JSON in Android

JSON in Android

 

JSON is a very condense data exchange format. See JSON tutorial for details. The Android platform includes the json.org libraries which allow to work easily with JSON files.

The Parts
A fan object with email as a key and foo@bar.com as a value

{
  fan:
    {
      email : 'foo@bar.com'
    }
}

So the object equivalent would be fan.email; or fan['email'];. Both would have the same value of 'foo@bar.com'.

About HttpClient Request

The following is what our author used to make a HttpClient Request. I do not claim to be an expert at all this so if anyone has a better way to word some of the terminology feel free.

public static HttpResponse makeRequest(String path, Map params) throws Exception 
{
    //instantiates httpclient to make request
    DefaultHttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();

    //url with the post data
    HttpPost httpost = new HttpPost(path);

    //convert parameters into JSON object
    JSONObject holder = getJsonObjectFromMap(params);

    //passes the results to a string builder/entity
    StringEntity se = new StringEntity(holder.toString());

    //sets the post request as the resulting string
    httpost.setEntity(se);
    //sets a request header so the page receving the request
    //will know what to do with it
    httpost.setHeader("Accept", "application/json");
    httpost.setHeader("Content-type", "application/json");

    //Handles what is returned from the page 
    ResponseHandler responseHandler = new BasicResponseHandler();
    return httpclient.execute(httpost, responseHandler);
}

Map

If you are not familiar with the Map data structure please take a look at the Java Map reference. In short, a map is similar to a dictionary or a hash.

private static JSONObject getJsonObjectFromMap(Map params) throws JSONException {

    //all the passed parameters from the post request
    //iterator used to loop through all the parameters
    //passed in the post request
    Iterator iter = params.entrySet().iterator();

    //Stores JSON
    JSONObject holder = new JSONObject();

    //using the earlier example your first entry would get email
    //and the inner while would get the value which would be 'foo@bar.com' 
    //{ fan: { email : 'foo@bar.com' } }

    //While there is another entry
    while (iter.hasNext()) 
    {
        //gets an entry in the params
        Map.Entry pairs = (Map.Entry)iter.next();

        //creates a key for Map
        String key = (String)pairs.getKey();

        //Create a new map
        Map m = (Map)pairs.getValue();   

        //object for storing Json
        JSONObject data = new JSONObject();

        //gets the value
        Iterator iter2 = m.entrySet().iterator();
        while (iter2.hasNext()) 
        {
            Map.Entry pairs2 = (Map.Entry)iter2.next();
            data.put((String)pairs2.getKey(), (String)pairs2.getValue());
        }

        //puts email and 'foo@bar.com'  together in map
        holder.put(key, data);
    }
    return holder;
}

view the JSON AND ANDROID in vogella.com here