Please, see this question: How do you override the null serializer in Jackson 2.0?. For XmlMapper it could look like below. Create NullSerializer:
class NullSerializer extends JsonSerializer<Object> {
@Override
public void serialize(Object value, JsonGenerator jgen, SerializerProvider provider) throws IOException, JsonProcessingException {
jgen.writeString("");
}
}
and simple usage:
XmlSerializerProvider provider = new XmlSerializerProvider(new XmlRootNameLookup());
provider.setNullValueSerializer(new NullSerializer());
XmlMapper xmlMapper = new XmlMapper();
xmlMapper.setSerializerProvider(provider);
System.out.println(xmlMapper.writeValueAsString(new Entity()));
Above program prints:
<Entity xmlns=""><field></field></Entity>