Convert a protobuf to JSON using Jackson?

The current way (Oct-2018) to serialize a protobuf is to use com.google.protobuf.util.JsonFormat in the following manner:

JsonFormat.printer().print(myMessageOrBuilder)

I used the @JsonSerialize(using = MyMessageSerializer.class) annotation right before my protobuf object and added this class:

public static class MyMessageSerializer extends JsonSerializer<Message> {    @Override    public void serialize(Message message, JsonGenerator gen, SerializerProvider serializers) throws IOException {        gen.writeRawValue(JsonFormat.printer().print(message));    }}

This allowed new ObjectMapper().writeValueAsString(wrapperObject) to properly convert my protobuf to JSON.

I used the JsonFormat class (com.googlecode.protobuf.format.JsonFormat) to convert the protobuf:

new JsonFormat().printToString(myObject)

This did the job perfectly for me.

The include has changed from com.googlecode.protobuf.format.JsonFormattocom.google.protobuf.util.JsonFormat

So, if your protobuf dependency is missing the format package, try looking for JsonFormat in util.

With this include, you should be able to use

new JsonFormat().printToString(myObject)

as @amad-person suggested.