How to parse JSON file?

Question

Simple situation -

1. read a json file
2. discover all key-value pairs
3. compare key-value pairs

I tried gson, package from json.org, but can't seem to get far with it.

Can someone please provide a clear sample in Java on how to take a file, read it, end up with json objec I can get key/value pairs from.

Consider this:

private void runThroughJson(JsonObject jsonObject) {
    for (final Entry<String, JsonElement> entry : jsonObject.entrySet()) {

        final String key = entry.getKey();
        final JsonElement value = entry.getValue();

        System.out.println(key + " - " + value);

        if (value.isJsonObject()) {
            runThroughJson(value.getAsJsonObject());
        } else {                
            int ix = value.getAsString().indexOf('[');
            int ig = value.getAsString().lastIndexOf(']');

            System.out.println(ix);
            System.out.println(ig);

            String a = value.getAsString().substring(ix, ig);
            JsonElement jsonElement = parser.parse(a);
            runThroughJson(jsonElement.getAsJsonObject());
        }
    }
}

Logically, it seems alright, however, i get an exception:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalStateException
    at com.google.gson.JsonArray.getAsString(JsonArray.java:133)
    at com.cme.esg.bk.TryGson.runThroughJson(TryGson.java:46)
    at com.cme.esg.bk.TryGson.runThroughJson(TryGson.java:44)
    at com.cme.esg.bk.TryGson.goForIt(TryGson.java:32)
    at com.cme.esg.bk.TryGson.main(TryGson.java:16)

Can you please advise that am i missing.

Answer 1

With Gson (assuming that you have on object {...} on the top level of your json file):

final JsonParser parser = new JsonParser();
final JsonElement jsonElement = parser.parse(new FileReader("/path/to/myfile"));
final JsonObject jsonObject = jsonElement.getAsJsonObject();

for (final Entry<String, JsonElement> entry : jsonObject.entrySet()) {
   final String key = entry.getKey();
   final JsonElement value = entry.getValue();
   ....
}

---

In response to your comment:

You should certainly avoid re-parsing the json from a string. Use something like:

... else if (value.isJsonArray()) {
   final JsonArray jsonArray = value.getAsJsonArray();
   if (jsonArray.size() == 1) {
      runThroughJson(jsonArray.get(0));
   } else {
        // perform some error handling, since
        // you expect it to have just one child!
   }

}