No converter found for return value of type: class java.util.ArrayList

I am testing a Spring MVC application , I am calling a database service which returns an ArrayList. I want to return this ArrayList as a Json response to my Jsp, where I am going to iterate through it and render search results through jquery.

 @RequestMapping(value = "/web/getprofiles", method = RequestMethod.GET)

    public @ResponseBody

    List getProfiles(HttpServletRequest request) {

        ArrayList<SearchDO> searchResults = profileService.getProfileSearch();

     return searchResults;

    }

Getting following exception while returning the ArrayList from Controller method :

Oct 20, 2015 10:45:20 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve invoke

SEVERE: Servlet.service() for servlet [appServlet] in context with path [/web] threw exception [Request processing failed; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: No converter found for return value of type: class java.util.ArrayList] with root cause

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: No converter found for return value of type: class java.util.ArrayList

at org.springframework.util.Assert.isTrue(Assert.java:68)

at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.AbstractMessageConverterMethodProcessor.writeWithMessageConverters(AbstractMessageConverterMethodProcessor.java:124)

I am running this application on tomcat 7.0 with jdk 1.8 and Spring version 4.2.1.RELEASE.

Fix:

The exception here indicates that spring can not find a suitable converter to return ArrayList as a Json object as expected. To resolve this configure the resource resolver in your spring configuration xml.
Make you have specified <annotation-driven /> in spring configuration.

Spring configuration xml

          

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<beans:beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc"

xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"

xmlns:beans="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"

xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"

xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc http://www.springframework.org/schema/mvc/spring-mvc.xsd

http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd

http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd">

<!-- DispatcherServlet Context: defines this servlet's request-processing infrastructure -->

<!-- Enables the Spring MVC @Controller programming model -->

<annotation-driven />

<!-- Handles HTTP GET requests for /resources/** by efficiently serving up static resources in the ${webappRoot}/resources directory -->

<resources mapping="/resources/**" location="/resources/" />

<context:component-scan base-package="com.testweb.controllers" />

<beans:bean

class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.ContentNegotiatingViewResolver">

    <beans:property name="useNotAcceptableStatusCode"

        value="false" />

    <beans:property name="contentNegotiationManager">

        <beans:bean

            class="org.springframework.web.accept.ContentNegotiationManager">

            <beans:constructor-arg>

                <beans:bean

                    class="org.springframework.web.accept.PathExtensionContentNegotiationStrategy">

                    <beans:constructor-arg>

                        <beans:map>

                            <beans:entry key="html" value="text/html" />

                            <beans:entry key="json" value="application/json" />

                        </beans:map>

                    </beans:constructor-arg>

                </beans:bean>

            </beans:constructor-arg>

        </beans:bean>

    </beans:property>

    <beans:property name="viewResolvers">

        <beans:list>

            <beans:bean

                class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.BeanNameViewResolver"/>

            

<!-- Resolves views selected for rendering by @Controllers to .jsp resources in the /WEB-INF/views directory -->

<beans:bean id="jspView"

                class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">

                <beans:property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/views/" />

                <beans:property name="suffix" value=".jsp" />

            </beans:bean>

        </beans:list>

    </beans:property>

    <beans:property name="defaultViews">

        <beans:list>

            <beans:bean

                class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.json.MappingJackson2JsonView" />

        </beans:list>

    </beans:property>

</beans:bean>

</beans:beans>

             

Make sure you have added required jackson dependencies in your pom.xml

<!-- Jackson JSON Mapper -->

<dependency>

<groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>

<artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>

<version>2.5.2</version>

</dependency>

<dependency>

<groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>

<artifactId>jackson-core</artifactId>

<version>2.5.2</version>

</dependency>

<dependency>

<groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>

<artifactId>jackson-annotations</artifactId>

<version>2.5.2</version>

</dependency>

<dependency>

<groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.jaxrs</groupId>

<artifactId>jackson-jaxrs-json-provider</artifactId>

<version>2.5.2</version>

</dependency>

<dependency>

<groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.module</groupId>

<artifactId>jackson-module-jaxb-annotations</artifactId>

<version>2.5.2</version>

</dependency>