receiving json and deserializing as List of object at spring mvc controller

Here is the code that works for me. The key is that you need a wrapper class.

public class Person {

    private String name;
    private Integer age;

    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

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

    public Integer getAge() {
        return age;
    }

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

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "Person [name=" + name + ", age=" + age + "]";
    }

A PersonWrapper class

public class PersonWrapper {

    private List<Person> persons;

    /**
     * @return the persons
     */
    public List<Person> getPersons() {
        return persons;
    }

    /**
     * @param persons the persons to set
     */
    public void setPersons(List<Person> persons) {
        this.persons = persons;
    }
}

My Controller methods

@RequestMapping(value="person", method=RequestMethod.POST,consumes="application/json",produces="application/json")
    @ResponseBody
    public List<String> savePerson(@RequestBody PersonWrapper wrapper) {
        List<String> response = new ArrayList<String>();
        for (Person person: wrapper.getPersons()){
        personService.save(person);
         response.add("Saved person: " + person.toString());
    }
        return response;
    }

The request sent is json in POST

{"persons":[{"name":"shail1","age":"2"},{"name":"shail2","age":"3"}]}

And the response is

["Saved person: Person [name=shail1, age=2]","Saved person: Person [name=shail2, age=3]"]