Question

Consider following piece of code:

JSONObject json = new JSONObject(); 

json.put("one", 1); 

json.put("two", 2); 

json.put("three", 3);

If i print the jsonobject it prints like this

{"three":"1","two":"2","one":"1"}

But i want like this.

{"one":"1","two":"2","three":"3"}

Please help. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The documentation at http://www.json.org/javadoc/org/json/JSONObject.html says:

A JSONObject is an unordered collection of name/value pairs.

In other words, properties of an object are accessed by name, not by position and the default serialized form does not guarantee any specific order.

Strict positioning comes only with arrays:

JSONArray json = new JSONArray();

json.put("1");
json.put("2");
json.put("3");

json.toString(); // results in ["1", "2", "3"]

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The easiest workaround to solve your problem is to use the sortedKeys() method and by iterating the JSONObject key by key, produce the JSON string manually in what ever order necessary. Implementing a custom Comparator might help also.