Question

I’ve read so many posts and still can’t find or understand how to handle a result set that can have either 1 result, or an array of results. (From yahoo Search)

I can parse the results perfectly fine IF multiple results were received, but when there is only 1 search result I get the JSONException: blahblahbalh is not a JSONArray.

JSONArray results = resultObject.getJSONArray("Result");

Works fine when there are multiple results, but how can I FORCE the built-in JSON parser to accept it as a result when there is only 1 result returned from the Yahoo Query?

This single result fails to parse to JSON Array:

{
  "ResultSet": {
    "totalResultsAvailable": "108",
    "totalResultsReturned": "1",
    "firstResultPosition": "1",
    "ResultSetMapUrl": "http:\/\/maps.yahoo.com\/broadband\/?q1=Virginia+Beach%2C+VA+23454-4608tt=mexicantp=1",
    "Result": {
      "id": "12811175",

    }
  }
}

But this parses to JSONArray just fine:

    {
  "ResultSet": {
    "totalResultsAvailable": "108",
    "totalResultsReturned": "2",
    "firstResultPosition": "1",
    "ResultSetMapUrl": "http:\/\/maps.yahoo.com\/broadband\/?q1=Virginia+Beach%2C+VA+23454-4608tt=mexicantp=1",
    "Result": [
      {
        "id": "12811175",

      },
      {
        "id": "12814560",
      }
    ]
  }
}

Sorry if I’m babbling, but it’s driving me crazy that I just can’t figure out how to get a JSONArray with length of 1, out of the first result example.

Thanks much!

Answer 1

This is one of the problems with working with JSOn. If there are two objects than it is considered an JSONArray, otherwise it is considered a JSONObject.

As far as I know, you need to just assume that it could be either and code accordingly. You could wrap the messy details in a helper function like:

 JSONArray getArrayOrObject(JSONObject parent, String name) {
    JSONArray results = parent.optJSONArray(name);
    if (results == null) {
      results = new JSONArray();
      JSONObject object = parent.optJSONObject("Result");
      if (object != null) {
        results.put(object);
      }
    }
    return results;
  }