Mapping JSON data to Java POJO Class with Jackson Mapper

Question

I am developing an android application and I am trying to implement the processing of some Java data using the Stream capabilities of Jackson. To do this I have a few code example to run through and will explain what each does as I go.

Here is the JSON I am working with:

{
"users": [
    {
        "ID": "26",
        "data1": "Momonth",
        "data2": "2011-10-30 04:34:53"
    },
    {
        "ID": "45",
        "data1": "Porto",
        "data2": "2011-10-18 05:34:00"
    },
    {
        "ID": "21",
        "data1": "Tomson",
        "data2": "2011-10-12 02:44:13"
    }
],
"success": 1,
}

The code below is the POJO where this data will be stored as it iterates through each of the "users" array list items in my data:

@JsonRootName(value = "users")
public class User {

    String ID;
    String data1;
    String data2;
    ...

    public String getID() {
        return ID;
    }
    public void setID(String iD) {
        ID = iD;
    }
    public String getData1() {
        return data1;
    }
    public void setData1(String data1) {
        this.data1 = data1;
    }
    public String getData2() {
        return data2;
    }
    public void setData2(String data2) {
        this.data2 = data2;
    }
    ...

}

Now the code below I would expect to look at the JSON data and then grab the "users" array list of objects, I then for now wanted to simply print the name of each user to the LogCat to review that it works and as explained earlier I am looking to use the "" method as the data is quite large and I want to avoid memory issues.

HttpRequest request = HttpRequest.get("http://www.site.com/android/app/getAllUsers.php");   
final Reader reader = request.reader();
final ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
mapper.configure(DeserializationFeature.UNWRAP_ROOT_VALUE, true);
final JsonFactory factory = mapper.getFactory();

try {

    JsonParser jp = factory.createParser(reader);

    while(jp.nextToken() == JsonToken.START_OBJECT) {

        String fieldName = jp.getCurrentName();

        jp.nextToken();

        final User a = mapper.readValue(jp.getText(), User.class);

    }
} catch (JsonParseException e1) {
    // TODO Auto-generated catch block
    e1.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e1) {
    // TODO Auto-generated catch block
    e1.printStackTrace();
}

However the code above doesn't work in its current state and I get the following errors from Jackson:

09-06 11:11:25.326: W/System.err(15029): com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonMappingException: Current token not START_OBJECT (needed to unwrap root name 'users'), but FIELD_NAME
09-06 11:11:25.326: W/System.err(15029):  at [Source: java.io.InputStreamReader@432b1580; line: 1, column: 2]
09-06 11:11:25.326: W/System.err(15029):    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper._unwrapAndDeserialize(ObjectMapper.java:2948)
09-06 11:11:25.326: W/System.err(15029):    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper._readValue(ObjectMapper.java:2858)
09-06 11:11:25.326: W/System.err(15029):    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper.readValue(ObjectMapper.java:1569)
09-06 11:11:25.326: W/System.err(15029):    at com.app.tool.UsersListActivity$LoadAllUsers.doInBackground(UsersListActivity.java:381)
09-06 11:11:25.326: W/System.err(15029):    at com.app.tool.UsersListActivity$LoadAllUsers.doInBackground(UsersListActivity.java:1)
09-06 11:11:25.326: W/System.err(15029):    at android.os.AsyncTask$2.call(AsyncTask.java:287)
09-06 11:11:25.326: W/System.err(15029):    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:234)
09-06 11:11:25.326: W/System.err(15029):    at android.os.AsyncTask$SerialExecutor$1.run(AsyncTask.java:230)
09-06 11:11:25.326: W/System.err(15029):    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1080)
09-06 11:11:25.326: W/System.err(15029):    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:573)
09-06 11:11:25.326: W/System.err(15029):    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:856)

I would really appreciate any help that can be given on this as I am stuck and cant go forward.

Thanks in advance

---

******EDIT********

---

Thanks for the reply and I have tried to implement the code however it still doesn't seem to work, the code I have now is below:

protected String doInBackground(String... args) {

    HttpRequest request = HttpRequest.get("http://www.site.com/android/app/getAllUsers.php");
    final Reader reader = request.reader();

    final ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
    final JsonFactory factory = mapper.getFactory();

    try {

            JsonParser jp = factory.createParser(reader);

            JsonNode root = mapper.readTree(jp);
            ArrayNode users = (ArrayNode) root.path("users");

            Iterator<JsonNode> iterator = users.elements();

            while (iterator.hasNext()) {
                User user = mapper.readValue(iterator.next(), User.class);

                System.out.println("User Name = " + user.data1);
            }

        } catch (JsonParseException e1) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e1.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e1) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e1.printStackTrace();
        }

        return null;
}

Do you think it has anything to do with my process running in an ASYNC task or that I am accessing my JSON through a web service? The error I get is below along with the line that it shows on:

Error Line:

User user = mapper.readValue(iterator.next(), User.class);

Error Code:

The method readValue(JsonParser, Class<T>) in the type ObjectMapper is not applicable for the arguments (JsonNode, Class<User>)

Hopefully you can help me sort this last issue out, thanks again for the assistance.

Answer 1

You don't need the @JsonRootName annotation. You can just read the tree and get the users array. Then iterate through and use ObjectMapper's readValue(JsonNode node, Class<T> class) on each node.

Note that the capitalised ID in your json requires a hint to the parser, hence the @JsonProperty(value="ID") annotation on the getter.

public class JacksonJSON {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
        JsonNode root = mapper.readTree(JacksonJSON.class.getResourceAsStream("/users.json"));
        ArrayNode users = (ArrayNode) root.path("users");

        Iterator<JsonNode> iterator = users.getElements();
        while (iterator.hasNext()) {
            User user = mapper.readValue(iterator.next(), User.class);

            System.out.println("User id=" + user.id + " data1=" + user.data1 + " data2=" + user.data2);
        }


    }

}


class User {

    String id;
    String data1;
    String data2;

    @JsonProperty(value="ID")
    public String getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(String id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public String getData1() {
        return data1;
    }

    public void setData1(String data1) {
        this.data1 = data1;
    }

    public String getData2() {
        return data2;
    }

    public void setData2(String data2) {
        this.data2 = data2;
    }

}