Being new to Java/JSON/REST Assured topics, I would like to extract a parameter of "token": from a JSON response body as a String and store it as variable which I could take to some other classes and use there. However, I have tried it and have not found a way. Below is part of a code which I have created at the beginning in a same manner as other requests stored in this class, but this is the first one from which I need something from the response:
public FakeTokenVO fakeToken() {
String payload = "payloadthere";
return given(specBuilder.fakeTokenRequestSpecification()) .
body(payload)
.log().all()
.when()
.post(RestApiRoutes.FAKE_URI)
.then()
.log().all()
.extract()
.response()
.as(FakeTokenVO.class);
}
Don't mind about the payload and those VO classes as it is stored as data model somewhere else.
Response from the request made looks like this:
{
"createTokenResponse": {
"createTokenSuccess": {
"token": "token_with_somewhere_about_700_characters"
}
}
}
Here is how I have tried to modify it to get the part of response which I need later (the token to authorize other requests):
#Test
public void fakeToken()
{
String payload = "payloadthere";
String token = given(specBuilder.fakeTokenRequestSpecification())
.body(payload)
.log().all()
.when()
.post(RestApiRoutes.FAKE_URI)
.then()
.log().all()
.extract()
.response()
.body().path("createTokenResponse.createTokenSuccess.token");
System.out.print(token);
}
This test returns me a value which I needed, but I do not know how to implement it as a method instead of test. Please help how should I approach it? What am I missing there? I tried to search for answers, but I haven't found a solution yet or do not know how to implement it in my part of the code.
I assume that you can get your response as a String. So all you need to do is to parse your Json String. For that you can use any available Json parser. The most popular ones are Json-Jackson (also known as Faster XML) or Gson (by Google). Both are very well known and popular. (My personal preference is Jackson, but it is a matter of opinion).
However, For simplistic cases like this I wrote my own utility (a thin wrapper over Jackson library) that allows you to parse Json String very simply without learning relatively complex libraries. With my utility your code may look like this:
try {
Map<String, Object> map = JsonUtils.readObjectFromJsonString(jsonStr, Map.class);
Map<String, Object> innerMap = map.get("createTokenResponse");
Map<String, Object> innerMap2 = map.get("createTokenSuccess");
String token = innerMap.get("token");
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStacktrace();
}
Or you can create your own classes such as
public class TokenResult {
String token;
//getter and setter
}
public class TokenHolder {
private TokenResult createTokenSuccess;
//setter and getter
}
public class TokenResponse {
private TokenHolder createTokenResponse;
//setter and getter
}
And than your code may look like this:
try {
TokenResponse response = JsonUtils.readObjectFromJsonString(jsonStr, TokenResponse .class);
String token = response.getCreateTokenResponse().getCreateTokenSuccess().getToken();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStacktrace();
}
Here is a Javadoc for JsonUtils class. This Utility comes as part of Open Source MgntUtils library written and maintained by me. You can get the library as maven artifact on Maven Central here or on the github (including source code and javadoc)
I am trying to post a form to a Restlet ServerResource and read it into an object using Gson Restlet Extension.
There's no documentation on how to use it and nothing on StackOverflow.
What is the correct way of using gson restlet extension?
Following is what I have tried so far:
public class CustomerSegment {
private int visitsMin;
private int visitsMax;
// Getters, Setters and constructors
}
public class CampaignsResource extends ServerResource {
#Post
public Representation createCampaign(Representation entity) {
Form form = new Form(entity);
// Using form is the usual way, which works fine
// form: [[visitsMin=3], [visitsMax=6]]
CustomerSegment segment = null;
// Following hasn't worked
GsonConverter converter = new GsonConverter();
try {
segment = converter.toObject(entity, CustomerSegment.class, this);
//segment = null
} catch (IOException e1) {
e1.printStackTrace();
}
GsonRepresentation<CustomerSegment> gson
= new GsonRepresentation<CustomerSegment>(entity, CustomerSegment.class);
try {
segment = gson.getObject();
//NullPointerException
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return new EmptyRepresentation();
}
}
Form data that is being posted:
In fact, you can leverage the built-in converter support of Restlet without explicitly use the gson converter.
In fact, when you put the GSON extension within the classpath, the converter it contains is automatically registered within the Restlet engine itself. To check that you can simply use these lines when starting your application:
List<ConverterHelper> converters
= Engine.getInstance().getRegisteredConverters();
for (ConverterHelper converterHelper : converters) {
System.out.println("- " + converterHelper);
}
/* This will print this in your case:
- org.restlet.ext.gson.GsonConverter#2085ce5a
- org.restlet.engine.converter.DefaultConverter#30ae8764
- org.restlet.engine.converter.StatusInfoHtmlConverter#123acf34
*/
Then you can rely on beans within signatures of methods in your server resources instead of class Representation, as described below:
public class MyServerResource extends ServerResource {
#Post
public SomeOutputBean handleBean(SomeInputBean input) {
(...)
SomeOutputBean bean = new SomeOutputBean();
bean.setId(10);
bean.setName("some name");
return bean;
}
}
This works in both sides:
Deserialization of the request content into a bean that is provided as parameter of the handling method in the server resource.
Serialization into the response content of the returned bean.
You don't have anything more to do here.
For the client side, you can leverage the same mechanism. It's based on the annotated interfaces. For this, you need to create an interface defining what can be called on the resource. For our previous sample, it would be something like that:
public interface MyResource {
#Post
SomeOutputBean handleBean(SomeInputBean input);
}
Then you can use it with a client resource, as described below:
String url = "http://localhost:8182/test";
ClientResource cr = new ClientResource(url);
MyResource resource = cr.wrap(MyResource.class);
SomeInputBean input = new SomeInputBean();
SomeOutputBean output = resource.handleBean(input);
So in your case, I would refactor your code as described below:
public class CampaignsResource extends ServerResource {
private String getUri() {
Reference resourceRef = getRequest().getResourceRef();
return resourceRef.toString();
}
#Post
public void createCampaign(CustomerSegment segment) {
// Handle segment
(...)
// You can return something if the client expects
// to have something returned
// For creation on POST method, returning a 204 status
// code with a Location header is enough...
getResponse().setLocationRef(getUri() + addedSegmentId);
}
}
You can leverage for example the content type application/json to send data as JSON:
{
visitsMin: 2,
visitsMax: 11
}
If you want to use Gson, you should use this content type instead of the urlencoded one since the tool targets JSON conversion:
Gson is a Java library that can be used to convert Java Objects into
their JSON representation. It can also be used to convert a JSON string
to an equivalent Java object. Gson can work with arbitrary Java objects
including pre-existing objects that you do not have source-code of.
Hope it helps you,
Thierry
I am working with a Spring Boot REST application. We are using jackson to handle deserialization of XML as well as JSON passed in the request body. An example of an expected request body looks like this:
<formInput><formNum>999999</formNum><documentData>Completely unknown data structure here!</documentData></formInput>
In the documentData element, we will have a structure that is completely arbitrary/unknown on the server side. We don't care about the structure, because we only want to pass the xml that is nested in documentData on to another service.
The POJO that we are trying to map the request body onto looks like this:
#JsonDeserialize(using=FormInputJsonDeserializer.class)
public class FormInput {
private String formNum
private String documentData
public String getFormNum() {
return formNum
}
public void setFormNum(String formNum) {
this.formNum = formNum
}
public String getDocumentData() {
return documentData;
}
public void setDocumentData(String documentData) {
this.documentData = documentData;
}
}
The custom JsonDeserializer that we are trying to write:
public class FormInputJsonDeserializer extends JsonDeserializer<FormInput> {
#Override
public FormInput deserialize(JsonParser parser, DeserializationContext context)
throws IOException, JsonProcessingException {
FormInput formInput = new FormInput();
String fieldName
JsonToken currentToken
while (parser.nextToken() != null) {
currentToken = parser.getCurrentToken()
if (currentToken.equals(JsonToken.END_OBJECT)) {
continue
}
fieldName = parser.getCurrentName()
// formNum handling not written yet
if ("documentData".equalsIgnoreCase(fieldName)) {
if (parser.getCurrentToken().equals(JsonToken.START_OBJECT)) {
// we are at the start of documentData, and we need to capture the
// entire documentData node as a String since we don't know
// its structure
JsonFactory jfactory = new JsonFactory()
StringWriter jsonStringWriter = new StringWriter()
JsonGenerator jGen = jfactory.createGenerator(jsonStringWriter)
jGen.copyCurrentStructure(parser) // points to END_OBJECT after copy
jGen.close()
String documentDataJsonStr = jsonStringWriter.getBuffer().toString()
println("documentDataJsonStr: " + documentDataJsonStr)
}
}
}
// rest of code omitted
}
}
As I say, if the request body is xml, ideally I'd like to just keep it formatted as xml and assign that to the documentData String property. However I came up with the above custom deserialization code by following some other examples on StackOverflow. This parsing code ends up converting documentData to a JSON formatted String. Since I didn't know how to pass through the raw XML and get it mapped to the String property, I thought I could just convert the JSON formatted String back to a XML formatted String. A problem arises when we pass in a XML structure like this:
<formInput><formNum>9322</formNum><documentData><repeatLevel><subForm1><GROSS_DISTR> 13,004.31</GROSS_DISTR><GROSS_DISTR> 13,004.31</GROSS_DISTR><GROSS_DISTR> 13,004.31</GROSS_DISTR></subForm1></repeatLevel><repeatLevel><subForm1><GROSS_DISTR> 38,681.37</GROSS_DISTR><GROSS_DISTR> 38,681.37</GROSS_DISTR><GROSS_DISTR> 38,681.37</GROSS_DISTR></subForm1></repeatLevel></documentData></formInput>
After documentData is parsed in the deserialize method, the println statement shows the parsed JSON String as:
{"repeatLevel":{"subForm1":{"GROSS_DISTR":" 13,004.31","GROSS_DISTR":" 13,004.31","GROSS_DISTR":" 13,004.31"}},"repeatLevel":{"subForm1":{"GROSS_DISTR":" 38,681.37","GROSS_DISTR":" 38,681.37","GROSS_DISTR":" 38,681.37"}}}
This is actually not strictly valid JSON, due to the duplicate keys. I would have hoped that these would have been converted to JSON arrays, but that is not the case. So, I am unable to turn around and use something like the JSON.org libraries (JsonObject and XML) to convert the JSON String back to XML format (get an exception with a "duplicate key" error).
Does anybody have any suggestions or strategies for handling our situation?
You could try to use a JSONObject, add the #JsonIgnoreProperties("documentData") tag and extract documentData seperately from the raw data using substring()
I have this method:
public static Object parseStringToObject(String json) {
String Object = json;
Gson gson = new Gson();
Object objects = gson.fromJson(object, Object.class);
parseConfigFromObjectToString(object);
return objects;
}
And I want to parse a JSON with:
public static void addObject(String IP, Object addObject) {
try {
String json = sendPostRequest("http://" + IP + ":3000/config/add_Object", ConfigJSONParser.parseConfigFromObjectToString(addObject));
addObject = ConfigJSONParser.parseStringToObject(json);
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
But I get an error message:
com.google.gson.JsonSyntaxException: java.lang.IllegalStateException:
Expected BEGIN_OBJECT but was STRING at line 1 column 1
Even without seeing your JSON string you can tell from the error message that it is not the correct structure to be parsed into an instance of your class.
Gson is expecting your JSON string to begin with an object opening brace. e.g.
{
But the string you have passed to it starts with an open quotes
"
Invalid JSON from the server should always be an expected use case. A million things can go wrong during transmission. Gson is a bit tricky, because its error output will give you one problem, and the actual exception you catch will be of a different type.
With all that in mind, the proper fix on the client side is
try
{
gson.fromJSON(ad, Ad.class);
//...
}
catch (IllegalStateException | JsonSyntaxException exception)
{
//...
If you want to know why the JSON you received from the server is wrong, you can look inside your catch block at the exception. But even if it is your problem, it's not the client's responsibility to fix JSON it is receiving from the internet.
Either way, it is the client's responsibility to decide what to do when it gets bad JSON. Two possibilities are rejecting the JSON and doing nothing, and trying again.
If you are going to try again, I highly recommend setting a flag inside the try / catch block and then responding to that flag outside the try / catch block. Nested try / catch is likely how Gson got us into this mess with our stack trace and exceptions not matching up.
In other words, even though I'll admit it doesn't look very elegant, I would recommend
boolean failed = false;
try
{
gson.fromJSON(ad, Ad.class);
//...
}
catch (IllegalStateException | JsonSyntaxException exception)
{
failed = true;
//...
}
if (failed)
{
//...
I had a similar problem recently and found an interesting solution. Basically I needed to deserialize following nested JSON String into my POJO:
"{\"restaurant\":{\"id\":\"abc-012\",\"name\":\"good restaurant\",\"foodType\":\"American\",\"phoneNumber\":\"123-456-7890\",\"currency\":\"USD\",\"website\":\"website.com\",\"location\":{\"address\":{\"street\":\" Good Street\",\"city\":\"Good City\",\"state\":\"CA\",\"country\":\"USA\",\"postalCode\":\"12345\"},\"coordinates\":{\"latitude\":\"00.7904692\",\"longitude\":\"-000.4047208\"}},\"restaurantUser\":{\"firstName\":\"test\",\"lastName\":\"test\",\"email\":\"test#test.com\",\"title\":\"server\",\"phone\":\"0000000000\"}}}"
I ended up using regex to remove the open quotes from beginning and the end of JSON and then used apache.commons unescapeJava() method to unescape it. Basically passed the unclean JSON into following method to get back a cleansed one:
private String removeQuotesAndUnescape(String uncleanJson) {
String noQuotes = uncleanJson.replaceAll("^\"|\"$", "");
return StringEscapeUtils.unescapeJava(noQuotes);
}
then used Google GSON to parse it into my own Object:
MyObject myObject = new.Gson().fromJson(this.removeQuotesAndUnescape(uncleanJson));
In Retrofit2, When you want to send your parameters in raw you must use Scalars.
first add this in your gradle:
compile 'com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.3.0'
compile 'com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-gson:2.3.0'
compile 'com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-scalars:2.3.0'
public interface ApiInterface {
String URL_BASE = "http://10.157.102.22/rest/";
#Headers("Content-Type: application/json")
#POST("login")
Call<User> getUser(#Body String body);
}
my SampleActivity :
public class SampleActivity extends AppCompatActivity implements Callback<User> {
#Override
protected void onCreate(#Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_sample);
Retrofit retrofit = new Retrofit.Builder()
.baseUrl(ApiInterface.URL_BASE)
.addConverterFactory(ScalarsConverterFactory.create())
.addConverterFactory(GsonConverterFactory.create())
.build();
ApiInterface apiInterface = retrofit.create(ApiInterface.class);
// prepare call in Retrofit 2.0
try {
JSONObject paramObject = new JSONObject();
paramObject.put("email", "sample#gmail.com");
paramObject.put("pass", "4384984938943");
Call<User> userCall = apiInterface.getUser(paramObject.toString());
userCall.enqueue(this);
} catch (JSONException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
#Override
public void onResponse(Call<User> call, Response<User> response) {
}
#Override
public void onFailure(Call<User> call, Throwable t) {
}
}
Reference: [How to POST raw whole JSON in the body of a Retrofit request?
I have come to share an solution. The error happened to me after forcing the notbook to hang up. possible solution clean preject.
Maybe your JSON Object is right,but the response that you received is not your valid data.Just like when you connect the invalid WiFi,you may received a strange response < html>.....< /html> that GSON can not parse.
you may need to do some try..catch.. for this strange response to avoid crash.
Make sure you have DESERIALIZED objects like DATE/DATETIME etc. If you are directly sending JSON without deserializing it then it can cause this problem.
In my situation, I have a "model", consist of several String parameters, with the exception of one: it is byte array byte[].
Some code snippet:
String response = args[0].toString();
Gson gson = new Gson();
BaseModel responseModel = gson.fromJson(response, BaseModel.class);
The last line above is when the
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Expected BEGIN_OBJECT but was STRING at line 1 column
is triggered. Searching through the SO, I realised I need to have some form of Adapter to convert my BaseModel to and fro a JsonObject. Having mixed of String and byte[] in a model does complicate thing. Apparently, Gson don't really like the situation.
I end up making an Adapter to ensure byte[] is converted to Base64 format. Here is my Adapter class:
public class ByteArrayToBase64Adapter implements JsonSerializer<byte[]>, JsonDeserializer<byte[]> {
#Override
public byte[] deserialize(JsonElement json, Type typeOfT, JsonDeserializationContext context) throws JsonParseException {
return Base64.decode(json.getAsString(), Base64.NO_WRAP);
}
#Override
public JsonElement serialize(byte[] src, Type typeOfSrc, JsonSerializationContext context) {
return new JsonPrimitive(Base64.encodeToString(src, Base64.NO_WRAP));
}
}
To convert JSONObject to model, I used the following:
Gson customGson = new GsonBuilder().registerTypeHierarchyAdapter(byte[].class, new ByteArrayToBase64Adapter()).create();
BaseModel responseModel = customGson.fromJson(response, BaseModel.class);
Similarly, to convert the model to JSONObject, I used the following:
Gson customGson = new GsonBuilder().registerTypeHierarchyAdapter(byte[].class, new ByteArrayToBase64Adapter()).create();
String responseJSon = customGson.toJson(response);
What the code is doing is basically to push the intended class/object (in this case, byte[] class) through the Adapter whenever it is encountered during the convertion to/fro JSONObject.
Don't use jsonObject.toString on a JSON object.
In my case, I am Returning JSON Object as
{"data":"","message":"Attendance Saved
Successfully..!!!","status":"success"}
Resolved by changing it as
{"data":{},"message":"Attendance Saved
Successfully..!!!","status":"success"}
Here data is a sub JsonObject and it should starts from { not ""
Don't forget to convert your object into Json first using Gson()
val fromUserJson = Gson().toJson(notificationRequest.fromUser)
Then you can easily convert it back into an object using this awesome library
val fromUser = Gson().fromJson(fromUserJson, User::class.java)
if your json format and variables are okay then check your database queries...even if data is saved in db correctly the actual problem might be in there...recheck your queries and try again.. Hope it helps
I had a case where I read from a handwritten json file. The json is perfect. However, this error occurred. So I write from a java object to json file, then read from that json file. things are fine. I could not see any difference between the handwritten json and the one from java object. Tried beyondCompare it sees no difference.
I finally noticed the two file sizes are slightly different, and I used winHex tool and detected extra stuff.
So the solution for my situation is, make copy of the good json file, paste content into it and use.
In my case, my custom http-client didn't support the gzip encoding. I was sending the "Accept-Encoding: gzip" header, and so the response was sent back as a gzip string and couldn't be decoded.
The solution was to not send that header.
I was making a POST request with some parameters using Retrofit in Android
WHAT I FACED:
The error I was getting in Android Studio logcat:
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Expected BEGIN_OBJECT but was STRING
at line 2 column 1 path $
[but it was working fine with VOLLY library]
when I googled it...
you know[ Obviously json is expecting a OBJECT but...]
BUT when I changed my service to return a simple string [ like print_r("don't lose hope") ] or
Noting at all
It was getting printed fine in Postman
but in Android studio logcat, it was still SAME ERROR [
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Expected BEGIN_OBJECT but was STRING
at line 2 column 1 path $
]
Hold up now, I am sending a simple message or not sending anything in response and still studio is
telling me "...Expected BEGIN_OBJECT but was STRING..."
SOMETHING IS WRONG
On 4th day:
I finally stopped for looking "QUICK SOLUTIONS" and REALLY READ some stack overflow questions
and articles carefully.
WHAT I GOT:
Logging interceptor
It will show you whatever data comes from your server[even eco messages] which are not shown in
Andorid studios logcat,
that way you can FIND THE PROBLEM.
What I found is I was sending data with #Body like-
#Headers("Content-Type: application/json")
#POST("CreateNewPost")
Call<Resp> createNewPost(#Body ParaModel paraModel);
but no parameter was reaching to server, everything was null [I found using Logging interceptor]
then I simply searched an article "how to make POST request using Retrofit"
here's one
SOLUTION:
from here I changed my method to:
#POST("CreateNewPost")
#FormUrlEncoded
Call<Resp> createNewPost(
#Field("user_id") Integer user_id,
#Field("user_name") String user_name,
#Field("description") String description,
#Field("tags") String tags);
and everything was fine.
CONCLUSION:
I don't understand why Retrofit gave this error
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Expected BEGIN_OBJECT but was STRING
at line 2 column 1 path $
it doesn't make any sense at all.
So ALWAYS DEBUG in detail then find WHERE THINGS ARE LEAKING and then FIX.
This error solved for by replacing .toString method to .string on the response
toString => string (add in try{...code..}catche(IOException e))
below code is working for me
try {
MainModelResponse model;
Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().create();
if (response.code() == ConstantValues.SUCCESS_OK) {
model = gson.fromJson(response.body().string(), MainModelResponse.class);
} else {
model = gson.fromJson(response.errorBody().string(), MainModelResponse.class);
}
moduleData.postValue(model);
}catch (IllegalStateException | JsonSyntaxException | IOException exception){
exception.printStackTrace();
}
}
use a string begin & end with {}.
such as
final String jsStr = "{\"metric\":\"opentsdb_metric\",\"tags\":{\"testtag\":\"sunbotest\"},\"aggregateTags\":[],\"dps\":{\"1483399261\":18}}";
DataPoint dataPoint = new Gson().fromJson(jsStr, DataPoint.class);
this works for me.
In my case the object was all fine even the Json Validator was giving it a valid resposne but I was using Interface like this
#POST(NetworkConstants.REGISTER_USER)
Call<UserResponse> registerUser(
#Query("name") String name,
#Query("email") String email,
#Query("password") String password,
#Query("created_date") Long creationDate
);
Then I changed the code to
#FormUrlEncoded
#POST(NetworkConstants.REGISTER_USER)
Call<UserResponse> registerUser(
#Field("name") String name,
#Field("email") String email,
#Field("password") String password,
#Field("created_date") Long creationDate
);
And everything was resolved.
my problem not related to my codes
after copy some files from an other project got this issue
in the stack pointed to Gson library
in android studio 4.2.1 this problem not solved when I try file-> invalidate and restart
and
after restart in first time build got same error but in second build this problem solved
I don't understand why this happened
I was using an old version of retrofit library. So what I had to do was to change my code from this after upgrading it to com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.9.0:
#POST(AppConstants.UPLOAD_TRANSACTION_DETAIL)
fun postPremiumAppTransactionDetail(
#Query("name") planName:String,
#Query("amount") amount:String,
#Query("user_id") userId: String,
#Query("sub_id") planId: String,
#Query("folder") description:String,
#Query("payment_type") paymentType:String):
Call<TransactionResponseModel>
To this:
#FormUrlEncoded
#POST(AppConstants.UPLOAD_TRANSACTION_DETAIL)
fun postPremiumAppTransactionDetail(
#Field("name") planName:String,
#Field("amount") amount:String,
#Field("user_id") userId: String,
#Field("sub_id") planId: String,
#Field("folder") description:String,
#Field("payment_type") paymentType:String):
Call<TransactionResponseModel>
For me it turned out that I was trying to deserialize to an object that used java.time.ZonedDateTime for one of the properties. It worked as soon as I changed it to a java.util.Date instead.