create a JSON Array of objects in java android

Question

I have created a class Game that looks like this:

public class Game{
private String name;
private String location;
private int participants;
public Game(String name, String location, int participants){
 this.name = name;
 this.location = location;
 this. participants = participatns;
}
//getters and setters of all properties

And I have a ArrayList that looks like this:

 ArrayList<Game>gameList = new ArrayList<Game>();

This ArrayList contains 5 games. I want to send those games to a php script so I figured that the smartest way to do this is to create a JSON array of objects and send those to the php script because those games could also be a 100 or more at some point.

My question is, how do I create a JSON array of Game objects?

• x4rf41: look at the JSONArray and JSONObject classes
• fmsf: what about GSON? javacodegeeks.com/2011/01/…

Answer 1

Use Gson: https://sites.google.com/site/gson/gson-user-guide#TOC-Using-Gson

Game game = new Game();
Gson gson = new Gson();
String json = gson.toJson(game); 

• Fabian: Okay, and if I have an arraylist of games. Can I just put the arraylist into the toJSON function of the gson object?
• vikasing: yes, have a look at sites.google.com/site/gson/…

Answer 2

The best thing to do is get into GSON. GSON web site,

public class ExampleObject {
 public static final String API_KEY = "get_response";
 private static final String OFFSETS = "offsets";
 @SerializedName(OFFSETS)
 private List<Integer> mOffsets;
 public ExampleObject() {
 super();
 }
 public String getAPIKey() {
 return API_KEY;
 }
 public List<Integer> getOffsets() {
 return mOffsets;
 }
}

• Fabian: Does GSON also work with arraylists of objects? In the examples I only see primitive types or objects.
• Cameron Lowell Palmer: Yes. It does. I use it for very complex object serialization and deserialization. Interesting personal experience, outbound (JAVA-to-JSON) serialization performed slower than inbound (JSON-to-JAVA) serialization.