Allow specifying custom exclusion comparator via @JsonInclude, using JsonInclude.Include.CUSTOM

[cowtowncoder]

(note, possible related to #885. Also note that this supercedes #558)

Choices used with @JsonInclude are currently somewhat limited, and specifically require either hard-coded criteria (null, or default property values of a POJO) or support from JsonSerializer for type (for "empty" check via `JsonSerializer.isEmpty(...)).
This makes it difficult to have custom criteria for exclusion without using other mechanisms like JSON Views or Json filter.

But it would seem possible to instead allow use of some kind of custom object that is called to determine whether given value is to be included/excluded.
While there are multiple possible ways to go about with this -- specifically, whether to create a new interface for comparing -- but one very simple way would be to simply use Object.equals(); method of comparator, and use return value to indicate inclusion (if true returned) vs exclusion (false).

The only other thing needed would seem to be to modify @JsonInclude so that:

1. There is a way specify the Class of custom comparator (default of Void.class to indicate "no custom comparator")
2. (optional) Add yet another JsonInclude.Include enum choice of CUSTOM
3. Also probably need to implement Jackson 2.7: use AnnotationIntrospector.findPropertyInclusion() #839

Of these, (2) is optional: we could choose to always check custom comparator, and if one defined, ignore enum. But from readability stand-point it seems better to add a new choice.

Also: for maximum power, we could choose to instead require implementation of some special interface, through which we could pass context (SerializerProvider). While this would be powerful, it seems that perhaps it is better not get carried away at this point: given that there are more powerful mechanisms for doing that (JSON Filter), we may want to keep this feature simple.

[kdkeck]

I've been grappling with the same problem, but my preferred solution would be slightly different, perhaps because my use case is different. My use case is that there's one specific object type I'd like to define a custom isEmpty() definition for, and I'd prefer to be able to just annotate a boolean isEmpty() method in that class with an annotation (something like JsonIsEmptyPredicate) rather than have to implement a custom serializer or SerializerModifier.

[cowtowncoder]

@kdkeck Interesting idea, although from performance perspective that would be quite inefficient unfortunately, since the call to the method would have to be via Reflection. Possibly not a big deal for many users. Would need quite a bit of support for introspection (via AnnotationIntrospection), but otherwise seems doable.

I will keep the idea in mind as an alternative; it has some benefits. And the more general idea of defining external per-type exclusion criteria is worth considering too.

[kdkeck]

One alternative that occurred to me after posting that was to instead use Include.NON_DEFAULT, which only requires that my type overrides Object.equals(). It still requires an annotation on the property(s) using that type, rather than an annotation only on the type, but at least it doesn't require writing a custom serializer.

[madorb]

+1. This would be great to be able to exclude values based on the security context. For instance when using Spring Security based on the current user's roles, we could determine whether a given property should be serialized or not.

[kdkeck]

@madorb I would think views would be more appropriate for that use case: http://wiki.fasterxml.com/JacksonJsonViews

[madorb]

I know that it can be done with views, but that puts the decision at the point of serialization, if someone forgot to use the right view it could expose sensitive information. It also doesn't play nicely with the automated serialization ala SpringMVC - where there is generally a single ObjectMapper - i'd prefer to not have to manually configure the ObjectMapper to use the appropriate view in each Controller method

[cowtowncoder]

Planning to implement this via addition of JsonInclude.Include.CUSTOM and JsonInclude.valueFilter, which specifies filter object, of which equals(value) method is called to determine inclusion/exclusion.
Filter will be instantiated using standard HandlerInstantiator, although default will just call zero-args constructor.

Already implemented annotation side:

FasterXML/jackson-annotations#103

and now working on databind, so should be done relatively soon.