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Randomly changing the JSON Values for every "Post" Request Body using Java

This could be a duplicate question, but I couldn't find my solution anywhere. Hence, posting it.
I am trying to simply POST a request for a Student account Creation Scenario. I do have a JSON file which comprises all the "Keys:Values", required for Student account creation.
This is how the file student_Profile.json looks like:
{
"FirstName":"APi1-Stud-FN",
"MiddleInitial":"Q",
"LastName":"APi1-Stud-LN",
"UserAlternateEmail":"",
"SecretQuestionId":12,
"SecretQuestionAnswer":"Scot",
"UserName":"APi1-stud#xyz.com",
"VerifyUserName":"APi1-stud#xyz.com",
"Password":"A123456",
"VerifyPassword":"A123456",
"YKey":"123xyz",
"YId":6,
"Status":false,
"KeyCode":"",
"SsoUserName":"APi1-stud#xyz.com",
"SsoPassword":"",
"BirthYear":2001
}
So everything on Posting the request from "Rest Assured" point of view looks fine, it's just that I want to update a few values from the above JSON body using JAVA so that I can create a new Student profile every time I run my function and don't have to manually change the Body.
For Every POST Student Account Creation scenario, I need to update the value for
the following keys so that a new test student user account can be created:
First Name
Last Name and
Username // "VerifyUserName" and "SSO UserName" will remain same as user name

I modified the answer to get random values and pass them to json body. random value generation was taken from the accepted answer of this question.
public void testMethod() {
List<String> randomValueList = new ArrayList<>();
for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
String SALTCHARS = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890";
StringBuilder salt = new StringBuilder();
Random rnd = new Random();
while (salt.length() < 18) { // length of the random string.
int index = (int) (rnd.nextFloat() * SALTCHARS.length());
salt.append(SALTCHARS.charAt(index));
}
randomValueList.add(salt.toString());
}
String jsonBody = "{\n" +
" \"FirstName\":\"" + randomValueList.remove(0) + "\",\n" +
" \"MiddleInitial\":\"Q\",\n" +
" \"LastName\":\"" + randomValueList.remove(0) + "\",\n" +
" \"UserAlternateEmail\":\"\",\n" +
" \"SecretQuestionId\":12,\n" +
" \"SecretQuestionAnswer\":\"Scot\",\n" +
" \"UserName\":\"" + randomValueList.remove(0) + " \",\n" +
" \"VerifyUserName\":\"APi1-stud#xyz.com\",\n" +
" \"Password\":\"A123456\",\n" +
" \"VerifyPassword\":\"A123456\",\n" +
" \"YKey\":\"123xyz\",\n" +
" \"YId\":6,\n" +
" \"Status\":false,\n" +
" \"KeyCode\":\"\",\n" +
" \"SsoUserName\":\"APi1-stud#xyz.com\",\n" +
" \"SsoPassword\":\"\",\n" +
" \"BirthYear\":2001\n" +
"}";
Response response = RestAssured
.given()
.body(jsonBody)
.when()
.post("api_url")
.then()
.extract()
.response();
// Do what you need to do with the response body
}

We can used pojo based approach to do certain things very easily . No matter how complex is the payload , serialization and dieselization is the best answer . I have created a framework template for api automation that can we used by putting required POJO's in path :
https://github.com/tanuj-vishnoi/pojo_api_automation
To create pojo, I also have ready to eat food for you :
https://github.com/tanuj-vishnoi/pojo_generator_using_jsonschema2pojo
for the above problem you can refer to the JsonPath lib https://github.com/json-path/JsonPath and use this code:
String mypayload = "{\n" +
" \"FirstName\":\"APi1-Stud-FN\",\n" +
" \"MiddleInitial\":\"Q\",\n" +
" \"LastName\":\"APi1-Stud-LN\"}";
Map map = JsonPath.parse(mypayload).read("$",Map.class);
System.out.println(list);
once the payload converted into map you can change only required values as per the requirement
To generate random strings you can refer to lib org.apache.commons.lang3.RandomStringUtils;
public static String generateUniqueString(int lenghtOfString){
return
RandomStringUtils.randomAlphabetic(lenghtOfString).toLowerCase();
}
I recommend to store payload in a separate file and load it at runtime.

Convert HOCON string into Java object

One of my webservice return below Java string:
[
{
id=5d93532e77490b00013d8862,
app=null,
manufacturer=pearsonEducation,
bookUid=bookIsbn,
model=2019,
firmware=[1.0],
bookName=devotional,
accountLinking=mandatory
}
]
I have the equivalent Java object for the above string. I would like to typecast or convert the above java string into Java Object.
I couldn't type-cast it since it's a String, not an object. So, I was trying to convert the Java string to JSON string then I can write that string into Java object but no luck getting invalid character "=" exception.
Can you change the web service to return JSON?
That's not possible. They are not changing their contracts. It would be super easy if they returned JSON.

The format your web-service returns has it's own name HOCON. (You can read more about it here)
You do not need your custom parser. Do not try to reinvent the wheel.
Use an existing one instead.
Add this maven dependency to your project:
<dependency>
<groupId>com.typesafe</groupId>
<artifactId>config</artifactId>
<version>1.3.0</version>
</dependency>
Then parse the response as follows:
Config config = ConfigFactory.parseString(text);
String id = config.getString("id");
Long model = config.getLong("model");
There is also an option to parse the whole string into a POJO:
MyResponsePojo response = ConfigBeanFactory.create(config, MyResponsePojo.class);
Unfortunately this parser does not allow null values. So you'll need to handle exceptions of type com.typesafe.config.ConfigException.Null.
Another option is to convert the HOCON string into JSON:
String hoconString = "...";
String jsonString = ConfigFactory.parseString(hoconString)
.root()
.render(ConfigRenderOptions.concise());
Then you can use any JSON-to-POJO mapper.

Well, this is definitely not the best answer to be given here, but it is possible, at least…
Manipulate the String in small steps like this in order to get a Map<String, String> which can be processed. See this example, it's very basic:
public static void main(String[] args) {
String data = "[\r\n"
+ " {\r\n"
+ " id=5d93532e77490b00013d8862, \r\n"
+ " app=null,\r\n"
+ " manufacturer=pearsonEducation, \r\n"
+ " bookUid=bookIsbn, \r\n"
+ " model=2019,\r\n"
+ " firmware=[1.0], \r\n"
+ " bookName=devotional, \r\n"
+ " accountLinking=mandatory\r\n"
+ " }\r\n"
+ "]";
// manipulate the String in order to have
String[] splitData = data
// no leading and trailing [ ] - cut the first and last char
.substring(1, data.length() - 1)
// no linebreaks
.replace("\n", "")
// no windows linebreaks
.replace("\r", "")
// no opening curly brackets
.replace("{", "")
// and no closing curly brackets.
.replace("}", "")
// Then split it by comma
.split(",");
// create a map to store the keys and values
Map<String, String> dataMap = new HashMap<>();
// iterate the key-value pairs connected with '='
for (String s : splitData) {
// split them by the equality symbol
String[] keyVal = s.trim().split("=");
// then take the key
String key = keyVal[0];
// and the value
String val = keyVal[1];
// and store them in the map ——> could be done directly, of course
dataMap.put(key, val);
}
// print the map content
dataMap.forEach((key, value) -> System.out.println(key + " ——> " + value));
}
Please note that I just copied your example String which may have caused the line breaks and I think it is not smart to just replace() all square brackets because the value firmware seems to include those as content.

In my opinion, we split the parse process in two step.
Format the output data to JSON.
Parse text by JSON utils.
In this demo code, i choose regex as format method, and fastjson as JSON tool. you can choose jackson or gson. Furthermore, I remove the [ ], you can put it back, then parse it into array.
import com.alibaba.fastjson.JSON;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
public class SerializedObject {
private String id;
private String app;
static Pattern compile = Pattern.compile("([a-zA-Z0-9.]+)");
public static void main(String[] args) {
String str =
" {\n" +
" id=5d93532e77490b00013d8862, \n" +
" app=null,\n" +
" manufacturer=pearsonEducation, \n" +
" bookUid=bookIsbn, \n" +
" model=2019,\n" +
" firmware=[1.0], \n" +
" bookName=devotional, \n" +
" accountLinking=mandatory\n" +
" }\n";
String s1 = str.replaceAll("=", ":");
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
Matcher matcher = compile.matcher(s1);
while (matcher.find()) {
matcher.appendReplacement(sb, "\"" + matcher.group(1) + "\"");
}
matcher.appendTail(sb);
System.out.println(sb.toString());
SerializedObject serializedObject = JSON.parseObject(sb.toString(), SerializedObject.class);
System.out.println(serializedObject);
}
}

Retrieve value from database and Serialize into json

The request json looks like this:
{
"key1": "value1",
"generic": {
"key1":"string-type-value1"
"key2":"string-type-value2"
"key3":"complex-type-value3"
.
..
...
"keyn": "simple/complex-valuen"
}
}
The value of "generic" attribute above is a complex json.
I'm able to persist the entire complex json in a database column (by deserializing the json into a byte array and then persisting the value in the database as a blob type column).
However, when I try to retrieve the data again from the database, it's giving me a JSON string instead of a complex json
How can I re-create the exact complex json back from database using Jackson library?
I don't need a string representation of the json, but I need the original json back.

Would a JsonNode instance be fine?
final String json = "" +
"{" +
" \"key1\": \"value1\"," +
" \"generic\": {" +
" \"key1\":\"string-type-value1\"," +
" \"key2\":\"string-type-value2\"," +
" \"key3\":\"complex-type-value3\"," +
" \"keyn\": \"simple/complex-valuen\"" +
" }" +
"}";
final JsonNode node = mapper.readValue(json, JsonNode.class);
System.out.println(node.get("generic").get("key1")); // "string-type-value1"

URL in JSON object as POST request Android

Please help me to send a JSON object in POST HTTP request through HttpClient, in Android.
The problem I am facing is that the JSON object having the URL is replaced by forward slash ,i.e
originally it should have the following value in JSON object
{"product":
{"featured_src":"https:\/\/example.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/sidney-compressed.jpg,
"short_description":"this is a test","title":"Raiders from the North"}
}
i tried many options to keep it in the above format. But it always comes as {"featured_src":

We assume this is your input
private final static String JSON_DATA = "{"
+ " \"product\": ["
+ " {"
+ " \"featured_src\": \"https:\\/\\/example.com\\/wp-content"
+ "\\/uploads\\/2015\\/06\\/sidney-compressed.jpg\","
+ " \"short_description\": \"this is a test\","
+ " \"title\" : \"Raiders from the North\""
+ " }"
+ " ]"
+ "}";
You could use replace to do the trick.
YOUR_STRING.replace("\\", "");
Finally your method would look like this, by passing your string as parameter
private static String jsonUrlCorrector(String json_data) {
json_data = json_data.replace("\\", "");
return json_data;
}
Here is the input:
{"product":[{"featured_src":"https:\/\/example.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/sidney-compressed.jpg","short_description": "this is a test","title":"Raiders from the North"}]}
Here is the output
{"product":[{"featured_src":"https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/sidney-compressed.jpg","short_description":"this is a test","title":"Raiders from the North"}]}

Parsing a json object with an unknown name with gson

{
"lastUpdated":1404620562,
"invasions":{
"Vibrant Valley":{
"asOf":1404620562,
"type":"Penny Pincher",
"progress":"959/1000"
}
},
"error":null
}
I'm new to using Json & Gson so be patient.
So I am attempting to make an application for myself that allows me to view the information from this json file. The only problem is that it is constantly changing and sometimes there will be more then one object under invasions or sometimes there will be none. How would I parse this with gson? Thanks. Note I am grabbing values from here.
https://www.toontownrewritten.com/api/invasions
Thanks!

Use the JsonParser class
String myJson = "{" +
" \"lastUpdated\":1404620562," +
" \"invasions\":{" +
" \"Vibrant Valley\":{" +
" \"asOf\":1404620562," +
" \"type\":\"Penny Pincher\"," +
" \"progress\":\"959/1000\"" +
" }" +
" }," +
" \"error\":null" +
"}"
JsonElement jelement = new JsonParser().parse(myJson);
JsonObject jobject = jelement.getAsJsonObject();
long lastUpdated = jobject.get("lastUpdated").getAsLong();