Json in Mercury
Java offers built-in support for JSON encoding and decoding, including to and from built-in and custom data types. We’ll use the popular Jackson library for JSON processing in Java.
First, let’s define our custom types:
import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonProperty;
class Response1 {
public int page;
public String[] fruits;
}
class Response2 {
@JsonProperty("page")
public int page;
@JsonProperty("fruits")
public String[] fruits;
}
Now, let’s look at the main method where we’ll perform JSON encoding and decoding:
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
import java.util.*;
public class JsonExample {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
// First we'll look at encoding basic data types to JSON strings.
// Here are some examples for atomic values.
System.out.println(mapper.writeValueAsString(true));
System.out.println(mapper.writeValueAsString(1));
System.out.println(mapper.writeValueAsString(2.34));
System.out.println(mapper.writeValueAsString("gopher"));
// And here are some for slices and maps, which encode
// to JSON arrays and objects as you'd expect.
List<String> slcD = Arrays.asList("apple", "peach", "pear");
System.out.println(mapper.writeValueAsString(slcD));
Map<String, Integer> mapD = new HashMap<>();
mapD.put("apple", 5);
mapD.put("lettuce", 7);
System.out.println(mapper.writeValueAsString(mapD));
// The Jackson library can automatically encode your
// custom data types.
Response1 res1D = new Response1();
res1D.page = 1;
res1D.fruits = new String[]{"apple", "peach", "pear"};
System.out.println(mapper.writeValueAsString(res1D));
// You can use annotations on class field declarations
// to customize the encoded JSON key names.
Response2 res2D = new Response2();
res2D.page = 1;
res2D.fruits = new String[]{"apple", "peach", "pear"};
System.out.println(mapper.writeValueAsString(res2D));
// Now let's look at decoding JSON data into Java values.
// Here's an example for a generic data structure.
String byt = "{\"num\":6.13,\"strs\":[\"a\",\"b\"]}";
// We need to provide a type where the Jackson library
// can put the decoded data. This Map<String, Object>
// will hold a map of strings to arbitrary data types.
Map<String, Object> dat = mapper.readValue(byt, Map.class);
System.out.println(dat);
// In order to use the values in the decoded map,
// we'll need to cast them to their appropriate type.
double num = (Double) dat.get("num");
System.out.println(num);
// Accessing nested data requires a series of casts.
List<String> strs = (List<String>) dat.get("strs");
String str1 = strs.get(0);
System.out.println(str1);
// We can also decode JSON into custom data types.
String str = "{\"page\": 1, \"fruits\": [\"apple\", \"peach\"]}";
Response2 res = mapper.readValue(str, Response2.class);
System.out.println(res.page);
System.out.println(res.fruits[0]);
// In the examples above we always used strings as
// intermediates between the data and JSON representation.
// We can also stream JSON encodings directly to Writers.
mapper.writeValue(System.out, mapD);
}
}
To run this program, you’ll need to include the Jackson library in your project. You can do this by adding the following dependency to your Maven pom.xml
file:
<dependency>
<groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
<artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
<version>2.12.3</version>
</dependency>
Or if you’re using Gradle, add this to your build.gradle
file:
implementation 'com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind:2.12.3'
When you run this program, you should see output similar to the following:
true
1
2.34
"gopher"
["apple","peach","pear"]
{"apple":5,"lettuce":7}
{"page":1,"fruits":["apple","peach","pear"]}
{"page":1,"fruits":["apple","peach","pear"]}
{num=6.13, strs=[a, b]}
6.13
a
1
apple
{"apple":5,"lettuce":7}
We’ve covered the basics of JSON in Java here, but check out the Jackson library documentation for more advanced features and options.