Parse JSON in Java

Question

I am currently working with Java, reading JSON response from a webservice. Till now I have been parsing JSON for a path known in advance. So I am able to make objects and arrays depending on situation.

String jsonText = readAll(br);
JSONObject json = new JSONObject(jsonText);
JSONObject resp = json.getJSONObject("Response");

But now I have a problem. I have to ask user to provide me a path and I have to get the value at that path in JSON response. Path could be incorrect - return error in that case.

Kind of like XPath in XML. Do we have something similar in JSON?

Path could for example look like: /Response/VehicleSearch/Vehicles/Vehicle[2]/Features/Feature[7]/ID

Please excuse me if its a stupid question. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

• Satya: try using GSON , a google library for dealing with JSON
• Sotirios Delimanolis: For a solution with Gson, see here: stackoverflow.com/questions/15658124/…
• Hot Licks: You have the JSON decomposed into a tree structure. You access that with a "path" just as you'd access the XML, though you may have to step through the branches yourself vs using a path notation.
• Hot Licks: (This is not a "stupid" question, but you've obviously not put much effort into research.)
• Rahul Dabas: I did look up and found json-path. I am currently playing with it and having some problem for which I posted another question. I am kind of on a short leash with this one hence posted the question right off.

Answer 1

For JSON equivalent of XPATH for XML you can use JsonPath

As per docs:

JsonPath is to JSON what XPATH is to XML, a simple way to extract parts of a given document. JsonPath is available in many programming languages such as Javascript, Python and PHP. Now also in Java!

• Ridcully: Nice. I didn't know this one but it's surely quite handy for lots of occasions.
• Rahul Dabas: Thanks Anubhava for pointing to jsonpath. I am currently trying to play with jsonpath but having some problem: stackoverflow.com/questions/18539862/….
• anubhava: Sorry just got back and realized you've resolved the problem on other thread.