Problem with resource that returns Object with CXF version >= 2.6.1

[Duncan Keysell (dkeysell)]

Hi,

I've inherited maintenance of a REST service that has a resource with the 
following interface:


@GET

    @Path("/{etype}")

    @Description("Return a list of all the instances of {etype}")

    Object findEntities(@PathParam("etype") String entityType, @Context 
MessageContext mx);


If I upgrade the service to use a recent version of CXF then it fails with the 
following message:


"No message body writer has been found for response class Object."


The service works with CXF versions 2.4.7, 2.5.0 and 2.6.0.


It fails with the message, above, with versions after and including 2.4.8 and 
2.6.1. Not sure at which version in 2.5.x stream it stops working, but it does.


To check its not something I broke in my application code I took the 
jax_rs_basic project from the samples within the 2.6.0 and 2.6.1 distributions 
and changed the getCustomer method to return Object:


@GET

@Path("/customers/{id}/")

public Customer getCustomer(@PathParam("id") String id)


To


@GET

@Path("/customers/{id}/")

public Object getCustomer(@PathParam("id") String id)




I built this and found that it continues to work in 2.6.0 but fails in 2.6.1 
with the "No message body writer has been found for response class Object."


Is this an intentional change in CXF or should I raise a bug for this?


Did I miss some configuration to handle this case? Do I need to start updating 
all my interfaces to return classes that are directly annotated with jaxb?



Thanks

Duncan