How to serialize this tree like data structure?

[neoflume]

This is my data structure:

struct Tree {
    root: Box<str>,
    branches: Vec<Tree>,
}

I want the output from serde json like this:

{
    root: { 
        another_root: {
            third_root: final_root // if branches are empty(end condition)
        }
}

However my problem is I can't implement serialize trait for this.
It feels like I have to convert my data structure to reflect the data. But, I can't change the data structure now.
In my case, Tree.root will always have unique value. So, duplicate keys will not be an issue.
How to implement this?

[2e71828]

You can use the from and into serde attributes to specify an intermediate type to use for serializing and deserializing.

[2e71828]

I'm not sure your encoding scheme works. How do you expect a node that contains multiple leaves to be encoded, for example? If I understand your intention correctly, this should encode as a JSON object with one key, one, with a value of both two and three at the same time, because they're leaf nodes.

Tree {
    root: "one",
    branches: [
        Tree { root: "two", branches: [] },
        Tree { root: "three", branches: [] },
    ]
}

---

The closest I could figure out quickly produces something like this:

{
  "one": {
    "two-a": {
      "three": {
        "four": {}
      }
    },
    "two-b": {}
  }
}

Rust Playground

[neoflume]

Actually, the data structure is a little flawed . I have to model the data structure correctly for my use-case. Anyway thanks for the answer.