How to fluently build JSON in Java?

Question

I\'m thinking of something like:

String json = new JsonBuilder()
  .add(\"key1\", \"value1\")
  .add(\"key2\", \"value2\")
  .add(\"key3\", new JsonBuilder()         


        

Answer 1

I recently created a library for creating Gson objects fluently:

http://jglue.org/fluent-json/

It works like this:

  JsonObject jsonObject = JsonBuilderFactory.buildObject() //Create a new builder for an object
  .addNull("nullKey")                            //1. Add a null to the object

  .add("stringKey", "Hello")                     //2. Add a string to the object
  .add("stringNullKey", (String) null)           //3. Add a null string to the object

  .add("numberKey", 2)                           //4. Add a number to the object
  .add("numberNullKey", (Float) null)            //5. Add a null number to the object

  .add("booleanKey", true)                       //6. Add a boolean to the object
  .add("booleanNullKey", (Boolean) null)         //7. Add a null boolean to the object

  .add("characterKey", 'c')                      //8. Add a character to the object
  .add("characterNullKey", (Character) null)     //9. Add a null character to the object

  .addObject("objKey")                           //10. Add a nested object
    .add("nestedPropertyKey", 4)                 //11. Add a nested property to the nested object
    .end()                                       //12. End nested object and return to the parent builder

  .addArray("arrayKey")                          //13. Add an array to the object
    .addObject()                                 //14. Add a nested object to the array
      .end()                                     //15. End the nested object
    .add("arrayElement")                         //16. Add a string to the array
    .end()                                       //17. End the array

    .getJson();                                  //Get the JsonObject

String json = jsonObject.toString();

And through the magic of generics it generates compile errors if you try to add an element to an array with a property key or an element to an object without a property name:

JsonObject jsonArray = JsonBuilderFactory.buildArray().addObject().end().add("foo", "bar").getJson(); //Error: tried to add a string with property key to array.
JsonObject jsonObject = JsonBuilderFactory.buildObject().addArray().end().add("foo").getJson(); //Error: tried to add a string without property key to an object.
JsonArray jsonArray = JsonBuilderFactory.buildObject().addArray("foo").getJson(); //Error: tried to assign an object to an array.
JsonObject jsonObject = JsonBuilderFactory.buildArray().addObject().getJson(); //Error: tried to assign an object to an array.

Lastly there is mapping support in the API which allows you to map your domain objects to JSON. The goal being when Java8 is released you'll be able to do something like this:

Collection users = ...;
JsonArray jsonArray = JsonBuilderFactory.buildArray(users, { u-> buildObject()
                                                                 .add("userName", u.getName())
                                                                 .add("ageInYears", u.getAge()) })
                                                                 .getJson();