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Issues with Kotlin's Serialization Library when Deserializing Nested Objects with Default Values

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kotlin serialization json Kotlin

I'm collaborating on a project where I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I'm testing a new approach and I'm maintaining legacy code that I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I'm stuck on something that should probably be simple. Quick question that's been bugging me - I'm facing a challenge while using Kotlin's Serialization library (version 1.5.0) to deserialize a JSON object that contains nested structures with default values. The issue arises when I attempt to deserialize a JSON string into my data class where the nested data class has properties that are initialized with default values. Specifically, the default values are not being respected during deserialization. Here's a snippet of my data classes: ```kotlin @Serializable data class Response( val status: String, val data: Data? = null ) @Serializable data class Data( val id: Int, val name: String = "Unknown" ) ``` And this is the JSON string I am trying to deserialize: ```json { "status": "success", "data": { "id": 1 // 'name' is not provided here } } ``` When I run the deserialization code: ```kotlin val json = "{\"status\": \"success\", \"data\": {\"id\": 1}}" val response = Json.decodeFromString<Response>(json) println(response) ``` I expect the output to be `Response(status=success, data=Data(id=1, name=Unknown))`. However, what I see is: ``` Response(status=success, data=Data(id=1, name=)) ``` It appears that the default value for 'name' is not being applied when 'name' is missing from the JSON. I've tried implementing custom serializers and overriding the deserialization process, but that seems overly complex for this case. Could someone help point out if I’m missing something in the configuration or if there’s a recommended way to handle default values during deserialization with Kotlin's Serialization library? For context: I'm using Kotlin on Linux. I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. This is part of a larger CLI tool I'm building. What am I doing wrong? For context: I'm using Kotlin on CentOS. Any ideas what could be causing this? Any pointers in the right direction? The project is a web app built with Kotlin. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I'd be grateful for any help. Thanks for any help you can provide!