean defaults = objectMapper.readValue(defaultJson, MyBean.class);
ObjectReader updater = objectMapper.readerForUpdating(defaults);
MyBean merged = updater.readValue(overridesJson);

which will combine data from two sources. This only makes a shallow copy, i.e. does not do recursive merge on contained objects.

Otherwise you may need to just read JSON as a tree (JsonNode), loop over contents and merge manually. This often makes sense anyway since rules of merging are not trivial, and everyone has their own ideas of how merging should work.

EDIT: (03-Apr-2017)

As per @Fernando Correia's comment, there is actually a new feature added in upcoming Jackson 2.9 (to be released in April or May 2017) that does allow deep merging, finally.

Solution 3:

Inspired by Arn's answer. Editing it to add the case where a node may have a array of nodes in it.

public static JsonNode merge(JsonNode mainNode, JsonNode updateNode) {

    Iterator<String> fieldNames = updateNode.fieldNames();

    while (fieldNames.hasNext()) {
        String updatedFieldName = fieldNames.next();
        JsonNode valueToBeUpdated = mainNode.get(updatedFieldName);
        JsonNode updatedValue = updateNode.get(updatedFieldName);

        // If the node is an @ArrayNode
        if (valueToBeUpdated != null && valueToBeUpdated.isArray() && 
            updatedValue.isArray()) {
            // running a loop for all elements of the updated ArrayNode
            for (int i = 0; i < updatedValue.size(); i++) {
                JsonNode updatedChildNode = updatedValue.get(i);
                // Create a new Node in the node that should be updated, if there was no corresponding node in it
                // Use-case - where the updateNode will have a new element in its Array
                if (valueToBeUpdated.size() <= i) {
                    ((ArrayNode) valueToBeUpdated).add(updatedChildNode);
                }
                // getting reference for the node to be updated
                JsonNode childNodeToBeUpdated = valueToBeUpdated.get(i);
                merge(childNodeToBeUpdated, updatedChildNode);
            }
        // if the Node is an @ObjectNode
        } else if (valueToBeUpdated != null && valueToBeUpdated.isObject()) {
            merge(valueToBeUpdated, updatedValue);
        } else {
            if (mainNode instanceof ObjectNode) {
                ((ObjectNode) mainNode).replace(updatedFieldName, updatedValue);
            }
        }
    }
    return mainNode;
}