How can I convert JSON to a HashMap using Gson?

Question

I'm requesting data from a server which returns data in the JSON format. Casting a HashMap into JSON when making the request wasn't hard at all but the other way seems to be a little tricky. The JSON response looks like this:

{ 
    "header" : { 
        "alerts" : [ 
            {
                "AlertID" : "2",
                "TSExpires" : null,
                "Target" : "1",
                "Text" : "woot",
                "Type" : "1"
            },
            { 
                "AlertID" : "3",
                "TSExpires" : null,
                "Target" : "1",
                "Text" : "woot",
                "Type" : "1"
            }
        ],
        "session" : "0bc8d0835f93ac3ebbf11560b2c5be9a"
    },
    "result" : "4be26bc400d3c"
}

What way would be easiest to access this data? I'm using the GSON module.

Answer 1

This is more of addendum to Kevin Dolan's answer than a complete answer, but I was having trouble extracting the type from the Number. This is my solution:

private Object handlePrimitive(JsonPrimitive json) {
  if(json.isBoolean()) {
    return json.getAsBoolean();
  } else if(json.isString())
    return json.getAsString();
  }

  Number num = element.getAsNumber();

  if(num instanceof Integer){
    map.put(fieldName, num.intValue());
  } else if(num instanceof Long){
    map.put(fieldName, num.longValue());
  } else if(num instanceof Float){
    map.put(fieldName, num.floatValue());
  } else {    // Double
     map.put(fieldName, num.doubleValue());
  }
}

Answer 2

 HashMap<String, String> jsonToMap(String JsonDetectionString) throws JSONException {

    HashMap<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>();
    Gson gson = new Gson();

    map = (HashMap<String, String>) gson.fromJson(JsonDetectionString, map.getClass());

    return map;

}

Answer 3

I know this is a fairly old question, but I was searching for a solution to generically deserialize nested JSON to a Map<String, Object>, and found nothing.

The way my yaml deserializer works, it defaults JSON objects to Map<String, Object> when you don't specify a type, but gson doesn't seem to do this. Luckily you can accomplish it with a custom deserializer.

I used the following deserializer to naturally deserialize anything, defaulting JsonObjects to Map<String, Object> and JsonArrays to Object[]s, where all the children are similarly deserialized.

private static class NaturalDeserializer implements JsonDeserializer<Object> {
  public Object deserialize(JsonElement json, Type typeOfT, 
      JsonDeserializationContext context) {
    if(json.isJsonNull()) return null;
    else if(json.isJsonPrimitive()) return handlePrimitive(json.getAsJsonPrimitive());
    else if(json.isJsonArray()) return handleArray(json.getAsJsonArray(), context);
    else return handleObject(json.getAsJsonObject(), context);
  }
  private Object handlePrimitive(JsonPrimitive json) {
    if(json.isBoolean())
      return json.getAsBoolean();
    else if(json.isString())
      return json.getAsString();
    else {
      BigDecimal bigDec = json.getAsBigDecimal();
      // Find out if it is an int type
      try {
        bigDec.toBigIntegerExact();
        try { return bigDec.intValueExact(); }
        catch(ArithmeticException e) {}
        return bigDec.longValue();
      } catch(ArithmeticException e) {}
      // Just return it as a double
      return bigDec.doubleValue();
    }
  }
  private Object handleArray(JsonArray json, JsonDeserializationContext context) {
    Object[] array = new Object[json.size()];
    for(int i = 0; i < array.length; i++)
      array[i] = context.deserialize(json.get(i), Object.class);
    return array;
  }
  private Object handleObject(JsonObject json, JsonDeserializationContext context) {
    Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<String, Object>();
    for(Map.Entry<String, JsonElement> entry : json.entrySet())
      map.put(entry.getKey(), context.deserialize(entry.getValue(), Object.class));
    return map;
  }
}

The messiness inside the handlePrimitive method is for making sure you only ever get a Double or an Integer or a Long, and probably could be better, or at least simplified if you're okay with getting BigDecimals, which I believe is the default.

You can register this adapter like:

GsonBuilder gsonBuilder = new GsonBuilder();
gsonBuilder.registerTypeAdapter(Object.class, new NaturalDeserializer());
Gson gson = gsonBuilder.create();

And then call it like:

Object natural = gson.fromJson(source, Object.class);

I'm not sure why this is not the default behavior in gson, since it is in most other semi-structured serialization libraries...

Answer 4

I used this code:

Gson gson = new Gson();
HashMap<String, Object> fields = gson.fromJson(json, HashMap.class);

Answer 5

I had the exact same question and ended up here. I had a different approach that seems much simpler (maybe newer versions of gson?).

    Gson gson = new Gson();
    Map jsonObject = (Map) gson.fromJson(data, Object.class);

with the following json

{
  "map-00": {
    "array-00": [
      "entry-00",
      "entry-01"
     ],
     "value": "entry-02"
   }
}

The following

    Map map00 = (Map) jsonObject.get("map-00");
    List array00 = (List) map00.get("array-00");
    String value = (String) map00.get("value");
    for (int i = 0; i < array00.size(); i++) {
        System.out.println("map-00.array-00[" + i + "]= " + array00.get(i));
    }
    System.out.println("map-00.value = " + value);

outputs

map-00.array-00[0]= entry-00
map-00.array-00[1]= entry-01
map-00.value = entry-02

You could dynamically check using instanceof when navigating your jsonObject. Something like

Map json = gson.fromJson(data, Object.class);
if(json.get("field") instanceof Map) {
  Map field = (Map)json.get("field");
} else if (json.get("field") instanceof List) {
  List field = (List)json.get("field");
} ...

It works for me, so it must work for you ;-)

Answer 6

Try this, it will worked. I used it for Hashtable.

public static Hashtable<Integer, KioskStatusResource> parseModifued(String json) {
    JsonObject object = (JsonObject) new com.google.gson.JsonParser().parse(json);
    Set<Map.Entry<String, JsonElement>> set = object.entrySet();
    Iterator<Map.Entry<String, JsonElement>> iterator = set.iterator();

    Hashtable<Integer, KioskStatusResource> map = new Hashtable<Integer, KioskStatusResource>();

    while (iterator.hasNext()) {
        Map.Entry<String, JsonElement> entry = iterator.next();

        Integer key = Integer.parseInt(entry.getKey());
        KioskStatusResource value = new Gson().fromJson(entry.getValue(), KioskStatusResource.class);

        if (value != null) {
            map.put(key, value);
        }

    }
    return map;
}

Replace KioskStatusResource to your class and Integer to your key class.