Deserialize JSON with Jackson into Polymorphic Types - A Complete Example

Jackson API Versions Note The following code examples were written using Jackson 1.7.x or 1.8.x. They probably work as-is with Jackson 1.9.x, but Jackson 2.0 introduced API changes significant enough that this code does not compile with it. On initial review, it appears that package names changed, and at least one method signature changed or was moved or was renamed or no longer exists. In the near future, I may post updated code examples that use Jackson 2.x. tl;dnr Skip to the fourth, fifth, and sixth examples. Why This Post Exists While recently answering a question on StackOverflow.com about deserialization of JSON into polymorhpic types in Java, I couldn't find a simple and complete example using Jackson. At the time of this writing, the official documentation on the subject describes aspects of how to do this, but it doesn't have a full example. Searching other resources also didn't turn up any complete examples.

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Following are deserialization examples with Jackson that build up to a complete example of populating a polymorphic data structure in Java. The first three examples do not involve Polymorphism. Polymorphism is introduced in the fourth example.