JSON parse error: Cannot deserialize value of type `byte[]` from String

Question

I am developing an Android App with a Java Backend using Spring Data JPA. One of my classes represents a profile image and contains the following field:

 @Lob
    @Column(name = "image")
    private byte[] image;

When i invoke the Rest API that saves the above class the JSON request looks like this:

{"image":"[B@23bafb3"}

Then the described error occurs. I have seen suggestions of declaring the image as string and then get the bytes but this does not seem a good practice to me.

kerbermeister · Accepted Answer · 2023-02-03 13:10:44Z

1

the issue is with the serialization of the byte[] to JSON. The default serialization of a byte[] in Java will result in the string representation you have shown which is not a valid format for a binary image.

To correctly serialize the byte[] as a base64 encoded string, you can use a custom serializer/deserializer in your API. One option is to use the Base64 class in Java to encode the byte[] as a string and then decode the string back to a byte[] during deserialization.

edited Feb 3, 2023 at 13:10

kerbermeister

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answered Feb 2, 2023 at 11:45

Yacine

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1 Comment

John Williams Over a year ago

As per @Yacine, you can't put a byte[] in JSON because to contains non-readable characters. it is standard practice to Base64 encode (to a readable character only) String so that it can be serialised to JSON.

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