android - Cannot deserialize instance of object out of START_ARRAY token in Spring 3 REST Webservice

Question

I am making use of this cool thing Spring offers: Spring RESTWebService (Version of spring is 3). If I access the URL from browser I can see the JSON response, but from a Client endpoint (Android application) iIreceive this error message:

Caused by: org.springframework.web.client.ResourceAccessException: 
    I/O error: Can not deserialize instance of MyObject out of START_ARRAY token
  at [Source: org.apache.http.conn.EofSensorInputStream@4076e940; line: 1, 
    column: 1]; nested exception is org.codehaus.jackson.map.JsonMappingException: 
    Can not deserialize instance of MyObject  out of START_ARRAY token
  at [Source: org.apache.http.conn.EofSensorInputStream@4076e940; line: 1, column: 1]
   at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.doExecute(RestTemplate.java:466)
   at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.execute(RestTemplate.java:414)
   at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.getForEntity(RestTemplate.java:234)
   at com.be.android.locateconsultants.resources.AsyncTaskRESTServiceCaller.doInBackground(AsyncTaskRESTServiceCaller.java:43)
   at com.be.android.locateconsultants.resources.AsyncTaskRESTServiceCaller.doInBackground(AsyncTaskRESTServiceCaller.java:1)
   at android.os.AsyncTask$2.call(AsyncTask.java:252)
   at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:305)
   ... 4 more

 Caused by: org.codehaus.jackson.map.JsonMappingException: Can not deserialize 
    instance of MyObject  out of START_ARRAY token
  at [Source: org.apache.http.conn.EofSensorInputStream@4076e940; line: 1, column: 1]
   at org.codehaus.jackson.map.deser.StdDeserializationContext.mappingException(StdDeserializationContext.java:198)
   at org.codehaus.jackson.map.deser.BeanDeserializer.deserializeUsingCreator(BeanDeserializer.java:565)
   at org.codehaus.jackson.map.deser.BeanDeserializer.deserialize(BeanDeserializer.java:365)
   at org.codehaus.jackson.map.ObjectMapper._readMapAndClose(ObjectMapper.java:2395)
   at org.codehaus.jackson.map.ObjectMapper.readValue(ObjectMapper.java:1655)
   at org.springframework.http.converter.json.MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter.readInternal(MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter.java:135)
   at org.springframework.http.converter.AbstractHttpMessageConverter.read(AbstractHttpMessageConverter.java:154)
   at org.springframework.web.client.HttpMessageConverterExtractor.extractData(HttpMessageConverterExtractor.java:74)
   at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate$ResponseEntityResponseExtractor.extractData(RestTemplate.java:632)
   at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate$ResponseEntityResponseExtractor.extractData(RestTemplate.java:618)
   at org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.doExecute(RestTemplate.java:459)
   ... 10 more

MyObject structure is the same as the one from the server side application.

I have tried to request the server like this:

final String url = ".....";
RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate();
ResponseEntity<Consultant> responseEntity = restTemplate.getForEntity(
            url, Consultant.class);

Or like this:

HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
headers.setContentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON);
HttpEntity<String> entity = new HttpEntity<String>(headers);
ResponseEntity<MyObject> response = restTemplate
            .exchange("....",HttpMethod.GET, entity, MyObject.class);
System.out.println("RESPONSE: " + response.getBody());

But still the same error as above. Can't figure out what I am missing at this point, any idea or hints would be great. Thank you.

Answer 1

You should map it to List<Consultant> rather than to Consultant.class.