title: How to deserialise empty array/list?
body: <p>I have a property</p>
  
  <pre><code>@JsonProperty
  private Map&lt;String, String&gt; parameters = new HashMap&lt;String, String&gt;();
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When I try to deserialise by calling objectMapper.readValue(...) everything works fine until the parameters field in the JSON is empty, ie.</p>
  
  <pre><code>"parameters":[]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I get this exception...</p>
  
  <pre><code>org.codehaus.jackson.map.JsonMappingException: Can not deserialize instance of java.util.HashMap out of START_ARRAY token
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How do I handle empty list? And no I don't have any control over the JSON coming in.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks.</p>