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java.lang.IllegalStateException: Expected BEGIN_OBJECT but was STRING at line 1 column 2 path $

I am getting a response from a firebase function and dialogflow which hold some information that I need for further implementations.
The response is a JSON, which I hold in mResultFromDialogFlow, which is a HashMap (String, Object) type variable.
I've searched other threads like this, but the strange thing was that my problem is at column 2, not 1 and I don't see the problem in the json.
Here is the gson part. The error is thrown on the line with Properties!
Gson _gson = new Gson();
String _json = _gson.toJson(mResultFromDialogFlow.get("parameters"));
Properties data = _gson.fromJson(_json, Properties.class);
mTime = data.getProperty("date"); // String type variable
mDateFromUser = data.getProperty("time"); // String type variable
This is the response JSON:
{"date":"2019-07-19T12:00:00+03:00","time":"2019-07-19T14:00:00+03:00"}

That looks like a JSON string converted to JSON. I suspect mResultFromDialogFlow.get("parameters") already returns a JSON string. With toJson(), you convert a JSON string to JSON.
If you try
Properties data = _gson.fromJson(mResultFromDialogFlow.get("parameters"), Properties.class);
it'll probably work.

How to convert map of JSON objects to JSON using GSON in Java?

I have a map of JSON objects as follows:
Map<String,Object> map = HashMap<String,Object>();
map.put("first_name", "prod");
JSONObject jsonObj = new JSONObject("some complex json string here");
map.put("data", jsonObj);
Gson gson = new Gson();
String result = gson.toJson(map);
Now if the "some complex JSON string here" was:
{"sender":{"id":"test test"},"recipients":{"id":"test1 test1"} }
and execute above code gives me something like:
{
"first_name": "prod",
"data": {
"map": {
"sender": {
"map": {
"id": "test test"
}
}
},
"recipients": {
"map": {
"id": "test1 test1"
}
}
}
}
}
I might have some syntax error up there, but basically I don't know why I am seeing objects wrapped around map's.
Update
according to comments, it is a bad idea to mix different json parsers.
i can understand that. but my case requires calling an external api which takes a hash map of objects that are deserialized using gson eventually.
is there any other object bedsides JSONObject that i can add to the map and still have gson create json out of it without extra 'map' structure? i do understand that i can create java beans and achieve this. but i'm looking for a simpler way since my data structure can be complex.
Update2
going one step back, i am given a xml string. and i have converted them to json object.
now i have to use an external api that takes a map which in turn gets converted to json string using gson in external service.
so i am given an xml data structure, but i need to pass a map to that function. the way i have described above produces extra 'map' structures when converted to json string using gson. i do not have control to change how the external service behaves (e.g. using gson to convert the map).

Mixing classes from two different JSON libraries will end in nothing but tears. And that's your issue; JSONObject is not part of Gson. In addition, trying to mix Java data structures with a library's parse tree representations is also a bad idea; conceptually an object in JSON is a map.
If you're going to use Gson, either use all Java objects and let Gson convert them, or use the classes from Gson:
JsonObject root = new JsonObject();
root.addProperty("first_name", "prod");
JsonElement element = new JsonParser().parse(complexJsonString);
root.addProperty("data", element);
String json = new Gson().toJson(root);

This has to do with the internal implementation of JSONObject. The class itself has an instance field of type java.util.Map with the name map.
When you parse the String
{"sender":{"id":"test test"},"recipients":{"id":"test1 test1"} }
with JSONObject, you actually have 1 root JSONObject, two nested JSONObjects, one with name sender and one with name recipients.
The hierarchy is basically like so
JSONObject.map ->
"sender" ->
JSONObject.map ->
"id" -> "test test",
"recipients" ->
JSONObject.map ->
"id" -> "test test1"
Gson serializes your objects by mapping each field value to the field name.
Listen to this man.
And this one.

I'd a similar problem and I finally resolved it using json-simple.
HashMap<String, Object> object = new HashMap<String,Object>;
// Add some values ...
// And finally convert it
String objectStr = JSONValue.toJSONString(object);

You may try out the standard implementation of the Java API for JSON processing which is part of J2EE.
JsonObject obj = Json
.createObjectBuilder()
.add("first_name", "prod")
.add("data", Json.createObjectBuilder()
.add("sender", Json.createObjectBuilder().add("id", "test test"))
.add("recipients", Json.createObjectBuilder().add("id", "test1 test1"))).build();
Map<String, Object> prop = new HashMap<String, Object>() {
{
put(JsonGenerator.PRETTY_PRINTING, true);
}
};
JsonWriter writer = Json.createWriterFactory(prop).createWriter(System.out);
writer.writeObject(obj);
writer.close();
The output should be:
{
"first_name":"prod",
"data":{
"sender":{
"id":"test test"
},
"recipients":{
"id":"test1 test1"
}
}
}

nameValuePair key added in new JSONObject

When I am building a json object from string it is appended with a root key "nameValuePairs".
String curStr = "{\"e\": \"{}\", \"f\": \"{}\", \"g\": \"{}\"}";
JSONObject oldObj = new JSONObject(curStr);
results to
{"nameValuePairs":{"b":"{}","c":"{}","a":"{}"}}
Why?
Any way to prevent that?
Btw, I am using the string json to represent the actual json which I will use later.

First of all your json is syntactically correct but I guess you wished to represent objects as values, in your case the curly brackets are evaluated as simple strings:
String curStr = "{\"e\": \"{}\", \"f\": \"{}\", \"g\": \"{}\"}";
JSONObject oldObj = new JSONObject(curStr);
using a json like this instead will produce values as objects:
String curStr = "{\"e\": {}, \"f\": {}, \"g\": {}}";
JSONObject oldObj = new JSONObject(curStr);
Anyway, I've tried to create that JSONObject and then print a toString of it, and it will simply print the json, without any accessory name.
As you find out in the comment the problem was given by Gson, that will evaluate the JSONObject as a map. I've tried a little example and I've got "map" as field. Probably I've tried a different version of Gson.
Gson gson = new Gson();
String jsonStr = gson.toJson(oldObj);
result: {"map":{"f":"{}","g":"{}","e":"{}"}}
If you want to create a custom object and deserialize a json with Gson create a class with those properties and use the fromJson(String json, Class clazz) method
public class Test {
private String e;
private String f;
private String g;
}
and
Gson gson = new Gson();
Test myTestObj = gson.fromJson(curStr, Test.class);
Hope this will help you. :)

You can try jsonStringer instead.
Something like below code:
JSONStringer jObject = new JSONStringer()
.object()
.key("UserName").value(userNameValue)
.key("Name").value(nameValue)
.key("EmailId").value(emailIdValue)
.key("CountryId").value(contryIdValue)
.key("CountryName").value("") // It should be blank As Spanish Name is not set if User have App in Spanish
.key("State").value(stateValue)
.key("City").value(cityValue)
.key("ImageByteArray").value(imageBytes)
.endObject();
UPDATE
I have just use your code in my App and check it.
Its showing me the result as we have formed.
Result i am getting is:
{
"f": "{}",
"g": "{}",
"e": "{}"
}
Please check your packages you are importing.
For your reference i am importing below class to represent json object.
import org.json.JSONException;
import org.json.JSONObject;
Just import above class and see the result.
Let me know if you still have any query.

Android: Exception when converting a String into a JSONObject

I get the following Error when I try to convert a JSON String into a JSONObject.
Value 48.466667|9.883333 at location of type java.lang.String
cannot be converted to JSONObject
The String is valid JSON, I tested it with http://jsonlint.com/
Example:
{"name":"An der Decke","location":"48.412583|10.0385","type":"Virtual","size":null,"status":"Available","difficulty":1,"rating":null,"terrain":1}
The code that produces the exception looks like that:
jsonObject = new JSONObject(result);
jsonArray = new JSONArray();
Iterator<String> iter = jsonObject.keys();
while (iter.hasNext()) {
String key = iter.next();
try {
JSONObject value = (JSONObject) jsonObject.get(key); <---- Exception
jsonArray.put(value);
} catch (JSONException e) {
// Something went wrong!
}
}
Is the pipe | symbol not a valid character in Java JSON?
EDIT:
The thing is, it works fine if the JSON String doesn't include the "location":"48.412583|10.0385" part...

You seem to misunderstand how the org.json library works.
As explained on the JSON homepage, a JSON value can be a string, number, object, array, true/false or null. The library maps these value types to String, Number subclasses, JSONArray, JSONObject, Boolean or null.
Not everything in that library is a JSONObject. In fact, a JSONObject is specifically used to represent a name/value pair object. JSONObject.get() can potentially return any of the aforementioned value types, that's why it needs to fall back to the greatest common denominator type: Object (and not JSONObject). Thus, casting everything to a JSONObject won't work.
It's your responsibility to ensure that you're casting to the correct type using your knowledge of the incoming data structure. This seems to be a problem in your case: your JSON string contains strings (for name, location, type and status), integers (for difficulty and terrain) and nulls (for size). What exactly are you trying to do with these?

If your goal is just to get a JSONArray of all your JSON string values, there's a much simpler way to do it.
JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(result);
JSONArray jsonArray = jsonObject.toJSONArray(jsonObject.names());
System.out.println(jsonArray); // prints:
// [1,"Available","48.412583|10.0385","An der Decke",1,null,"Virtual",null]
With that aside, you were wrong to assume that every value encapsulated within JSON would be a JSON object itself. In fact, in your case none of them are. The correct types of all the values in your JSON are
// String
System.out.println(jsonObject.getString("name")); // An der Decke
System.out.println(jsonObject.getString("location")); // 48.412583|10.0385
System.out.println(jsonObject.getString("type")); // Virtual
System.out.println(jsonObject.getString("status")); // Available
// Null
System.out.println(jsonObject.isNull("size")); // true
System.out.println(jsonObject.isNull("rating")); // true
// Integer
System.out.println(jsonObject.getInt("terrain")); // 1
System.out.println(jsonObject.getInt("difficulty")); // 1
On the other hand, if your name was an embedded JSON object consisting of first, middle and last names, your JSON string (ignoring the rest of the keys for brevity) would have looked like
{"name": {"fname" : "An", "mname" : "der", "lname" : "Decke"}}
Now, we can put getJSONObject() to use because we really do have an embedded JSON object.
JSONObject jsonObj = new JSONObject("{\"name\":
{\"fname\" : \"An\", \"mname\" : \"der\", \"lname\" : \"Decke\"}}");
// get embedded "name" JSONObject
JSONObject name = jsonObj.getJSONObject("name");
System.out.println(name.getString("fname") + " "
+ name.getString("mname") + " "
+ name.getString("lname")); // An der Decke

The get() method of JSONObject returns a result of type Object. In this case, it seems it is a String. It's as if you were doing
JSONObject value = (JSONObject) new String("asdasdsa");
which obviously makes no sense as they are incompatible types.
Instead, retrieve the value, create a JSONObject from it and add it to the JSONArray.

Parsing JSON server response into JSON Array

I am using Java to parse a JSON response from a server. My end goal is to have the data from results in an Array. Currently I am using this to try and get the results:
JSONArray jArray = myResponse.getJSONArray("results");
This code fails because it is looking for an array of objects, rather than an array of strings:
org.json.JSONException: Value blah at 0 of type java.lang.String cannot be converted to JSONObject
This is my server's JSON Response:
{
status: "OK",
results: [
"blah",
"bleh",
"blah"
]
}
Is there a simple way to get the "results" value into an array? Or should I just write my own parser.
Thanks
---------- UPDATE ----------
Looks like my problem was actually occuring somewhere else, and not where the JSON attribute "results" was being converted into a JSONArray.
Sorry and thanks for the answers, they helped me realize I was looking in the wrong spot.

This should be it. So you're probably trying to get JSONObject instead of String inside the results aarray.
JSONObject responseObject = new JSONObject(responseString);
JSONArray resultsArray = responseObject.getJSONArray("results");
for (int i=0; i<resultsArray.length(); i++)
String resultString = resultsArray.getString(i);

As you will probably have more properties, than only the String[] result, I recommend to define a DTO like this:
public class Dto {
//of course you should have private fields and public setters/getters, but this is only a sample
public String status;
public List<String> results;//this can be also an array
}
And then in your code:
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
Dto dto = mapper.readValue(inputDtoJson, Dto.class);//now in dto you have all the properties you need