Question

I’m working with an app that connects to a PHP/MySQL server from which everything is returned in JSON format. For example, a list of users is returned as a JSONArray of JSONObject. Each object contains the individual user’s information (name, location, phone number, etc).

In working with information in this format is is more efficient to leave everything in JSON format and only extract items from the array/objects as needed? Or is it better to extract everything from the JSONArrayand included objects to build a regular Array or ArrayList first?

Answer 1

JSONArray internally uses ArrayList. It’s just wrapper over ArrayList. So I’d say there is no difference. JSONObject uses HashMap so again no real drawbacks.