How to remove attributes before JSON is sent from Custom REST Apex?

Question

I get back JSON like the following:

         {
         Id = a0Ef0000002TPKVEA4;
         Name = a0Ef0000002TPKV;
         attributes =             {
             type = "Market__c";
             url = "/services/data/v29.0/sobjects/Market__c/a0Ef0000002TPKVEA4";
         };

The attributes portion doubles the data size. I've searched the docs but can't find a way to remove it. Here is the code I am using

 @HttpGet
 global static Aggregate doGet() {
     RestRequest req = RestContext.request;
     string userid = req.params.get('UserId');

     try {
         User user = [SELECT FirstName, LastName, Title, Email, Phone, MobilePhone,
          Street, City, State, PostalCode, Country, LevelOfCare__c, Username, PERNER__c
          FROM User WHERE Id = :userid];

          List<Market__c> markets = [SELECT Id, Name FROM Market__c];

         return new Aggregate(user, markets);         
     }
     catch (exception e) {
         return null;
     }
 }

 global class Aggregate {
     public User user {get; set;}
     public List<Market__c> markets {get; set;}

     public Aggregate(User u, List<Market__c> m) {
         user = u;
         markets = m;
     }
 } }

Answer 1

As it is custom Apex code, instead of directly returning the SObject, return a simple "bean" class that just has an Id and Name property with the values copied from the SObject:

public class Bean {
    public Id Id;
    public String Name;
    Bean(SObject sob) {
       this.Id = sob.Id;
       this.Name = (String) sob.get('Name');
    }
}

PS

Based on the posted code, it is the nested SObjects that you need to eliminate:

global class Aggregate {

    public Bean user {get; set;}
    public List<Bean> markets {get; set;}

    public Aggregate(User u, List<Market__c> ms) {
        user = new Bean(u);
        markets = new List<Bean>();
        for (Market__c m : ms) {
            markets.add(new Bean(m));
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

It's a bit hacky, but you could remove the attributes by serialising and deserialising the SObjects to Maps, like this example:

Account acc = [Select Id, Name, (Select Id, Name From Contacts) From Account LIMIT 1];
Map<String,Object> accMap = (Map<String,Object>)JSON.deserializeUntyped(JSON.serialize(acc));

removeAttributes(accMap);

System.debug(JSON.serializePretty(accMap)); // et voila, no attributes

private void removeAttributes(Map<String,Object> jsonObj)  {
    for(String key : jsonObj.keySet()) {
        if(key == 'attributes') {
            jsonObj.remove(key);
        } else {
            if(jsonObj.get(key) instanceof Map<String,Object>) {
                removeAttributes((Map<String,Object>)jsonObj.get(key));
            }
            if(jsonObj.get(key) instanceof List<Object>) {
                for(Object listItem : (List<Object>)jsonObj.get(key)) {
                    if(listItem instanceof Map<String,Object>)  {
                        removeAttributes((Map<String,Object>)listItem);
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }  
}

Probably not any more palatable that @KeithC's answer, but an alternative.

Answer 3

You can simply use JSONGenerator to get rid of the "attributes" element.

Refer to this link: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.apexcode.meta/apexcode/apex_json_jsongenerator.htm

Answer 4

Convert the object into a string and do not use standard salesforce serialize method.

Ex:

Account a = new Account(); String resString = String.valueof(a); return resString;

In this way we could not have \ in the response.