Dynamic JSON Data Object in GSON

Question

I'm having a bit of trouble with GSON reading my API response JSON.

My API data returns an object with a status code, message and a data object.

The problem that I have with GSON, is that I can't figure out how to work with it properly.

For example, my API response can look like this.

{
    "code": 200,
    "message": "",
    "data": {
        "auth_token": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
        "points": 42850
    }
}

OR

{
    "code": 200,
    "message": "",
    "data": {
        "items": [
          {
            "title" : "value"
          },
          {
            "title" : "value"
          }
        ]
    }
}

OR others

The first response, which is a login response would be a class LoginResponse.class

public class LoginResponse {

    private String auth_token;
    private int points;

    public String getAuthToken(){
        return auth_token;
    }

    public int getPoints(){
        return points;
    }

}

and I'd use

LoginResponse response = gson.fromJson(json, LoginResponse.class);

But, how can I create a class so I can access the status code, message and the data? (which could be any of the response classes that I have)

I've looked at TypeAdapterFactory and JsonDeserializer, but couldn't get my head around it.

So, if anyone can find a SO answer that answers this question, that'd be great because I couldn't find one, or if you know how to do just this.

Answer 1

You could have code and message as normal, and then data could be a Map<String, Object> that you would have to interpret at runtime depending on the code or whatever you use to differentiate how the response should look.