JSON Array iteration in Android/Java

Question

I am building an android app that needs to download and synchronise with an online database, I am sending my query from the app to a php page which returns the relevant rows from a database in JSON format.

can someone please tell me the best way to iterate through a JSON array?

I receive an array of objects:

[{json object},{json object},{json object}]

What is the simplest piece of code I could use to access the JSONObjects in the array?

EDIT: now that I think of it the method I used to iterate the loop was:

for (String row: json){
     id = row.getInt("id");
     name = row.getString("name");
     password = row.getString("password");
}

So I guess I had was somehow able to turn the returned Json into and iterable array. Any Ideas how I could achieve this?

I apologise for my vaguness but I had this working from an example I found on the web and have since been unable to find it.

Answer 1

unfortunately , JSONArray doesn't support for each statement, like:

for(JSONObject someObj : someJsonArray) {
    // do something about someObj
    ....
    ....
}

Answer 2

While iterating over a JSON array (org.json.JSONArray, built into Android), watch out for null objects; for example, you may get "null" instead of a null string.

A check may look like:

s[i] = array.isNull(i) ? null : array.getString(i);

Answer 3

When I tried @vipw's suggestion, I was faced with this exception: The method getJSONObject(int) is undefined for the type JSONArray

This worked for me instead:

int myJsonArraySize = myJsonArray.size();

for (int i = 0; i < myJsonArraySize; i++) {
    JSONObject myJsonObject = (JSONObject) myJsonArray.get(i);

    // Do whatever you have to do to myJsonObject...
}

Answer 4

If you're using the JSON.org Java implementation, which is open source, you can just make JSONArray implement the Iterable interface and add the following method to the class:

@Override
public Iterator iterator() {
    return this.myArrayList.iterator();
}

This will make all instances of JSONArray iterable, meaning that the for (Object foo : bar) syntax will now work with it (note that foo has to be an Object, because JSONArrays do not have a declared type). All this works because the JSONArray class is backed by a simple ArrayList, which is already iterable. I imagine that other open source implementations would be just as easy to change.

Answer 5

I have done it two different ways,

1.) make a Map

        HashMap<String, String> applicationSettings = new HashMap<String,String>();
        for(int i=0; i<settings.length(); i++){
            String value = settings.getJSONObject(i).getString("value");
            String name = settings.getJSONObject(i).getString("name");
            applicationSettings.put(name, value);
        }

2.) make a JSONArray of names

    JSONArray names = json.names();
    JSONArray values = json.toJSONArray(names);
    for(int i=0; i<values.length(); i++){
        if (names.getString(i).equals("description")){
            setDescription(values.getString(i));
        }
        else if (names.getString(i).equals("expiryDate")){
            String dateString = values.getString(i);
            setExpiryDate(stringToDateHelper(dateString)); 
        }
        else if (names.getString(i).equals("id")){
            setId(values.getLong(i));
        }
        else if (names.getString(i).equals("offerCode")){
            setOfferCode(values.getString(i));
        }
        else if (names.getString(i).equals("startDate")){
            String dateString = values.getString(i);
            setStartDate(stringToDateHelper(dateString));
        }
        else if (names.getString(i).equals("title")){
            setTitle(values.getString(i));
        }
    }

Answer 6

I think this code is short and clear:

int id;
String name;
JSONArray array = new JSONArray(string_of_json_array);
for (int i = 0; i < array.length(); i++) {
    JSONObject row = array.getJSONObject(i);
    id = row.getInt("id");
    name = row.getString("name");
}

Is that what you were looking for?