How to deserialize a blank JSON string value to null for java.lang.String?

It is possible to define a custom deserializer for the String type, overriding the standard String deserializer:

this.mapper = new ObjectMapper();

SimpleModule module = new SimpleModule();

module.addDeserializer(String.class, new StdDeserializer<String>(String.class) {

    @Override
    public String deserialize(JsonParser p, DeserializationContext ctxt) throws IOException, JsonProcessingException {
        String result = StringDeserializer.instance.deserialize(p, ctxt);
        if (StringUtils.isEmpty(result)) {
            return null;
        }
        return result;
    }
});

mapper.registerModule(module);

This way all String fields will behave the same way.

Jackson will give you null for other objects, but for String it will give empty String.

But you can use a Custom JsonDeserializer to do this:

class CustomDeserializer extends JsonDeserializer<String> {

    @Override
    public String deserialize(JsonParser jsonParser, DeserializationContext context) throws IOException, JsonProcessingException {
        JsonNode node = jsonParser.readValueAsTree();
        if (node.asText().isEmpty()) {
            return null;
        }
        return node.toString();
    }

}

In class you have to use it for location field:

class EventBean {
    public Long eventId;
    public String title;

    @JsonDeserialize(using = CustomDeserializer.class)
    public String location;
}