Parse JSON array using Scala Argonaut

Question

I'm using Scala & Argonaut, trying to parse the following JSON:

[
    {
        "name": "apple",
        "type": "fruit",
        "size": 3
    },
    {
        "name": "jam",
        "type": "condiment",
        "size": 5
    },
    {
        "name": "beef",
        "type": "meat",
        "size": 1
    }
]

And struggling to work out how to iterate and extract the values into a List[MyType] where MyType will have name, type and size properties.

I will post more specific code soon (i have tried many things), but basically I'm looking to understand how the cursor works, and how to iterate through arrays etc. I have tried using \\ (downArray) to move to the head of the array, then :->- to iterate through the array, then --\ (downField) is not available (at least IntelliJ doesn't think so). So the question is how do i:

• navigate to the array
• iterate through the array (and know when I'm done)
• extract string, integer etc. values for each field - jdecode[String]? as[String]?

Answer 1

The easiest way to do this is to define a codec for MyType. The compiler will then happily construct a decoder for List[MyType], etc. I'll use a plain class here (not a case class) to make it clear what's happening:

class MyType(val name: String, val tpe: String, val size: Int)

import argonaut._, Argonaut._

implicit def MyTypeCodec: CodecJson[MyType] = codec3(
  (name: String, tpe: String, size: Int) => new MyType(name, tpe, size),
  (myType: MyType) => (myType.name, myType.tpe, myType.size)
)("name", "type", "size")

codec3 takes two parameter lists. The first has two parameters, which allow you to tell how to create an instance of MyType from a Tuple3 and vice versa. The second parameter list lets you specify the names of the fields.

Now you can just write something like the following (if json is your string):

Parse.decodeValidation[List[MyType]](json)

And you're done.