Spring boot @ResponseBody doesn't serialize entity id

Question

Have a strange problem and can't figure out how to deal with it. Have simple POJO:

@Entity
@Table(name = "persons")
public class Person {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    private Long id;

    @Column(name = "first_name")
    private String firstName;

    @Column(name = "middle_name")
    private String middleName;

    @Column(name = "last_name")
    private String lastName;

    @Column(name = "comment")
    private String comment;

    @Column(name = "created")
    private Date created;

    @Column(name = "updated")
    private Date updated;

    @PrePersist
    protected void onCreate() {
        created = new Date();
    }

    @PreUpdate
    protected void onUpdate() {
        updated = new Date();
    }

    @Valid
    @OrderBy("id")
    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "person", fetch = FetchType.EAGER, cascade = CascadeType.ALL, orphanRemoval = true)
    private List<PhoneNumber> phoneNumbers = new ArrayList<>();

    public Long getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(Long id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public String getFirstName() {
        return firstName;
    }

    public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
        this.firstName = firstName;
    }

    public String getMiddleName() {
        return middleName;
    }

    public void setMiddleName(String middleName) {
        this.middleName = middleName;
    }

    public String getLastName() {
        return lastName;
    }

    public void setLastName(String lastName) {
        this.lastName = lastName;
    }

    public String getComment() {
        return comment;
    }

    public void setComment(String comment) {
        this.comment = comment;
    }

    public Date getCreated() {
        return created;
    }

    public Date getUpdated() {
        return updated;
    }

    public List<PhoneNumber> getPhoneNumbers() {
        return phoneNumbers;
    }

    public void addPhoneNumber(PhoneNumber number) {
        number.setPerson(this);
        phoneNumbers.add(number);
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return ToStringBuilder.reflectionToString(this, ToStringStyle.SHORT_PREFIX_STYLE);
    }
}

@Entity
@Table(name = "phone_numbers")
public class PhoneNumber {

    public PhoneNumber() {}

    public PhoneNumber(String phoneNumber) {
        this.phoneNumber = phoneNumber;
    }

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    private Long id;

    @Column(name = "phone_number")
    private String phoneNumber;

    @ManyToOne
    @JoinColumn(name = "person_id")
    private Person person;

    public Long getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(Long id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public String getPhoneNumber() {
        return phoneNumber;
    }

    public void setPhoneNumber(String phoneNumber) {
        this.phoneNumber = phoneNumber;
    }

    public Person getPerson() {
        return person;
    }

    public void setPerson(Person person) {
        this.person = person;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return ToStringBuilder.reflectionToString(this, ToStringStyle.SHORT_PREFIX_STYLE);
    }
}

and rest endpoint:

@ResponseBody
@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
public List<Person> listPersons() {
    return personService.findAll();
}

In json response there are all fields except Id, which I need on front end side to edit/delete person. How can I configure spring boot to serialize Id as well?

That's how response looks like now:

[{
  "firstName": "Just",
  "middleName": "Test",
  "lastName": "Name",
  "comment": "Just a comment",
  "created": 1405774380410,
  "updated": null,
  "phoneNumbers": [{
    "phoneNumber": "74575754757"
  }, {
    "phoneNumber": "575757547"
  }, {
    "phoneNumber": "57547547547"
  }]
}]

UPD Have bidirectional hibernate mapping, maybe it's somehow related to issue.

Answer 1

I recently had the same problem and it's because that's how spring-boot-starter-data-rest works by default. See my SO question -> While using Spring Data Rest after migrating an app to Spring Boot, I have observed that entity properties with @Id are no longer marshalled to JSON

To customize how it behaves, you can extend RepositoryRestConfigurerAdapter to expose IDs for specific classes.

import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.data.rest.core.config.RepositoryRestConfiguration;
import org.springframework.data.rest.webmvc.config.RepositoryRestConfigurerAdapter;

@Configuration
public class RepositoryConfig extends RepositoryRestConfigurerAdapter {
    @Override
    public void configureRepositoryRestConfiguration(RepositoryRestConfiguration config) {
        config.exposeIdsFor(Person.class);
    }
}