Jackson enum Serializing and DeSerializer

The serializer / deserializer solution pointed out by @xbakesx is an excellent one if you wish to completely decouple your enum class from its JSON representation.

Alternatively, if you prefer a self-contained solution, an implementation based on @JsonCreator and @JsonValue annotations would be more convenient.

So leveraging on the example by @Stanley the following is a complete self-contained solution (Java 6, Jackson 1.9):

public enum DeviceScheduleFormat {    Weekday,    EvenOdd,    Interval;    private static Map<String, DeviceScheduleFormat> namesMap = new HashMap<String, DeviceScheduleFormat>(3);    static {        namesMap.put("weekday", Weekday);        namesMap.put("even-odd", EvenOdd);        namesMap.put("interval", Interval);    }    @JsonCreator    public static DeviceScheduleFormat forValue(String value) {        return namesMap.get(StringUtils.lowerCase(value));    }    @JsonValue    public String toValue() {        for (Entry<String, DeviceScheduleFormat> entry : namesMap.entrySet()) {            if (entry.getValue() == this)                return entry.getKey();        }        return null; // or fail    }}

Note that as of this commit in June 2015 (Jackson 2.6.2 and above) you can now simply write:

public enum Event {    @JsonProperty("forgot password")    FORGOT_PASSWORD;}

The behavior is documented here: https://fasterxml.github.io/jackson-annotations/javadoc/2.11/com/fasterxml/jackson/annotation/JsonProperty.html

Starting with Jackson 2.6 this annotation may also be used to change serialization of Enum like so:

 public enum MyEnum {      @JsonProperty("theFirstValue") THE_FIRST_VALUE,      @JsonProperty("another_value") ANOTHER_VALUE; }

as an alternative to using JsonValue annotation.

You should create a static factory method which takes single argument and annotate it with @JsonCreator (available since Jackson 1.2)

@JsonCreatorpublic static Event forValue(String value) { ... }

Read more about JsonCreator annotation here.