Spring JPA Self Reference Issue - spring

Question

I created a table, Category in Postgres which holds both parent and child categories and references to itself (it's a self join table)
The table comprises of following columns: id, parent_id, start_date, end_date, status
I also have one row for root parent whose id = 0. So, any first level categories have root as its parent.
Example: Apparel > Women. Here Apparel(id=1) is a first level category whose parent_id = 0. Women is another category whose parent_id = 1.
I am using Spring JpaRepository findAll on my table and this is leading to infinite recursion.
POJO
#Table(name = "ofr_category")
#Getter
#Setter
#NoArgsConstructor
public class Category {
#Id
#Column(name = "cat_id", updatable = true, unique = true, nullable = false)
#GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.SEQUENCE, generator = "CATEGORY_SEQ")
#SequenceGenerator(sequenceName = "CATEGORY_ID_SEQ", allocationSize = 1, name = "CATEGORY_SEQ")
private Long id;
#Column(name = "cat_name")
private String name;
#Column(name = "cat_status")
private String status;
#Column(name = "start_date")
private LocalDate startDate;
#Column(name = "end_date")
private LocalDate endDate;
#Column(name = "parent_id")
private Long parentId;
#JsonBackReference
#ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY)
#JoinColumn(name = "parent_id", insertable = false, updatable = false)
private Category parentCategory;
#JsonManagedReference
#OneToMany(fetch = FetchType.EAGER, mappedBy = "parentCategory")
private List<Category> childCategories;
public Category getParentCategory(){
return parentCategory;
}
}
Exception seen
"Caused by: com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.exc.InvalidDefinitionException: Direct self-reference leading to cycle (through reference chain: java.util.ArrayList[0]->com.test.category.dataobject.Category[\"parentCategory\"]->com.test.category.dataobject.Category[\"parentCategory\"]->com.test.category.dataobject.Category[\"parentCategory\"])",

Answer 1

Maybe you can have a look into #JsonIdentityInfo, which solved a similar problem for me. You can check if this basic annotation works for you.:
#JsonIdentityInfo(generator = ObjectIdGenerators.PropertyGenerator.class, property = "id")
public class Category {
...
}