Same field has two different types gives trouble with Gson converter for Retrofit 2

Question

Here is the json schema:

As you can see, rated can be both boolean and object.

I am using Retrofit 2 and Gson converter. How should I create my model for this schema?

Answer 1

Here's how I solved this issue:

Create a custom type adapter in your model and parse rated manually;

public class AccountState {

    //@SerializedName("rated") //NOPE, parse it manually
    private Integer mRated; //also don't name it rated


    public Integer getRated() {
        return mRated;
    }

    public void setRated(Integer rated) {
        this.mRated = rated;
    }


    public static class AccountStateDeserializer implements JsonDeserializer<AccountState> {

        @Override
        public AccountState deserialize(JsonElement json, Type typeOfT, JsonDeserializationContext context) throws JsonParseException {
            AccountState accountState = new Gson().fromJson(json, AccountState.class);
            JsonObject jsonObject = json.getAsJsonObject();

            if (jsonObject.has("rated")) {
                JsonElement elem = jsonObject.get("rated");
                if (elem != null && !elem.isJsonNull()) {
                    if(elem.isJsonPrimitive()){
                        accountState.setRated(null);
                    }else{
                        accountState.setRated(elem.getAsJsonObject().get("value").getAsInt());
                    }
                }
            }
            return accountState ;
        }
    }

}

Here you create your gson with this custom adapter:

final static Gson gson = new GsonBuilder()
            .registerTypeAdapter(AccountState.class, new AccountState.AccountStateDeserializer())
            .create();

Add it to retrofit like that:

Retrofit retrofit = new Retrofit.Builder()
                .baseUrl(BuildConfig.ENDPOINT)
                .addConverterFactory(GsonConverterFactory.create(gson))
                .client(okHttpClient)
                .build();

TADADADADADADADDAD!