How to convert hashmap to JSON object in Java

Question

How to convert or cast hashmap to JSON object in Java, and again convert JSON object to JSON string?

Answer 1

Better be late than never. I used GSON to convert list of HashMap to string if in case you want to have a serialized list.

List<HashMap<String, String>> list = new ArrayList<>();
HashMap<String,String> hashMap = new HashMap<>();
hashMap.add("key", "value");
hashMap.add("key", "value");
hashMap.add("key", "value");
list.add(hashMap);

String json = new Gson().toJson(list);

This json produces [{"key":"value","key":"value","key":"value"}]

Answer 2

You can use XStream - it is really handy. See the examples here

package com.thoughtworks.xstream.json.test;

import com.thoughtworks.xstream.XStream;
import com.thoughtworks.xstream.io.json.JettisonMappedXmlDriver;

public class WriteTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

      HashMap<String,String> map = new HashMap<String,String>();
      map.add("1", "a");
      map.add("2", "b");
      XStream xstream = new XStream(new JettisonMappedXmlDriver());

      System.out.println(xstream.toXML(map));       

    }

}

Answer 3

we use Gson.

Gson gson = new Gson();
Type gsonType = new TypeToken<HashMap>(){}.getType();
String gsonString = gson.toJson(elements,gsonType);

Answer 4

Underscore-java library can convert hash map or array list to json and vice verse.

import com.github.underscore.lodash.U;
import java.util.*;

public class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        Map<String, Object> map = new LinkedHashMap<>();
        map.put("1", "a");
        map.put("2", "b");

        System.out.println(U.toJson(map));
        // {
        //    "1": "a",
        //    "2": "b"
        // }
    }
}

Answer 5

I faced a similar problem when deserializing the Response from custom commands in selenium. The response was json, but selenium internally translates that into a java.util.HashMap[String, Object]

If you are familiar with scala and use the play-API for JSON, you might benefit from this:

import play.api.libs.json.{JsValue, Json}
import scala.collection.JavaConversions.mapAsScalaMap


object JsonParser {

  def parse(map: Map[String, Any]): JsValue = {
    val values = for((key, value) <- map) yield {
      value match {
        case m: java.util.Map[String, _] @unchecked => Json.obj(key -> parse(m.toMap))
        case m: Map[String, _] @unchecked => Json.obj(key -> parse(m))
        case int: Int => Json.obj(key -> int)
        case str: String => Json.obj(key -> str)
        case bool: Boolean => Json.obj(key -> bool)
      }
    }

    values.foldLeft(Json.obj())((temp, obj) => {
      temp.deepMerge(obj)
    })
  }
}

Small code description:

The code recursively traverses through the HashMap until basic types (String, Integer, Boolean) are found. These basic types can be directly wrapped into a JsObject. When the recursion is unfolded, the deepmerge concatenates the created objects.

'@unchecked' takes care of type erasure warnings.

Answer 6

You can just enumerate the map and add the key-value pairs to the JSONObject

Method :

private JSONObject getJsonFromMap(Map<String, Object> map) throws JSONException {
    JSONObject jsonData = new JSONObject();
    for (String key : map.keySet()) {
        Object value = map.get(key);
        if (value instanceof Map<?, ?>) {
            value = getJsonFromMap((Map<String, Object>) value);
        }
        jsonData.put(key, value);
    }
    return jsonData;
}