Jackson conditional @JsonUnwrapped

Can I use @JsonUnwrapped conditionally? I don't want to use it during serialization but would like to use it while deserializing the object.

One way to do it is create two different classes or create a subclass overriding just that property which needs to behave different while serializing and deserializing. This doesn't sound right. Any other alternatives or Jackson way of tackling the problem?

You can use MixIn feature. Using this feature POJO class is decoupled from Jackson annotations. You can add necessary annotation in runtime using MixIn. See below example:

import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonUnwrapped;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;

public class JacksonTest {

    private static final String UNWRAPPED_JSON = "{\n" +
            "  \"age\" : 13,\n" +
            "  \"first\" : \"Huckleberry\",\n" +
            "  \"last\" : \"Finn\"\n" +
            "}";

    @Test
    public void test() throws IOException {
        System.out.println("### Serialize without unwrapped annotation ###");
        ObjectMapper serializer = new ObjectMapper();
        System.out.println(serializer.writerWithDefaultPrettyPrinter().writeValueAsString(createParent()));

        System.out.println("### Deserialize with unwrapped annotation ###");
        ObjectMapper deserializer = new ObjectMapper();
        deserializer.addMixInAnnotations(Parent.class, ParentMixIn.class);
        System.out.println(deserializer.readValue(UNWRAPPED_JSON, Parent.class));
    }

    private Parent createParent() {
        Name name = new Name();
        name.first = "Tom";
        name.last = "Sawyer";

        Parent parent = new Parent();
        parent.setAge(12);
        parent.setName(name);

        return parent;
    }
}

class Parent {

    private int age;
    private Name name;

    public int getAge() {
        return age;
    }

    public void setAge(int age) {
        this.age = age;
    }

    public Name getName() {
        return name;
    }

    public void setName(Name name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Parent{" +
                "age=" + age +
                ", name=" + name +
                '}';
    }
}

interface ParentMixIn {

    @JsonUnwrapped
    Name getName();
}

class Name {

    public String first, last;

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Name{" +
                "first='" + first + '\'' +
                ", last='" + last + '\'' +
                '}';
    }
}

Above program prints:

### Serialize without unwrapped annotation ###
{
  "age" : 12,
  "name" : {
    "first" : "Tom",
    "last" : "Sawyer"
  }
}

### Deserialize with unwrapped annotation ###
Parent{age=13, name=Name{first='Huckleberry', last='Finn'}}