JSON.simple example – Read and write JSON

By mkyong | August 11, 2011 | Updated : January 17, 2017 | Viewed : 1,567,611 | +4,195 pv/w

JSON.simple is a simple Java library for JSON processing, read and write JSON data and full compliance with JSON specification (RFC4627).

Note
Alternatively, you should consider Jackson 2 or Gson

In this tutorial, we show you how to use JSON.simple to read and write JSON data from / to a file.

1. JSON.simple Dependency

JSON.simple is available at Maven central repository.

pom.xml


        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.googlecode.json-simple</groupId>
            <artifactId>json-simple</artifactId>
            <version>1.1.1</version>
        </dependency>

2. Write JSON to file

In below example, it writes JSON data via JSONObject and JSONArray, and save it into a file named “f:\\test.json”.

JsonSimpleWriteExample.java


package com.mkyong;

import org.json.simple.JSONArray;
import org.json.simple.JSONObject;

import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;

public class JsonSimpleWriteExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        JSONObject obj = new JSONObject();
        obj.put("name", "mkyong.com");
        obj.put("age", new Integer(100));

        JSONArray list = new JSONArray();
        list.add("msg 1");
        list.add("msg 2");
        list.add("msg 3");

        obj.put("messages", list);

        try (FileWriter file = new FileWriter("f:\\test.json")) {

            file.write(obj.toJSONString());
            file.flush();

        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        System.out.print(obj);

    }

}

Output

f:\\test.json


{
	"age":100,
	"name":"mkyong.com",
	"messages":["msg 1","msg 2","msg 3"]
}

3. Read JSON from file

Use JSONParser to read above generated JSON file “f:\\test.json”, and display each of the values.

JsonSimpleReadExample.java


package com.mkyong;

import org.json.simple.JSONArray;
import org.json.simple.JSONObject;
import org.json.simple.parser.JSONParser;
import org.json.simple.parser.ParseException;

import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Iterator;

public class JsonSimpleReadExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        JSONParser parser = new JSONParser();

        try {

            Object obj = parser.parse(new FileReader("f:\\test.json"));

            JSONObject jsonObject = (JSONObject) obj;
            System.out.println(jsonObject);

            String name = (String) jsonObject.get("name");
            System.out.println(name);

            long age = (Long) jsonObject.get("age");
            System.out.println(age);

            // loop array
            JSONArray msg = (JSONArray) jsonObject.get("messages");
            Iterator<String> iterator = msg.iterator();
            while (iterator.hasNext()) {
                System.out.println(iterator.next());
            }

        } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (ParseException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

    }

}

Output


{"name":"mkyong.com","messages":["msg 1","msg 2","msg 3"],"age":100}
mkyong.com
100
msg 1
msg 2
msg 3

References

json JSON.simple

About the Author

mkyong

Founder of Mkyong.com, love Java and open source stuff. Follow him on Twitter, or befriend him on Facebook or Google Plus. If you like my tutorials, consider make a donation to these charities.

Comments

newest oldest most voted

Guest

Alexandre luz

I did exactly how you did in the code up here, but I keep getting this error:

Unexpected character (?) at position 0.

at org.json.simple.parser.Yylex.yylex(Yylex.java:610)

at org.json.simple.parser.JSONParser.nextToken(JSONParser.java:269)

at org.json.simple.parser.JSONParser.parse(JSONParser.java:118)

at org.json.simple.parser.JSONParser.parse(JSONParser.java:92)

Guest

Subhrajit Bhattacharya

mkyong. Just wanted to say thanks for your articles. They are simple and clear, and they have benefited me very much.

Guest

Nathan Watts

getting this error:

Exception in thread “main” java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/ibm/json/java/internal/SerializerVerbose

at com.bps.queuemanager.beans.QueueManagerBean.main(QueueManagerBean.java:16)

Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.ibm.json.java.internal.SerializerVerbose

at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)

at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)

at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)

at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)

at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)

at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)

… 1 more

When creating the object:

public static void main(String argv[]) {

JSONObject obj = new JSONObject();

….

Guest

swati singh

JSONArray list = new JSONArray();

list.add(“msg 1”);

list.add(“msg 2”);

list.add(“msg 3”);

Error: The Method add(String) is undefined for the type JSONArray

What will be the solution please help

Guest

bougueddach

make sure you’ve imported org.json.simple.JSONArray and not org.json.JSONArray

Guest

Madhu Sudhan Baddam

How can i pass the folder path in the JSON.

But when passing the path(“/latest/object/300000006637803/child/child_c ) to JSON it reading as “/latest/MetaData_c/300000006637803/child/MetaDataFieldsCollection_c”

code:

part=new LinkedHashMap();
part.put(“id”,count);
part.put(“path”,”/latest/object/300000006637803/child/child_c);
part.put(“operation”,operation);
System.out.println(JSONValue.toJSONString(part));

output:

{

“id”:”part1″,

“path”:”/latest/MetaData_c/300000006637803/child/MetaDataFieldsCollection_c”,

“operation”:”create”

}

Guest

Mihir Monani

In your example (Number :-2 ) :- you added data in this sequence , Name -Age -Message. but it will print data in this sequence :- Age- Name- Message.

Any reason? how do you enforce storing sequence as data adding sequence??

Guest

nikhil

consider i have Json file and i need to append more json data to it . how can i do it]

Guest

amal

very helpful really great and simple example

Guest

hutuwazi

I guess you are a Chinese, shake hand. ;)

Guest

Majid Lotfi

Hi, thanks for this tutorial, I would like a java code that generate this json structure : “agencies”: { “1”: { assignedAgencies: [ “agency1”, “agency2”, “agency5”], restOfAgencies: [ “agency3”, “agency4”, “agency6”] }, “2”: { assignedAgencies: [ “agency6”, “agency5”], restOfAgencies: [ “agency1”, “agency2”, “agency3”, “agency4”] } } Thank you, your help is appreciated.

Guest

DrNo

Thank you for your support….I just need to know how to append pojos into the json file.The above example overwrites the data.Your help is always appreciable.

Guest

prasanth

how can i get json array in highchart

Guest

Robson Carvalho

Thank you!

Guest

Ali Gajani

This doesn’t work when you have greater than 1 JSON ? How to do it recursively?

Guest

Michael Wiggins

How you do anything else recursively; Use a loop.

Typically I’d use a for-loop where each record created is read from an array.

Guest

Dougal

Great example thankyou.

Guest

Morgan

Hey!
Really nice and easy tutorial, thanks a bunch :)

I have one problem though, when I read with the JSONParser, the java application keeps the file in use.
If one were using streams, you could close it, but I can’t find anything on how to “cut” the connection to the json file on the computer so I can delete, move or change its’ name.

Guest

Bryce Summers

For the following line in the reading example the word long should probably be capitalized:

long age = (Long) jsonObject.get(“age”);

Guest

Deepak Srivastav

long is a primitive type. We need to Cast the Object for long and it only happen with Long Class. This is similar as double to Double

Guest

ajit

Nice explanation :)

Guest

kanangkuan

How can I write JSON with which there are multiple children e.g

{

“name” : “IR 1561-149-1”,

“gid” : “3660”,

“id”: “67”,

“layer”: “14”,

“location” : ” “,

“children” : [

{

“name” : “IR 1561-149”,

“gid” : “3563”,

“id”: “68”,

“method” : “true”,

“layer”: “15”,

“location” : ” “,

“children” : [

{

“name” : “IR 1561”,

“gid” : “2584”,

“id”: “69”,

“method” : “true”,

“layer”: “16”,

“location” : ” ”

}

]

}

]

}

Guest

Tian Zheng

I believe the best solution is to create a JSONArray that is called “children” with several “child” JSONObjects in it.

Guest

ajay

“devices”:{“002629032f38”:{“connectionStatus”:”online”,”descriptionXml”:””,”deviceClass”:{“classType”:”HD IR Bridge”,”classTypeId”:3},”deviceId”:”002629032f38″,”deviceName”:””,”deviceStateTable”:[{“allowedValueList”:null,”dataType”:”FLOAT”,”defaultValue”:””,”lowerRange”:0,”maximum”:0,”minimum”:0,”name”:”temperature”,”readOnly”:true,”sendEvents”:true,”stepSize”:0,”upperRange”:0,”value”:”22″}],”eventList”:[“temperature”],”properties”:{“friendlyName”:”irbridgemaster”,”location”:”default”,”tag”:”by+location”},”properties_readonly”:{“UDN”:”121-121-121-121″,”descripti

Guest

anil kumar

try { JSONParser parsera = new JSONParser(); Object obj1 = parsera.parse(yourJsonString); JSONObject jsonObject = (JSONObject) obj1; Object obj2=parsera.parse((String) jsonObject.get(“children”)); if (android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.KITKAT) { JSONArray jsonArray1=new JSONArray((JSONObject)obj2); for (int i = 0; i < jsonArray1.length(); i++) { org.json.JSONObject c1 = jsonArray1.getJSONObject(i); Object obj3=parsera.parse((String) c1.get("children")); JSONArray jsonArray2=new JSONArray((JSONObject)obj2); for (int j = 0; j < jsonArray2.length(); j++) { org.json.JSONObject c2 = jsonArray2.getJSONObject(j); //Now you can read third child object values from object c2 } } } } catch (Exception e) { }

Guest

aga

this same process of reading and writing from/to JSON applies to Blackberry application OS 7 as well?
Thank you in advance

Guest

Kishore

error at
msg.iterator();

Guest

bidhu

What is the need of that .xml code.
Can any one plz explain me.

Guest

Shero

Try reading? Dumbass.

Guest

Nick

Name calling is quite unnecessary on a programming forum, isn’t it. You sound like a schoolyard bully.

Guest

ddd

Guest

Abhishek

how to handle multiple json objects present in a file ? something like this

[{“NAME”:”Alan”,”VALUE”:12,”COLOR”:”blue”,”DATE”:”Sep. 25, 2009″},
{“NAME”:”Shan”,”VALUE”:13,”COLOR”:”green\tblue”,”DATE”:”Sep. 27, 2009″},
{“NAME”:”John”,”VALUE”:45,”COLOR”:”orange”,”DATE”:”Sep. 29, 2009″},
{“NAME”:”Minna”,”VALUE”:27,”COLOR”:”teal”,”DATE”:”Sep. 30, 2009″}]

How to parse such json file with this library.

Guest

Abhishek

OK i figured it out. It’s pretty simple

JSONArray jsonarray = (JSONArray)obj;

for (int i=0; i<jsonarray.size(); i++) {

JSONObject jsonObject= (JSONObject)jsonarray.get(i);
String name = (String) jsonObject.get("name");
System.out.println(name);
long age = (Long) jsonObject.get("age");
System.out.println(age);

// loop array
JSONArray msg = (JSONArray) jsonObject.get("messages");
Iterator iterator = msg.iterator();
while (iterator.hasNext()) {
System.out.println(iterator.next());
}

}

Guest

Maks

Hello,
I have a question. Shouldn’t be the FileReader closed too? The same way as a FileWriter instance in example above?

Guest

Manuaran

here is the answer.

JSONParser parser = new JSONParser();
Object obj = parser.parse(new FileReader(“/Users//Documents/file1.txt”));

Guest

codegirl

are you trying to answer me?

Guest

codegirl

this is a great example! thank you. I am using the principals in this tutorial and am getting warnings when I try to put a K,V pair in to a newly created JSONObject. JSONObject jsonDevice = new JSONObject(); jsonDevice.put(“dbVersion”, “2”); This causes the following warning: “Type safety: The method put(Object, Object) belongs to the raw type HashMap. References to generic type HashMap should be parameterized” But if I parameterize it to be JSONObject it throws a compile error. ” – The type JSONObject is not generic; it cannot be parameterized with arguments – The type JSONObject is not generic; it… Read more »

Guest

codegirl

oh yeah, I checked StackOverflow and it seems from this thread that this is an issue with JSON because although it extends HashMap, it does so without generics so you can’t parameterize the JSON. This seems like a major oversight though.. I simply don’t accept that there is no way to get around this warning…

Guest

cobus

Thanks a lot. You make me smile.

Guest

bidhu prasad panda

hi i am getting
Exception in thread “main” java.lang.NullPointerException
at java.io.Writer.write(Writer.java:127)
at JsonSimpleExample.main(JsonSimpleExample.java:23)
these errors after compiling JsonSimpleExample.java file.
Please help me to solve this one…I need it.Please.

regards

Guest

mamta

Hi, It was a useful aricle. But just wanna check with you guys has any one tries fetching the json array elements using Selenium IDE? I was ale to extract the json object but was not able to extract the array from json object… any one any idea .. ? even small help is appreciated.

Guest

bidhu prasad panda

hi
u got output.If yes please help me.
I am getting errors like

Exception in thread “main” java.lang.NullPointerException
at java.io.Writer.write(Writer.java:127)
at JsonSimpleExample.main(JsonSimpleExample.java:23)
and another thing where to put that .xml file.

Guest

mamta

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10746671/selenium-test-parse-json-string-from-variable

Refer to this link .. it solved my problem

JSON.simple example – Read and write JSON

1. JSON.simple Dependency

2. Write JSON to file

3. Read JSON from file

References

About the Author

mkyong

Comments

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