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Android: gson.toJson converter giving empty string for Android objects

I'm trying to covert Java object to json using Gson library, but its not working as expected and returning empty string,
my code:
String ie = new String("Jack");
Gson gson = new Gson();
String intentcalue = gson.toJson(ie);
it returns:
{}
Please let me know if anything wrong with library, I tried with other Objects as well all returning null value like for Intent Object, ApplicationInfo etc

If you want convert string to json object, your string must be json as well.
For example:
String ie = new String("{\"name\": \"Jack\"}");
Gson gson = new Gson();
String intentcalue = gson.toJson(ie);

Add byte array inside a json object using java

I have below situation. It needs to be implemented in Java.
Take input from a text file, convert the content into a byte array.
Use the above byte array as a part of a JSON object , create a .json file
For point1, i have done something like this.
InputStream is = new ClassPathresource("file.txt").getInputStream();
byte[] ip = IOUtils.toByteArray(is);
For point2, my Json file (containing json object), should look like below.
{
"name": "xyz",
"address: "address here",
"ipdata": ""
}
The ipdata should contain the byte array created in step 1.
How can i create a json object with the byte array created in step 1 as a part of it ? And then write the entire content to a separate .json file ?
Also is the byte array conversion done in step1 an optimum way, or do we need to use any other API(may be to take care of encoding)?Please suggest.
Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

You can simply convert the byte array ip using ip.toString()
Or if you know the encoding you can use ipString = new String(ip, "UTF8")
And then take that string to add to your json object.

Since you are reading a JSON string from file and want to write it back to a new json file you dont need the JSON Object conversion in-between. Just convert the byte[] to String as
String ips = new String(ip);
Now create a JSON Object with the data you want to write to the new file. And then you can write the data to file using FileWriter. PFB the code-
JSONObject obj = new JSONObject();
obj.put("name", "xyz");
obj.put("address", "address here");
obj.put("ipdata", ips);
try(FileWriter fileWriter =
new FileWriter("newFileName.json") ){
fileWriter.write(obj.toString());
}

How to change some values in a .JSON file and then write it back while keeping the JSON formatting ? (Java)

The JSON example file consists of:
{
"1st_key": "value1",
"2nd_key": "value2",
"object_keys": {
"obj_1st": "value1",
"obj_2nd": "value2",
"obj_3rd": "value3",
}
}
I read the JSON file into a String with this StringBuilder method, in order to add the newlines into the string itself. So the String looks exactly like the JSON file above.
public String getJsonContent(String fileName) {
StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder("");
File file = new File(fileName);
try (Scanner scanner = new Scanner(file)) {
while (scanner.hasNextLine()) {
String line = scanner.nextLine();
result.append(line).append("\n");
}
scanner.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return result.toString();
}
Then I translate the JSON file into an Object using MongoDB API (with DBObject, BasicDBObject and util.JSON) and I call out the Object section I need to change, which is 'object_keys':
File jsonFile = new File(C:\\example.json);
String jsonString = getJsonContent(jsonFile.getAbsolutePath());
DBObject jsonObject = (DBObject)JSON.parse(jsonString);
BasicDBObject objectKeys = (BasicDBObject) jsonObject.get("object_keys");
Now I can write new values into the Object using the PUT method like this:
objectKeys.put("obj_1st","NEW_VALUE1");
objectKeys.put("obj_2nd","NEW_VALUE2");
objectKeys.put("obj_3rd","NEW_VALUE3");
! This following part not needed, check out my answer below.
After I have changed the object, I need to write it back into the json file, so I need to translate the Object into a String. There are two methods to do this, either one works.
String newJSON = jsonObject.toString();
or
String newJSON = JSON.serialize(jsonObject);
Then I write the content back into the file using PrintWriter
PrintWriter writer = new PrintWriter(C:\\example.json)
writer.print(newJSON);
writer.close();
The problem I am facing now is that the String that is written is in a single line with no formatting whatosever. Somewhere along the way it lost all the newlines. So it basically looks like this:
{"1st_key": "value1","2nd_key": "value2","object_keys": { "obj_1st": "NEW_VALUE1","obj_2nd": "NEW_VALUE2","obj_3rd": "NEW_VALUE3", }}
I need to write the JSON file back in the same format as shown in the beginning, keeping all the tabulation, spaces etc.
Is this possible somehow ?

When you want something formatted the way you said it is addressed as writing to a file in a pretty/beautiful way. For example: Output beautiful json. A quick search on google found what i believe to solve your problem.
Solution

You're going to have to use a json parser of some sort. I personally prefer org.json and would recommend it if you are manipulating the json data, but you may also like json-io which is really good for json serialization with no external dependencies.
With json-io, it's as simple as
String formattedJson = JsonWriter.formatJson(jsonObject.toString())
With org.json, you simply pass an int to the toString method.

Thanks Saraiva, I found a surprisingly simple solution by Googling around with the words 'pretty printing JSON' and used the Google GSON library. I downloaded the .jar and added it to my project in Eclipse.
These are the new imports I needed:
import com.google.gson.Gson;
import com.google.gson.GsonBuilder;
Since I already had the JSON Object (jsonObject) readily available from my previous code, I only needed to add two new lines:
Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().setPrettyPrinting().create();
String newJSON = gson.toJson(jsonObject);
Now when I use writer.print(newJSON); it will write the JSON in the right format, beautifully formatted and indented.

Getting java object back from JSON

I am putting some java objects in the Json at server side
like this :
ArrayList<VisjsNode>visjsNodes = new ArrayList<VisjsNode>();
ArrayList<VisjsConnection> visjsConnections = new ArrayList<VisjsConnection>();
String jsondata = null;
org.json.JSONObject object = new org.json.JSONObject();
try {
object.put("nodes", visjsNodes);
object.put("connections", visjsConnections);
jsondata = object.toString();
Now is there a way I can get these objects back from this json (jsondata) at client side
I am doing this:
com.google.gwt.json.client.JSONValue jsonValue = JSONParser.parseStrict(jsondata);
com.google.gwt.json.client.JSONObject jsonObject = jsonValue.isObject();
jsonValue = jsonObject.get("nodes");
Now I am trying this to get ArrayList back , by doing this
ArrayList<VisjsNode>visjsNodesFromjson = jsonValue ;
But its not compiling ,it says Incompatable types...
Can you please guide how we can retrieve the Java Object back from Json ..

That's because you're using two different JsonObject class. First you use the one which comes from org.json (org.json.JsonObject) and the other is com.google.gwt.json.client.JSONObject. Nevertheless, they're named similar, they're completely different classes.

Java convert ArrayList to string and back to ArrayList?

I wanted to save an ArrayList to SharedPreferences so I need to turn it into a string and back, this is what I am doing:
// Save to shared preferences
SharedPreferences sharedPref = this.getPreferences(Activity.MODE_PRIVATE);
SharedPreferences.Editor editor = this.getPreferences(Activity.MODE_PRIVATE).edit();
editor.putString("myAppsArr", myAppsArr.toString());
editor.commit();
I can retrieve it with String arrayString = sharedPref.getString("yourKey", null); but I don't know how to convert arrayString back into an ArrayList. How can it be done?
My array looks something like:
[item1,item2,item3]

You have 2 choices :
Manually parse the string and recreate the arraylist. This would be pretty tedious.
Use a JSON library like Google's Gson library to store and retrieve objects as JSON strings. This is a lightweight library, well regarded and popular. It would be an ideal solution in your case with minimal work required. e.g.,
// How to store JSON string
Gson gson = new Gson();
// This can be any object. Does not have to be an arraylist.
String json = gson.toJson(myAppsArr);
// How to retrieve your Java object back from the string
Gson gson = new Gson();
DataObject obj = gson.fromJson(arrayString, ArrayList.class);

Try this
ArrayList<String> array = Arrays.asList(arrayString.split(","))
This will work if comma is used as separator and none of the items have it.

The page http://mjiayou.com/2015/07/22/exception-gson-internal-cannot-be-cast-to/ contains the following:
Type type = new TypeToken<List<T>>(){}.getType();
List<T> list = gson.fromJson(jsonString, type)
perhaps it will be helpful.

//arraylist convert into String using Gson
Gson gson = new Gson();
String data = gson.toJson(myArrayList);
Log.e(TAG, "json:" + gson);
//String to ArrayList
Gson gson = new Gson();
arrayList=gson.fromJson(data, new TypeToken<List<Friends>>()
{}.getType());

I ended up using:
ArrayList<String> appList = new ArrayList<String>(Arrays.asList(appsString.split("\\s*,\\s*")));
This doesn't work for all array types though. This option differs from:
ArrayList<String> array = Arrays.asList(arrayString.split(","));
on that the second option creates an inmutable array.

Update to Dhruv Gairola's answer for Kotlin
val gson = Gson();
val jsonString = gson.toJson(arrayList)