Can't parse JSON array of arrays to LinkedHashMap in Jackson - java

I' m developing an Android REST client. We use JSON as data exchange format, so I use a Jackson parser. I get different Json responses from the server like simple arrays:
{"user_id":"332","user_role":"1"}
or something else. All these stuff I parse to LinkedHashMap<String, Object> and everything works perfectly but when I got this response from the server:
[ { "user_id":"352",
"user_role":"expert",
"name":"Test 12-18",
"description":"Test" },
{ "user_id":"263",
"user_role":"novice lab",
"name":"Tom's Desk",
"description":"Desk"}
]
I got null: {} after parsing.Here is my code where i use Jackson:
ObjectMapper mapParametersToJSON = new ObjectMapper();
String serverResponseBody = responseFromServer.getBody();
LinkedHashMap<String, Object> resultofOperation = new LinkedHashMap<String,
Object>();
TypeReference<LinkedHashMap<String,Object>> genericTypeReferenceInformation = new
TypeReference<LinkedHashMap<String,Object>>() {};
try {
resultofOperation = mapParametersToJSON.readValue(serverResponseBody,
genericTypeReferenceInformation);
So, why Jackson failed to parse this? How can I fix this?

Others have suggested the problem, but solutions are bit incomplete. If you need to deal with JSON Objects and Arrays, you can either bind to java.lang.Object, check the type:
Object stuff = objectMapper.readValue(json, Object.class);
and you will get either List or Map (specifically, ArrayList or LinkedHashMap, by default; these defaults can be changed).
Or you can do JSON trees with JsonNode:
JsonNode root = objectMapper.readTree(json);
if (root.isObject()) { // JSON Object
} else if (root.isArray()) { ...
}
latter is often more convenient.
One nice thing is that you can still create regular POJOs out of these, for example:
if (root.isObject()) {
MyObject ob = objectMapper.treeToValue(MyObject.class);
}
// or with Object, use objectMapper.convertValue(ob, MyObject.class)
so you can even have different handling for different types; go back and forth different representations.

The first JSON in your question is a map, or an object. The second is an array. You're not parsing an array, you're parsing a map.
You need to do something like this:
List<MyClass> myObjects = mapper.readValue(jsonInput, new TypeReference<List<MyClass>>(){});
Almost identical question with answer here.

In JSON the {"key": "value"} is Object and the ["this", "that"] is Array.
So, in case when you're receiving the array of objects you should use something like List<Map<Key, Value>>.

You are facing an error, because [] construction can't be translated into Map reference, only in List or array.
I would recommend do it something in this way:
ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
List<Map<String,String>> parsedResult = objectMapper.reader(CollectionType.construct(LinkedList.class, MapType.construct(LinkedHashMap.class, SimpleType.construct(String.class), SimpleType.construct(String.class)))).readValue(serverResponseBody);
//if you need the one result map
Map<String, String> resultMap = new LinkedHashMap<String, String>();
for (Map<String, String> map: parsedResult){
resultMap.putAll(map);
}

Related

Working with Jackson to convert nested JSON to Map

I'm currently using com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper to take a JSON string and convert to a map. I'm struggling though to figure out how to work with my particular JSON input though and then how to Parse the output. The JSON I'm playing around with looks like this:
{
"data":[
{
"DATA.HELLO":[
{
"do_something":"true"
}
],
"DATA.GOODBYE":[
{
"do_something":"false"
}
]
}
]
}
Below is a snippet of my code. Ultimately I want something like a Map<String, Map> where I can grab "do_something" or whatever other attribute from "data.hello" or "data.goodbye".
So I can do something like map.get("data") to get the array, but I'm not sure how to grab - for example - the DATA.HELLO piece. I'm also not sure if what I'm doing here is the best way to handle this as this is the first time I've worked with Jackson and I'm fairly new to Java. Am I on the completely wrong track here?
String data = "{\"data\":[{\"DATA.HELLO\":[{\"do_something\":\"true\"}],\"DATA.GOODBYE\":[{\"do_something\":\"true\"}]}]}";
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
Map<String, Map> map = mapper.readValue(data, Map.class);
System.out.println(data);

How to receive customized JSON Object in Spring boot Api post Method

I am trying to receive a JSON object in #RequestBody which is not known to me i.e. the JSON Object could be of any length and data.
Let's say, JSON could be as shown below
{'seqNo': 10 }
{'country': 'US', 'state': 'CA'}
{'customer': 'Alex', product: 'UPS', date:'25-Mar-2018'}
And In Spring Boot Api, I have a method to receive that JSON Object.
#PostMapping(value = "/lookup")
public ResponseEntity<AppResponse> getLookup(#RequestBody LookupRequestObject lookupRequestObject) {
// THIS METHOD KNOWS WHICH FIELD TO USE
// FURTHER LOGIC WOULD BE HERE.
return ResponseEntity.ok(response);
}
I have read about Jackson Serialization but still finding solution for this.
Customize the Jackson ObjectMapper
Any help would be much appreciated.
You could just use a map for your input.
Then you can access filed in the map depending on what kind of fields it contains.
#PostMapping(value = "/lookup")
public ResponseEntity<AppResponse> getLookup(#RequestBody Map<String, Object> lookupRequestObject) {
// THIS METHOD KNOWS WHICH FIELD TO USE
// FURTHER LOGIC WOULD BE HERE.
return ResponseEntity.ok(response);
}
If JSON object structure is not known, you can always use Map<String, Object> type and convert it to POJO or directly work on Map. In case you need POJO you can use convertValue method:
#PostMapping(value = "/lookup")
public ResponseEntity<AppResponse> getLookup(#RequestBody Map<String, Object> payload) {
// read map
ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
if (payload.containsKey("seqNo")) {
Sequence seq = objectMapper.convertValue(payload, Sequence.class);
// other logic
} else if (payload.containsKey("country")) {
Country country = objectMapper.convertValue(payload, Country.class);
}
// the same for other types
// FURTHER LOGIC WOULD BE HERE.
return ResponseEntity.ok(response);
}
You can also try with deserialising to com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonNode but it binds controller with Jackson which is not good from other side.
The answer by #Patrick Adler is absolutely correct. You can use Map as your parameter of the method. Two important additions: Map corresponds to JSON Object so when a JSON object is passed to your method Spring (using Jackson by default) will convert it to map, so no additional code needed. Also to be sure you can add to your annotation that you expect to receive JSON input:
So change the line
#PostMapping(value = "/lookup") to
#PostMapping(value = "/lookup", headers = "Accept=application/json") And finally the input that you posted is not a valid single JSON Object. It is 3 separate JSON Objects. So either you expect a JSON array containing JSON Objects or a Single JSON Object. If you expect a JSON Array then instead of Map<String, Object> parameter in your method use List<Map<String, Object>> so your solution should look either
#PostMapping(value = "/lookup", headers = "Accept=application/json")
public ResponseEntity<AppResponse> getLookup(#RequestBody Map<String, Object> lookupRequestObject) {
// THIS METHOD KNOWS WHICH FIELD TO USE
// FURTHER LOGIC WOULD BE HERE.
return ResponseEntity.ok(response);
}
or the same but with List<Map<String, Object>> param instead of just map

Serialize to JSON as name-value from String by Jackson ObjectMapper

I have some String, like:
String value = "123";
And when i serialize this string to json via ObjectMapper:
objectMapper.writeValueAsString(value);
Output is:
"123"
Is it possible to write String using either string name and string value? Desired output:
"value" : "123"
PS: i dont want to create DTO object with one field for serializing one String value.
you can also use the Jackson JsonGenerator
try (JsonGenerator generator = new JsonFactory().createGenerator(writer)) {
generator.writeStartObject();
generator.writeFieldName("value");
generator.writeString("123");
generator.writeEndObject();
}
}
If you have a plain string you'll get out a plain string when serialised. If you want to wrap it in an object then use a map for the simplest solution.
String value = "123";
Map<String, String> obj = new HashMap<>();
obj.put("value", value);
Passing that through the mapper will produce something like this:
{ "value": "123" }
If you change the map to <String, Object> you can pass in pretty much anything you want, even maps within maps and they'll serialise correctly.
If you really can't have the enclosing curly braces you can always take the substring but that would be a very weird use case if you're still serialising to JSON.
Create a Map:
Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<>();
map.put("value", value);
String parsedValue = ObjectMapper.writeValueAsString(map);
and you will get: {"value":"123"}
If you are using java 8 and want to do it in automated way without creating maps or manually putting string variable name "value", this is the link you need to follow-

Parsing dynamic JSON values to Java objects

In my application I have lot of overviews (tables) with sorting and filtering capabilities. And becuase the different column can hold different value type (strings, numbers, dates, sets, etc.) the filter for these columns also can bring different values. Let me show you few examples (converted to JSON already as is sent to server via REST request):
For simple string value it is like:
{"<column_name>":"<value>"}
For number and date column the filter looks like:
{"<column_name>":[{"operator":"eq","value":"<value>"}]}
{"<column_name>":[{"operator":"eq","value":"<value1>"},{"operator":"gt","value":"<value2>"}]}
For set the filter looks like
{"<column_name>":["<value1>","<value2>"(,...)]}
Now I need to parse that JSON within a helper class that will build the WHERE clause of SQL query. In PHP this is not a problem as I can call json_decode and then simply check whether some value is array, string or whatever else... But how to do this simply in Java?
So far I am using Spring's JsonJsonParser (I didn't find any visible difference between different parsers coming with Spring like Jackson, Gson and others).
I was thinking about creating an own data object class with three different constructors or having three data object classes for all of the three possibilities, but yet I have no clue how to deal with the value returned for column_name after the JSON is parsed by parser...
Simply looking on the examples it gives me three possibilities:
Map<String, String>
Map<String, Map<String, String>>
Map<String, String[]>
Any idea or clue?
Jackson's ObjectMapper treeToValue should be able to help you.
http://fasterxml.github.io/jackson-databind/javadoc/2.2.0/com/fasterxml/jackson/databind/ObjectMapper.html#treeToValue%28com.fasterxml.jackson.core.TreeNode,%20java.lang.Class%29
Your main problem is that the first version of you JSON is not the same construction than the two others. Picking the two others you could deserialize your JSON into a Map<String, Map<String, String> as you said but the first version fits a Map.
There are a couple solutions available to you :
You change the JSON format to always match the Map<String, Map<String, String> pattern
You first parse the JSON into a JsonNode, check the type of the value and deserialize the whole thing into the proper Map pattern.
(quick and dirty) You don't change the JSON, but you try with one of the Map patterns, catch JsonProcessingException, then retry with the other Map pattern
You'll have to check the type of the values in runtime. You can work with a Map<String, Object> or with JsonNode.
Map<String, Object>
JsonParser parser = JsonParserFactory.getJsonParser();
Map<String, Object> map = parser.parseMap(str);
Object filterValue = filter.get("<column_name>");
if (filterValue instanceof String) {
// str is like "{\"<column_name>\":\"<value>\"}"
} else if (filterValue instanceof Collection) {
for (Object arrayValue : (Collection<Object>) filterValue) {
if (arrayValue instanceof String) {
// str is like "{\"<column_name>\":[\"<value1>\",\"<value2>\"]}"
} else if (arrayValue instanceof Map) {
// str is like "{\"<column_name>\":[{\"operator\":\"eq\",\"value\":\"<value>\"}]}"
}
}
}
JsonNode
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
JsonNode filter = mapper.readTree(str);
JsonNode filterValue = filter.get("<column_name>");
if (filterValue.isTextual()) {
// str is like "{\"<column_name>\":\"<value>\"}"
} else if (filterValue.isArray()) {
for (JsonNode arrayValue : filterValue.elements()) {
if (arrayValue.isTextual()) {
// str is like "{\"<column_name>\":[\"<value1>\",\"<value2>\"]}"
} else if (arrayValue.isObject()) {
// str is like "{\"<column_name>\":[{\"operator\":\"eq\",\"value\":\"<value>\"}]}"
}
}
}

Jackson Unmarshall custom object instead of LinkedHashMap

I have a Java object Results:
public class MetaData {
private List<AttributeValue<String,Object>> properties
private String name
...
... getters/setters ...
}
The AttributeValue class is a generic key-value class. It's possible different AttributeValue's are nested. The (value) Object will then be another AttributeValue and so forth.
Due to legacy reasons the structure of this object cannot be altered.
I have my JSON, which I try to map to this object.
All goes well for the regular properties. Also the first level of the list is filled with AttributeValues.
The problem is the Object. Jackson doesn't know how to interpret this nested behavior and just makes it a LinkedHashMap.
I'm looking for a way to implement custom behavior to tell Jackson this has to be a AttributeValue-object instead of the LinkedHashMap.
This is how I'm currently converting the JSON:
ObjectMapper om = new ObjectMapper();
MetaData metaData = om.readValue(jsonString, new TypeReference<MetaData>(){});
And this is example JSON. (this is obtained by serializing an existing MetaData object to JSON, I have complete control over this syntax).
{
"properties":[
{
"attribute":"creators",
"value":[
{
"attribute":"creator",
"value":"user1"
},{
"attribute":"creator",
"value":"user2"
}
]
},{
"attribute":"type",
"value": "question"
}
],
"name":"example"
}
(btw: I've tried the same using GSON, but then the object is a StringMap and the problem is the same. Solutions using GSON are also welcome).
edit In Using Jackson ObjectMapper with Generics to POJO instead of LinkedHashMap there is a comment from StaxMan:
"LinkedHashMap is only returned when type information is missing (or if Object.class is defined as type)."
The latter seems to be the issue here. Is there a way I can override this?
If you have control over the serialization, try calling enableDefaultTyping() on your mapper.
Consider this example:
Pair<Integer, Pair<Integer, Integer>> pair = new Pair<>(1, new Pair<>(1, 1));
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
String str = mapper.writeValueAsString(pair);
Pair result = mapper.readValue(str, Pair.class);
Without enableDefaultTyping(), I would have str = {"k":1,"v":{"k":1,"v":1}} which would deserialize to a Pair with LinkedHashMap.
But if I enableDefaultTyping() on mapper, then str = {"k":1,"v":["Pair",{"k":1,"v":1}]} which then perfectly deserializes to Pair<Integer, Pair<...>>.

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