Hide the entity/model class field value in SpringBoot app

Introduction: It's easy to hide the field value from the REST API call using the annotation JsonIgnore, all you need is the field that you want to hide the variable/field. Let's take an example UserCredentials java class below:

package com.example.restful.webservice.demorestservice.credentials;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonIgnore;

public class UserCredentials {

    private int id;

    @JsonIgnore
    private String password;

    @JsonIgnore
    private String securityQuestion1;

    @JsonIgnore
    private String securityQuestion2;

    @JsonIgnore
    private String securityQuestion3;

    public UserCredentials(int id, String password, String securityQuestion1, String securityQuestion2, String securityQuestion3) {
        this.id = id;
        this.password = password;
        this.securityQuestion1 = securityQuestion1;
        this.securityQuestion2 = securityQuestion2;
        this.securityQuestion3 = securityQuestion3;

    }

    public String getSecurityQuestion1() {
        return securityQuestion1;
    }

    public String getSecurityQuestion2() {
        return securityQuestion2;
    }

    public String getSecurityQuestion3() {
        return securityQuestion3;
    }

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

    public int getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setPassword(String password) {
        this.password = password;
    }

    public String getPassword() {
        return password;
    }

}

Steps for implementing the JsonIgnore annotation: Add the JsonIgnore annotation to the field/variable that you want to implement as shown below code snippet

    @JsonIgnore
    private String password;

    @JsonIgnore
    private String securityQuestion1;

    @JsonIgnore
    private String securityQuestion2;

    @JsonIgnore
    private String securityQuestion3;

controller class that has only GET http method look like below:

    @GetMapping("/user-credentials-info")
    private UserCredentials userCredentials() {

        return new UserCredentials(12345, "something", "what's your birth city",  "what's your mother's maiden name", "what's your first job role");
    }

hit your url that you have configured for your application controller class REST call method, in this case mine is localhost:8080/user-credentials-info and the as expected the only field that doesn't have the @JsonIgnore annotation not being added should come as the response as shown below:

Remove the @JsonIgnoreannotation to see the actual results:

    private int id;
    private String password;
    private String securityQuestion1;
    private String securityQuestion2;
    private String securityQuestion3;

hit the url localhost:8080/user-credentials-info. As expected the field value should come back as the argument value that is being passed.