How to work with JSON in Android

In this post I'll describe a way to work with JSON in Android.
.
First of all, what is JSON.
JSON is short for JavaScript Object Notation and it is an independent data exchange format.
Data structures in JSON are based on key / value pairs and we can summarize in these points:

• JSON Object : { string : value , .... }
• JSON Array : [ value , value .....]
• value : string || number || object || array || true || false, || null

If you observe normally JSON data will have square brackets and curly brackets. The difference between [ and { is, the square bracket represents starting of an JSONArray node whereas curly bracket represents JSONObject.
This is an example:

{
 "id":10,
 "name":"myname",
 "listMessages":
 [
       { 
         "value":1,
         "text":"value",
         "id_message":0
       },
       { "value":11,"text":"value","id_message":1}
  ]
}

Android includes the json.org libraries which allow to work easily with JSON files.

Create a JSONObject:
JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject();

To put a specific value
jsonObject.put("id", 10);
jsonObject.put("name", "myname");

To create a specific array
JSONArray jsonArrayMessages = new JSONArray();
JSONObject jsonMessage = new JSONObject();
jsonMessage.put("id_message", 1);
jsonMessage.put("value", 10);
jsonArrayMessages.put(jsonMessage);

To put a specific array in a JSONObject
jsonObject.put("listMessages", jsonArrayMessages);

Create a JSONObject from a JSON String:
JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(result);

To get a specific string from JSON Object
String name = jsonObject.getString("name");

To get a specific int
int id = jsonObject.getInt("id");

To get a specific array
JSONArray jArray = jsonObject.getJSONArray("listMessages");

To get the items from the array
JSONObject msg = jArray.getJSONObject(1);
int id_message = msg.getInt("id_message");

Now we have all the tools to build an example.
In this example, we'll use a entity.

public static class MyObject {

       private int id;
       private String name;
       private List<MyObjectMessage> listMessages;
}

public static class MyObjectMessage {

       private int id_message;
       private int value;
       private String text;
}

We can create our MyObject instance:

public static MyObject createMyObject() {

       MyObject myObj = new MyObject();
       myObj.setId(10);
       myObj.setName("myname");

       List messages = new ArrayList();

       for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
          MyObjectMessage objMessage = new MyObjectMessage();
          objMessage.setId_message(i);
          objMessage.setValue(i * 10 + 1);
          objMessage.setText("value");

          messages.add(objMessage);
       }

       myObj.setListMessages(messages);

       return myObj;
}

Now we can write a JSON String from our instance:

public static JSONObject write() {

       MyObject myObj = createMyObject();
       if (myObj != null) {

         try {
           JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject();
           jsonObject.put("id", myObj.getId());
           jsonObject.put("name", myObj.getName());
           JSONArray jsonArrayMessages = new JSONArray();

           List messages = myObj.getListMessages();

           if (messages != null) {
              for (MyObjectMessage objMsg : messages) {
                  JSONObject jsonMessage = new JSONObject();
                  jsonMessage.put("id_message", objMsg.getId_message());
                  jsonMessage.put("value", objMsg.getValue());
                  jsonMessage.put("text", objMsg.getText());
                  jsonArrayMessages.put(jsonMessage);
             }
           }

           jsonObject.put("listMessages", jsonArrayMessages);

           return jsonObject;

         } catch (JSONException je) {
            Log.e(TAG, "error in Write", je);
         }  
      } 

      return null;

}

Here you can find output:

* {"id":10,"listMessages":[
* {"value":1,"text":"value","id_message":0},
* {"value":11,"text":"value","id_message":1},
* {"value":21,"text":"value","id_message":2},
* {"value":31,"text":"value","id_message":3},
* {"value":41,"text":"value","id_message":4}
* ]
* ,"name":"myname"}



If you want to parse your JSON String you can use:

public static MyObject parse(String jsonString) {

      MyObject myobj = null;

      if (jsonString != null) {
            
        try {
            JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(jsonString);

            myobj = new MyObject();

            myobj.setId(jsonObject.getInt("id"));
            myobj.setName(jsonObject.getString("name"));

            List messages = new ArrayList();

            JSONArray msgs = (JSONArray) jsonObject.get("listMessages");
            for (int i = 0; i < msgs.length(); i++) {
                JSONObject json_message = msgs.getJSONObject(i);
                if (json_message != null) {
                   MyObjectMessage objMsg = new MyObjectMessage();
                   objMsg.setId_message(json_message.getInt("id_message"));
                   objMsg.setValue(json_message.getInt("value"));
                   objMsg.setText(json_message.getString("text"));
                   messages.add(objMsg);
                }
            }

            myobj.setListMessages(messages);
        } catch (JSONException je) {
            Log.e(TAG, "error while parsing", je);
        }
     }

     return myobj;
}

Of course you can use external Libraries like GSON.
In this case you have to do these step:

• Download GSON library
• Add library to your project
• Modify our code

To create JSON String from our instance:

public static String writeGson() {

     MyObject myObj = createMyObject();
     if (myObj != null) {

         Gson gson = new Gson();
         String objJson = gson.toJson(myObj);

         return objJson;
     }

     return null;
}

If you want to parse your JSON String you can use:

public static MyObject parseGson(String jsonString) {

     MyObject myobj = null;

     if (jsonString != null) {

         Gson gson = new Gson();
         myobj = gson.fromJson(jsonString, MyObject.class);
     }

     return myobj;
}

You can get code from GitHub: