Question

I’m wondering if anyone knows of any popular Java libraries for creating and parsing JSON strings the way it’s done in Javascript. I’m not looking for a mapping library or anything of that sort. I’m starting to think that working with JSON the way Javascript works might be a better alternative.

I’m looking for something that has a builder pattern for creating JSON (since we don’t have multiline strings), and a way to extract elements using simple strings for the keys and also supports easily deep “linking” into the JSON string.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Jackson’s tree model may be similar to what you are asking for. Tatu has plans for adding JSONPath in the future as well. I use Jackson for several projects and can vouch for its speed and stability.

Of course, any JSON parser that creates simple hashmaps and lists can be accessed quite easily:

{"topkey":{"leafkey":["a", "b", "c"],"leafkey2":"blancmange"},"topkey2":42}

Java:

data.get("topkey").get("leafkey").get(1);

vs. JavaScript:

data["topkey"]["leafkey"][1]