Having trouble creating a DTO class for the following JSON - java

I am trying to create Dto class in Java for a json which is similar to this.
{
"abcList":[
{
"keyA":"valA",
"lstB":[{
"keyC":"valC"
},{
"keyC":"valC1"
}]
},{
"keyA":"valA",
"lstB":{
"keyC":"valC2"
}
}
]
}
Is the Json even valid? Inside the list abcList, the first object has a list "lstB" and in the second object, the field "lstB" is not a list.
If the json is valid, how would I create the corresponding Java Classes?
This does not work.
class TopObject{
List<ABC> abcList;
}
class ABC{
public String keyA;
public List<B> lstB;
}
class B{
public String keyC;
}
I mean I can parse it successfully with gson, iterating through every element of the json with a code like below,
if(lstB.isJsonArray()){
System.out.println("lstb is array");
List<B> arLstB = parseBArray(lstB);
abc.setLstB(arLstB);
}else{
System.out.println("lstb is not array");
B b = parseB(lstB);
abc.addB(b);
}
but the original json is very large and i will end up writing the iterating logic for days. I want a solution where I can annotate it properly and do the mapping in one shot like this.
gson.fromJson(jsonInString, TopObject.class);

Related

Parsing Dynamically wrapped JSON array

I have an Abstract class with many concrete implementations:
public abstract Ticket {
private Long id;
private Currency fine;
...
}
public class SpeedingTicket extends Ticket {
public Currency getFine(){
// Expensive!
...
}
}
public class ParkingTicket extends Ticket {
public Currency getFine(){
// Eh, not so bad
...
}
}
When the concrete classes are serialized into JSON, it is wrapped with the classes simple name (speedingTickets or parkingTickets):
"_embedded": {
"speedingTickets" :
[{
"id":1,
"fine": "$190",
...,
},
{
"id":2,
"fine": "$100",
...,
}]
}
or
"_embedded": {
"parkingTickets" :[{
"id":100,
"fine": "$15",
...,
}]
}
Since I do not know, at runtime, which Ticket implementation I am receiving back, how can I parse the JSON out using the JSON Response API given the array is wrapped with the concrete implementations simple name?
I have a hack where I take the String value of the JSON and do String operations (substring, indexOf, etc) on it to return only what's in between the braces ("[...]"). I know there's a better way to do this...
After some research, I think I'll try the following tomorrow to see if it works:
JsonNode rootNode = mapper.readTree(jsonResponse);
String classImpl = Iterables.get(rootNode.get("_embedded").fields(), 0).textValue()
I can then say List<Ticket> tickets = response.readAsList(jsonResponse, "_embedded",classImpl) which should allow me to parse the JSON into a List
If you're using Jackson (as your tag suggests), you want to use Polymorphic Deserialization - which is exactly the problem of knowing how to deserialize to the correct subtype.
For example:
#JsonTypeInfo(use=JsonTypeInfo.Id.CLASS, include=JsonTypeInfo.As.PROPERTY, property="#class")
class { }
What this essentially does is include the class name in your JSON, so the deserializer has enough information to properly choose the subclass to instantiate. Something like this:
"_embedded": {
"parkingTickets" :[{
"_type": "ParkingTicket.class",
"id":100,
"fine": "$15",
...,
}]
}
You can just check the type by checking the variable the response contains.
JSONObject jsonObj = new JSONObject(response);
if(jsonObj.has("speedingTickets")){
// parse speedingTickets
}else if(jsonObj.has("parkingTickets")){
// parse parkingtickets
}
A JSON object is an unordered set of key/value pairs. A JSON array is an ordered collection of values. The values themselves could be objects or arrays.
In java it is easy to parse json with org.json library https://github.com/stleary/JSON-java
Short example how to parse json array:
String str = "{ \"number\": [3, 4, 5, 6] }";
JSONObject obj = new JSONObject(str);
JSONArray arr = obj.getJSONArray("number");
for (int i = 0; i < arr.length(); i++)
System.out.println(arr.getInt(i));

Polymorphic Jackson deserialization: getting either a string or an array of strings

My question is pretty much identical to this one, except that I'm using Java/Jackson instead of C#:
In C# how can I deserialize this json when one field might be a string or an array of strings?
My input JSON can be this:
{ "foo": "a string" }
or this:
{ "foo": ["array", "of", "strings" ] }
My class looks like this:
class MyClass {
public List<String> foo;
}
If the input contains a single string, I want it to become the first entry in the list.
How can I deserialize foo using Jackson? I could write a custom deserializer, which I've done before, but I thought there might be an easier way.
There is a feature called ACCEPT_SINGLE_VALUE_AS_ARRAY which is turned off by default but you can turn it on:
objectMapper = new ObjectMapper()
.configure(DeserializationFeature.ACCEPT_SINGLE_VALUE_AS_ARRAY, true);
You can also turn it on per case:
class SomeClass {
#JsonFormat(with = JsonFormat.Feature.ACCEPT_SINGLE_VALUE_AS_ARRAY)
private List<String> items;
// ...
}

How would I model a Gson object that can handle a dynamic field?

An API my application is communicating with sends responses that look like:
{
Code: 200,
Message: "HELLO",
Data: []
}
The Data field is always an array of SOMETHING. But that something could be a single node of text, another array of something else, or any other of an assortment of different objects.
In the below example, the data node is an array of an array of car objects.
Data: [ [ {car:1}, {car:2} ] ]
Another return type could be an array of insect objects:
Data: [ {insect : spider} ]
I would like to design a Gson object to handle this and was wondering what the best way would be.
My first thought is to have an abstract class that holds the Code and Message fields, and then have many sub-types that all have their own Data field. Then I would just call .fromJson() passing it the sub-class.
Is there a more optimal way to design it so that Gson would handle the differences?
I figured out what I believe is the best answer. Fairly straightforward!
Make the class generic and supply the type by creating a TypeToken before passing to Gson:
public class Response<T> {
private String code;
private String message;
private List<T> data;
}
Then when using Gson:
Type myCarListResponse = new TypeToken<Response<List<Car>>>(){}.getType();
Response<List<Car>> response = gson.fromJson(json, myCarListResponse);
Replace > with the type you are expecting from the Data node. The above example satisfies the first example from the original post.
To satisfy the second example:
Type myInsectResponse = new TypeToken<Response<Insect>>(){}.getType();
Response<Insect> response = gson.fromJson(json, myInsectResponse);
In Jackson, you can use #JsonAnyGetter/Setter to achieve this.
Refer http://www.cowtowncoder.com/blog/archives/2011/07/entry_458.html, http://wiki.fasterxml.com/JacksonFeatureAnyGetter

GSON How to deserialize to a class with this array json string

I am struggling to find a way to serialize / deserialize this JSON output to a Java class? Can anyone provide code sample?
[
{
"topic": "this is my topic"
},
[
{
"name": "John"
},
{
"age": 100
}
]
]
My current attempt uses this Javabean:
public class Test {
private String topic;
private List<Person> listOfPersons;
}
Which I try to deserialize data into using Gson:
gson.fromJson(this.json, Test[].class);
But the deserialization fails, because Gson is looking for a list of persons in the JSON, but it doesn't exist.
It doesn't seem like having an object next to an array, inside an array, is sensical. It would make sense to put things this way:
{
"topic": "this is my topic",
"listOfPersons" : [
{
"name": "John",
"age": 100
},
{
... another person
}
]
}
Then you could just have a Person class:
public class Person {
private String name;
private int age;
}
...and you could deserialize with the code you already have.
The problem here is that your JSON data is syntactically correct, but semantically ambiguous. And by that I mean, it appears to represent a polymorphic array, where each item in the array is of a different type.
In addition, the portion representing a 'person' seems to have been de-normalized horribly, where each attribute of a person is represented as a separate object in an array. Quite weird indeed. Unfortunately its really impossible to tell what types are represented just by looking at the data alone, and there are no hints provided to allow Gson to deserialize the data for you. The best you can do in this case is manually parse the information.
Test test = new Test();
JsonArray rootArray = new JsonParser().parse(jsonString);
test.setTopic(rootArray.get(0).get("topic");
Person person = new Person();
JsonArray personArray = rootArray.get(1);
person.setName(personArray.get(0).get("name"));
person.setAge(personArray.get(1).get("age"));
test.setListOfPersons(Arrays.asList(person));

Deserialization of generic collections with Gson

I have some difficulties with json deserialization using GSon and I hope somebody can help me.
I want to deserialize the following json snippet:
{
"fieldA": "valueA",
"myCollection": {
"AnotherClass": [
{
"objectAfieldA": "valueB",
"objectAfieldB": "valueC"
},
{
"objectAfieldA": "valueD",
"objectAfieldB": "valueE"
}
]
}
}
the corresponding overall class has following fields:
...
String fieldA;
List<AnotherClass> = new ArrayList<AnotherClass>();
....
Now, my problem is that when I deserialize, using fromJson(jsonSample, resultContainer.class), without the List<T> element, everything is good, but I get a NullPointerException when I include the contained list. I've read about how to deal with collections of generic types and the use of TypeToken, but I can't apply this knowledge when my collection is part of another class…
I really would appreciate any help to solve this.
The solution for deserealizing the unnamed JSON array is quite simple:
List<resultContainer> lres = gson.fromJson(new FileReader("input.json"), new TypeToken<List<resultContainer>>(){}.getType());
When deserializing, you only need to use the TypeToken if the outer-most structure to be deserialized into is a generic collection. This is not the case for the example in the original question. So, use of a TypeToken is unnecessary.
The issue appears to be that the JSON structure does not match the Java structure attempting to be bound to.
The JSON structure defines
an object with two elements
element 1 is a string named "fieldA",
element 2 is an object named "myCollection", which has one element
the one element is an array named "AnotherClass", composed of objects with two elements
element 1 is a string named "objectAfieldA",
element 2 is a string named "objectAfieldB"
So, define a Java data structure to match that, and deserialization will work very simply, without any custom processing necessary. If such a matching Java structure is not provided, then custom deserialization is necessary.
Here is such a working example using the names and types from the original question.
import java.io.FileReader;
import com.google.gson.Gson;
public class Foo
{
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
{
Gson gson = new Gson();
resultContainer result = gson.fromJson(new FileReader("input.json"), resultContainer.class);
System.out.println(gson.toJson(result));
}
}
class resultContainer
{
String fieldA;
MyCollectionContainer myCollection;
}
class MyCollectionContainer
{
SomeOtherClass[] AnotherClass;
}
class SomeOtherClass
{
String objectAfieldA;
String objectAfieldB;
}

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