JSON Exception when using array

Question

I am parsing an array of json elements on android. Following line generates following exception. I've validated the json file on some validation pages and all seems correct. What's wrong?

JSONObject object = new JSONObject(content);

The exception:

org.json.JSONException: Unterminated array at character 21 of {
  "info":[
    {
     "category":"Cocktail",
     "text":"Long Island Ice Tea",
     "info":"nur am 19. Juni",
     "imageUrl":"http://www.google.at/google.png",
     "thumbnailUrl":"http://www.google.at/google.png"
    },
    {
     "category":"Grill-Wochen",
     "text":"Steak vom Grill 350g",
     "info":"AB 16.09.2012",
     "imageUrl":"http://www.example.com/example.jpg",
     "thumbnailUrl":"http://www.example.com/example_thumb.jpg"
    }
  ]
 }

• devang: How do you generate this json? Does your string have any \n characters?
• Jug6ernaut: If its an array you need to parse as a JsonArray not a JsonObject.
• endian: @gotuskar: The json is self written. Only for development purposes. No, it doesn't contain \n chars. The exception printed the whole json file.
• endian: @Jug6ernaut: using JSONArray creates the same exception.
• devang: @endian: I copy-pasted given json, it had \n character. I highly doubt that the program would reformat json string and print on console. Usually the json string printed on console should be the same as it received it. Could you cross-check by calling replaceAll("\\n", "") on the json string before passing to the JSONObject class. Hope it helps.

Answer 1

I used a JSON parser online and checked your string. It does have a syntax error.

Analyzing the JSON syntax at JSON.org we can verify that every object must start and finish with curved brackets ("{"). "Info" is an object - so it should be stated as so. I changed your code to

{ "info":[ 
 {
 "category":"Cocktail",
 "text":"Long Island Ice Tea",
 "info":"nur am 19 Juni",
 "imageUrl":"http://www.google.at/google.png",
 "thumbnailUrl":"http://www.google.at/google.png"
 }, 
 {
 "category":"Grill-Wochen",
 "text":"Steak vom Grill 350g",
 "info":"AB 16.09.2012",
 "imageUrl":"http://www.example.com/example.jpg", 
 "thumbnailUrl":"http://www.example.com/example_thumb.jpg" 
 } 
 ] 
}

and the parser was happy with it.

I hope it helps

• endian: The json file contains curved brackets at the begin and the end of the file.
• devang: @rlinden: I just copy-pasted the json online to test its validity, it is formatted properly.
• rlinden: I did the same - probably didn't copy the whole segment.

Answer 2

I solved the problem. I've checked the file for some encoding problem. After downloading the file from the apache server with the input stream, it contained some broken chars.