title: Jackson - how to write custom deserializer
body: <p>I would like to use the Jackson classes to convert my list of HashMaps to a list of objects (which i have read can be done).</p>
  
  <p>My object that I want to serialize looks like this...</p>
  
  <pre><code>public class FinancialTransaction {
      private Date tranDate;
      private String tranDescription;
      private Double debit;
      private Double credit;
      ...getters and setters...
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And I would like to do something like this...</p>
  
  <pre><code>    ArrayList&lt;FinancialTransaction&gt; transactions = 
               new ArrayList&lt;FinancialTransaction&gt;(); 
  
      HashMap&lt;String, String&gt; records = new HashMap&lt;String, String&gt;();
      records.put("tranDate", "08/08/2014");
      records.put("tranDescription", "08/08/2014");
      records.put("debit", "1.50");
      records.put("credit", null);true);
  
      for (HashMap&lt;String, String&gt; record : records) {
          ObjectMapper m = new ObjectMapper();
          FinancialTransaction ft = m.convertValue(record, FinancialTransaction.class);       
          transactions.add(ft);
      }
      return transactions;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Where the HashMap's key values are equal to the names of the properties in my FinancialTransaction class but the values are all strings.</p>
  
  <p>Because all the values of the hashmap are strings I get an error when trying to convert from a map to my object. Which makes me think I need to write a custom deserializer? Can someone please help me with how my custom deserializer class should look. Or if I don't need one that would be better.</p>
  
  <p>thanks</p>