JSON to multidimentional array in android/java

Question

I'm looking into creating a library for myself that handles common internet-related functions. So far I have http GET and POST functions, and now I'm looking into developing a one-size-fits-all JSON parsing function that will convert JSON it receives as a string into a multi-dimentional associative array that can be searched through.

I looked through stackoverflow and found this link which looks very helpful, other than that the code is designed to be very specific. Is there a nice handy function in org.json.* that can let you turn your JSON string into a multi-dimentional associative array that I can return and manipulate outside the class?

Thanks, John.

Ps. I should mention that I have very little prior experience with java - I'm a PHP developer at heart.

What is the advantage of a "multi-dimentional associative array" over a JSONObject? — Cheryl Simon
– Cheryl Simon, Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 17:20
I'm not entirely sure. As a PHP developer, I imagine an array is more useful once the data has been extracted out of the JSON? — John Hamelink
– John Hamelink, Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 17:23
You seldom use arrays in Java. If anything, it would be a map of maps or something. However, before you go trying to create a "better" interface, why don't you learn how to use the existing one and see if that can work for you. The standard JSON interface is fairly straightforwards. — Cheryl Simon
– Cheryl Simon, Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 17:54

Ollie C · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-08 19:01:58Z

2

I don't think there's a need to write your own JSON library. Android comes with a lot you can use, or you can use GSON which I've had great success with: http://code.google.com/p/google-gson/

See how easy it is:

// Serialise
String[] array = {"One","Two","Three"};
String json = new Gson().toJson(array);

// De-serialise
String[] array = new Gson().fromJson(json,String[].class);

GSON works just fine with a whole range of classes including your own class objects, arrays, and some collections.

One caveat is that the GSON library does not support the date format used by APIs on Microsoft web servers, but in those scenarios I've just pulled the data down into a String var and then process is inside the class to a date using my own parsing.

answered Feb 8, 2011 at 19:01

Ollie C

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2 Comments

John Hamelink Over a year ago

Thank you, I have been using android's offering currently, but I may resort to GSON in the future for more complicated stuff. I think the reason why I was trying to write what was essentially a wrapper for JSON was because I was trying to keep everything as OOP as possible, but what I wasn't realising was that it wasn't achieving any specific benefit other than it was moving code from one place to another.

Ollie C Over a year ago

GSON is very nicely implemented and it'll even handle hierarchical class structures, so just throw an object at it, and it'll serialise it. It's fantastic. The date format issue is annoying (there's no JSON date format standard, so different vendors use diff formats) but I'm only aware of incompatibility with Microsoft web server APIs, so probably limited actual problems. OOP is wonderful, but always good to avoid reinventing the wheel, focus on making apps better.

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