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Jackson/GSON: Apply Map to POJO

Let's say I have a POJO with quite a few fields. I also have a map with a bunch of properties that would map nicely to fields in the POJO. Now I want to apply the properties in the map to my POJO. How can I do this?
Jackson provides method new ObjectMapper().convertValue(), but that creates a fresh instance of the POJO. Do I really have to do something like this?
om = new ObjectMapper();
pojoMap = om.convertValue(pojo, Map.class);
pojoMap.putAll(properties);
pojo = om.convertValue(pojoMap, Pojo.class);
Isn't there an easier way?
As I have no experience with GSON and we also have it lying around here, how would I do that with GSON?

Yes, you can create an ObjectReader that will update an existing instance from the root JSON object rather than instantiating a new one, using the readerForUpdating method of ObjectMapper:
#Test
public void apply_json_to_existing_object() throws Exception {
ExampleRecord record = new ExampleRecord();
ObjectReader reader = mapper.readerForUpdating(record)
.with(JsonParser.Feature.ALLOW_SINGLE_QUOTES)
.with(JsonParser.Feature.ALLOW_UNQUOTED_FIELD_NAMES);
reader.readValue("{ firstProperty: 'foo' }");
reader.readValue("{ secondProperty: 'bar' }");
assertThat(record.firstProperty, equalTo("foo"));
assertThat(record.secondProperty, equalTo("bar"));
}
public static class ExampleRecord {
public String firstProperty;
public String secondProperty;
}
You can also create a value-updating reader from an existing ObjectReader. The following declaration seems equivalent:
ObjectReader reader = mapper.reader(ExampleRecord.class)
.withValueToUpdate(record)
.with(/* features etc */);
Addition
The above didn't actually answer your question, though.
Since you don't have the changes you want to make to the record as JSON, but rather as a map, you have to finagle things so that Jackson will read your Map. Which you can't do directly, but you can write the "JSON" out to a token buffer and then read it back:
#Test
public void apply_map_to_existing_object_via_json() throws Exception {
ExampleRecord record = new ExampleRecord();
Map<String, Object> properties = ImmutableMap.of("firstProperty", "foo", "secondProperty", "bar");
TokenBuffer buffer = new TokenBuffer(mapper, false);
mapper.writeValue(buffer, properties);
mapper.readerForUpdating(record).readValue(buffer.asParser());
assertThat(record.firstProperty, equalTo("foo"));
assertThat(record.secondProperty, equalTo("bar"));
}
(btw if this seems laborious, serializing to a token buffer and deserializing again is in fact how ObjectMapper.convertValue is implemented, so it's not a big change in functionality)

conversion of array list to json object string

I have a model class method which returns a list of objects which contains all the registered user details. I want to fetch the list resturned by all() method and convert the data into JSON object and pass it to the view like a string. How can I do this conversion of this array list to JSON object?
I was unable to do this by below:
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
JSONObject json = new JSONObject();
JsonNodeFactory jsonnode = JsonNodeFactory.instance;
ObjectNode result = new ObjectNode(jsonnode);
for (int i = 0; i < list.size(); i++) {
json.put(list.get(i).fname, list.get(i));
System.out.println(json.get("fname"));
}
#Entity
class Mydata extends Model {
#Id
public Long Id;
public String fname;
public String lname;
public String city;
public String state;
/****************** READ/select OPERATION *****************/
public static Finder < Long, Mydata > finder = new Finder(Long.class, Mydata.class);
public static List < Mydata > all() {
return finder.all();
}
public static void createuser(Mydata user) {
user.save();
}
}

To convert ArrayList to Json, just download Open Source json utility from:
http://json.org/java/ or Jar file from here
And just do:
JSONArray jsonAraay = new JSONArray(your_array_list);
That's it
Note: You should have setter/getter in your POJO/MODEL class to convert arraylist to json

Don't bother with org.json, use Jackson all the way:
// list is a List<MyData>
final ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
final Map<String, MyData> map = new HashMap<>();
for (final MyData data: list)
map.put(data.fname, data);
final JsonNode json = mapper.valueToTree(map);

You could use all sorts of third party libraries like others here have suggested, or just use Play's own simplified methods for this (found in play.libs.Json) which works with Jackson objects, but it is integrated into the framework and requires a lot less code to use, for example:
JsonNode myJsonNode = Json.toJson(MyListObject); which converts the List to a JsonNode object, then use something like String jsonResult = Json.stringify(myJsonNode); to convert it into a string representation.
If you are using the JSON in a template, don't forget to wrap it in something like #Html(myJsonString) so it will not escape anything. Otherwise, if you are just outputting the pure JSON to the browser, a simple return ok(jsonResult); will work as Play will automatically set the content type.
Reference link: http://www.playframework.com/documentation/api/2.0/java/play/libs/Json.html

have you looked at this:
http://www.json.org/javadoc/org/json/JSONObject.html#valueToString(java.lang.Object)
JSONObject.valueToString(<<your list of custom object>> OR <<objects>> OR <<map>>)
works just fine...there are some other methods on that lib, if you are interested....

Sending JSON with arbitrary key values using REST service (Jersey/Jackson)

I want to send something like this from the client to the rest service
jsonObj =
{
"info" : {
"field1" : "val1"..
.....
"fieldN" : "valN"..
}
}
And I am not sure how can I handle this using a rest service using Jersey and Jackson in Java
I do not want to create a new info class with using Jackson properties with N field as they are going to change always. I just want to grab the jsonObject which is inside the jsonObject and operate on that as JsonObject.
Any thoughts ?

Assuming you have a root object that you are reading the result into, you could define docInfo as a Map<String, Object> within your jsonObj. This will probably work, but I can't give it a go presently.
If you don't have a root object you can just use a Map<String, Object> as your root object and play with it from there. That Map could contain other maps for nested json objects.

Yes, use a wrapper object with an embedded map, as #digitialjoel suggested. This is a concrete example:
class DocInfo {
private Map<String, Object> docInfo;
public DocInfo() {
super();
}
public DocInfo(final Map<String, Object> docInfo) {
super();
this.docInfo = docInfo;
}
// Getters, setters
}
final Map<String, Object> data = new LinkedHashMap<String, Object>(4);
data.put("field1", "value1");
data.put("field2", "value2");
data.put("field3", "value3");
data.put("field4", "value4");
final DocInfo info = new DocInfo(data);
final ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
final String json = mapper.writeValueAsString(info);
System.out.println(json);
Output:
{"docInfo":{"field1":"value1","field2":"value2","field3":"value3","field4":"value4"}}

Parse JSON array with jackson where objects are strings?

I have a slightly odd question. I have created an object, let's call it a Profile, that successfully parses single JSON objects via an API that I call. There is also a multi-profile interface that will return a JSON array of Profile objects. The problem is, the multi-profile interface turns the sub objects into strings. Is there an automatic way I can tell jackson to parse these into objects?
Example of a single object:
{ "foo": "bar" }
Example of a multi object:
[ "{ \"foo\": \"bar\" }", "{ \"blah\": \"ugh\" }" ]
(Sorry can't use real data)
Notice that the sub objects are actually strings, with escaped quotes inside them.
For completeness, my code for the multi object parse looks like this:
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
Profile[] profile_array = mapper.readValue(response.content, Profile[].class);
for (Profile p: profile_array)
{
String user = p.did;
profiles.put(user, p);
}
As I said, in the single-profile case, the Profile object parses. In the multi-profile case, I get this exception:
Exception: org.codehaus.jackson.map.JsonMappingException: Can not construct instance of com.xyz.id.profile.Profile, problem: no suitable creator method found to deserialize from JSON String

I suppose you'll have to create a custom deserializer and apply it to the every element of that array.
class MyCustomDeserializer extends JsonDeserializer<Profile> {
private static ObjectMapper om = new ObjectMapper();
#Override
public Profile deserialize(JsonParser jp, DeserializationContext ctxt) {
// this method is responsible for changing a single text node:
// "{ \"foo\": \"bar\" }"
// Into a Profile object
return om.readValue(jp.getText(), Profile.class);
}
}

There is no out-of-the-box support for "re-parsing" of embedded JSON-in-JSON content.
But this sounds like a possible request for enhancement (RFE)...

Have you tried using JAXB?
final ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
// Setting up support of JAXB
final AnnotationIntrospector introspector = new JaxbAnnotationIntrospector();
// make deserializer use JAXB annotations (only)
mapper.getDeserializationConfig().setAnnotationIntrospector(
introspector);
// make serializer use JAXB annotations (only)
mapper.getSerializationConfig().setAnnotationIntrospector(
introspector);
final StringReader stringReader = new StringReader(response);
respGetClasses = mapper.readValue(stringReader,
FooBarClass.class);
The above should get you started...
Also, you would need to mark each subclass like so:
#XmlElement(name = "event")
public List<Event> getEvents()
{
return this.events;
}

serialize json object which extends map

Why this does not work?
public static class MyBean extends HashMap<String, String> {
public String city;
}
/**
* #param args
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
MyBean bean = new MyBean();
bean.city = "some city";
Gson gson = new Gson();
String json = gson.toJson(bean);
System.out.println(json);
}
Why I dont see city value in json?

That's because instances implementing Map have special treatment by Gson. By default only its entry set will be serialized. You need to create a custom serializer which serializes both the entryset and the bean properties of interest separately.
E.g.
public class MyBeanSerializer implements JsonSerializer<MyBean> {
#Override
public JsonElement serialize(MyBean myBean, Type type, JsonSerializationContext context) {
JsonObject object = new JsonObject();
object.add("map", context.serialize(new HashMap<String, String>(myBean)));
object.add("city", context.serialize(myBean.city));
return object;
}
}
Which can be used as follows:
Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().registerTypeAdapter(MyBean.class, new MyBeanSerializer()).create();
String json = gson.toJson(bean);
System.out.println(json);
Update: hmm, as per the comment on the question (you should actually have posted it on the answer so that I will be notified immediately), the context.serialize(myBean.entrySet()) didn't seem to work out. And you're right, I just did a local test and I got the same exception. I tried adding a TypeToken on Set<Entry<String, String>>, but that ends up with an empty entryset somehow. Wrapping it in another map did work for me. I've updated the line in the answer.