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JSON Parser

JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation and this is an independent data exchange format and is the best alternative for XML. In This chapter we will learn how to parse the JSON file and extract necessary information from it.

Android provides four different classes to manipulate JSON data and these classes are JSONArray, JSONObject, JSONTokenizer and JSONStringer.

So here first we need to identify the fields in the JSON data in which you are interested. For instance, In the JSON which is given below we are interested in getting temperature only.


{
   "sys":
   {
      "country":"GB",
      "sunrise":1381107633,
      "sunset":1381149604
   },
   "weather":[
      {
         "id":711,
         "main":"Smoke",
         "description":"smoke",
         "icon":"50n"
      }
   ],
	
  "main":
   {
      "temp":304.15,
      "pressure":1009,
   }
}

JSON – Elements

An JSON file contains of many components and here is the table defining the components of an JSON file and their uses −

Sr.No Component & description
1 Array([)
In a JSON file the square bracket ([) represents a JSON array
2 Objects({)
In a JSON file the curly bracket ({) represents a JSON object.
3 Key
A JSON object contains a key that is just a string and it Pairs of key/value make up a JSON object
4 Value
Each key has a value that could be string or integer or double e.t.c

JSON – Parsing

To parse a JSON, we will create an object of JSONObject class and then specify a string containing JSON data to it. Its syntax is −


String in;
JSONObject reader = new JSONObject(in);

The last step is to parse the JSON and the JSON file contains different objects with different key/value pairs e.t.c. So JSONObject has a separate function for parsing each of the components of a JSON file. Its syntax is given below −


JSONObject sys  = reader.getJSONObject("sys");
country = sys.getString("country");
			
JSONObject main  = reader.getJSONObject("main");
temperature = main.getString("temp");

The method getJSONObject returns the JSON object and The function getString returns the string value of the specified key.
Following is the content of the modified main activity java file src/MainActivity.java.

import android.os.AsyncTask;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.util.Log;
import android.widget.ListAdapter;
import android.widget.ListView;
import android.widget.SimpleAdapter;
import android.widget.Toast;

import org.json.JSONArray;
import org.json.JSONException;
import org.json.JSONObject;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

   private String TAG = MainActivity.class.getSimpleName();
   private ListView lv;

   ArrayList> contactList;

   @Override
   protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
      setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

      contactList = new ArrayList<>();
      lv = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.list);

      new GetContacts().execute();
   }
   
   private class GetContacts extends AsyncTask {
      @Override
      protected void onPreExecute() {
         super.onPreExecute();
         Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this,"Json Data is 
            downloading",Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

      }

      @Override
      protected Void doInBackground(Void... arg0) {
         HttpHandler sh = new HttpHandler();
         // Making a request to url and getting response
         String url = "http://api.androidhive.info/contacts/";
         String jsonStr = sh.makeServiceCall(url);
      
         Log.e(TAG, "Response from url: " + jsonStr);
         if (jsonStr != null) {
            try {
               JSONObject jsonObj = new JSONObject(jsonStr);
            
               // Getting JSON Array node
               JSONArray contacts = jsonObj.getJSONArray("contacts");
            
               // looping through All Contacts
               for (int i = 0; i < contacts.length(); i++) {
                  JSONObject c = contacts.getJSONObject(i);
                  String id = c.getString("id");
                  String name = c.getString("name");
                  String email = c.getString("email");
                  String address = c.getString("address");
                  String gender = c.getString("gender");

                  // Phone node is JSON Object
                  JSONObject phone = c.getJSONObject("phone");
                  String mobile = phone.getString("mobile");
                  String home = phone.getString("home");
                  String office = phone.getString("office");

                  // tmp hash map for single contact
                  HashMap contact = new HashMap<>();

                  // adding each child node to HashMap key => value
                  contact.put("id", id);
                  contact.put("name", name);
                  contact.put("email", email);
                  contact.put("mobile", mobile);
               
                  // adding contact to contact list
                  contactList.add(contact);
               }
            } catch (final JSONException e) {
               Log.e(TAG, "Json parsing error: " + e.getMessage());
               runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
                  @Override
                  public void run() {
                     Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),
                     "Json parsing error: " + e.getMessage(),
                        Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                  }
               });

            }
   
         } else {
            Log.e(TAG, "Couldn't get json from server.");
            runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
               @Override
               public void run() {
                  Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), 
                     "Couldn't get json from server. Check LogCat for possible errors!", 
                     Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
               }
            });
         }
      
         return null;
      }

      @Override
      protected void onPostExecute(Void result) {
         super.onPostExecute(result);
         ListAdapter adapter = new SimpleAdapter(MainActivity.this, contactList,
            R.layout.list_item, new String[]{ "email","mobile"}, 
               new int[]{R.id.email, R.id.mobile});
         lv.setAdapter(adapter);
      }
   }
}

Following is the modified content of the java file ie. HttpHandler.java.

import android.util.Log;

import java.io.BufferedInputStream;
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.ProtocolException;
import java.net.URL;

public class HttpHandler {

   private static final String TAG = HttpHandler.class.getSimpleName();

   public HttpHandler() {
   }

   public String makeServiceCall(String reqUrl) {
      String response = null;
      try {
         URL url = new URL(reqUrl);
         HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
         conn.setRequestMethod("GET");
         // read the response
         InputStream in = new BufferedInputStream(conn.getInputStream());
         response = convertStreamToString(in);
      } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
         Log.e(TAG, "MalformedURLException: " + e.getMessage());
      } catch (ProtocolException e) {
         Log.e(TAG, "ProtocolException: " + e.getMessage());
      } catch (IOException e) {
         Log.e(TAG, "IOException: " + e.getMessage());
      } catch (Exception e) {
         Log.e(TAG, "Exception: " + e.getMessage());
      }
      return response;
   }

   private String convertStreamToString(InputStream is) {
      BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
      StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

      String line;
      try {
         while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
            sb.append(line).append('\n');
         }
      } catch (IOException e) {
         e.printStackTrace();
      } finally {
         try {
            is.close();
         } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
         }
      }
        
      return sb.toString();
   }
}

Following is the modified content of the xml layout file ie. res/layout/activity_main.xml.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    tools:context="com.example.tutorialspoint7.myapplication.MainActivity">

   <ListView
      android:id="@+id/list"
      android:layout_width="fill_parent"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
</RelativeLayout>

Following is the modified content of the xml layout file ie. res/layout/list_item.xml.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   android:layout_width="fill_parent"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:orientation="vertical"
   android:padding="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin">
   <TextView
      android:id="@+id/email"
      android:layout_width="fill_parent"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:paddingBottom="2dip"
      android:textColor="@color/colorAccent" />

   <TextView
      android:id="@+id/mobile"
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:textColor="#5d5d5d"
      android:textStyle="bold" />
</LinearLayout>

Following is the content of AndroidManifest.xml file.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.example.salesforcedrillers.myapplication">

   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>
   <application
      android:allowBackup="true"
      android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
      android:label="@string/app_name"
      android:supportsRtl="true"
      android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
         <activity android:name=".MainActivity">
            <intent-filter>
               <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
               <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>
</manifest>

Let’s try to run our app we have just modified and I assume we have created your AVD while doing environment setup and to run the app from Android studio we need to open one of your project’s activity files and click Run Eclipse Run Icon icon from the toolbar.

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