Java: How to Parse JSONObject and JSONArrays – Beginner’s Guide

Last updated on April 30th, 2017 by App Shah 11 Comments

Here is a simple Java tutorial which demonstrate how to parse JSONObject and JSONArrays in Java.

JSON syntax is a subset of the JavaScript object notation syntax:

Data is in name/value pairs
Data is separated by commas
Curly braces hold objects
Square brackets hold arrays

Just incase if you want to take a look at simple JSON tutorial which I’ve written sometime back. In this example we will read JSON File Crunchify_JSON.txt from file system and then we will iterate through it.

In order to run below Java project, please add below Maven Dependency to your project in pom.xml file.

</dependency>

Create this .txt file and update path in Java project:

{

"blogURL": "https://crunchify.com",

"twitter": "https://twitter.com/Crunchify",

"social": {

"facebook": "http://facebook.com/Crunchify",

"pinterest": "https://www.pinterest.com/Crunchify/crunchify-articles",

"rss": "http://feeds.feedburner.com/Crunchify"

}

Java Program:

package com.crunchify.tutorials;

import java.io.BufferedReader;

import java.io.FileNotFoundException;

import java.io.FileReader;

import java.io.IOException;

import org.json.JSONException;

import org.json.JSONObject;

/**

* @author Crunchify.com

public class CrunchifyParseJSONObject {

public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException, JSONException {

String jsonData = "";

BufferedReader br = null;

try {

String line;

br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("/Users/<username>/Documents/Crunchify_JSON.txt"));

while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {

jsonData += line + "\n";

}

} catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

} finally {

try {

if (br != null)

br.close();

} catch (IOException ex) {

ex.printStackTrace();

}

// System.out.println("File Content: \n" + jsonData);

JSONObject obj = new JSONObject(jsonData);

System.out.println("blogURL: " + obj.getString("blogURL"));

System.out.println("twitter: " + obj.getString("twitter"));

System.out.println("social: " + obj.getJSONObject("social"));

}

Result:

blogURL: https://crunchify.com

twitter: https://twitter.com/Crunchify

social: {"facebook":"http://facebook.com/Crunchify","rss":"http://feeds.feedburner.com/Crunchify","pinterest":"https://www.pinterest.com/Crunchify/crunchify-articles"}

Would love to know what you think. Chime in and share it as a comment. Don’t forget to share this guide!

About App Shah

Hello & Good Day. I'm an Engineer by profession, Blogger by passion & Founder of Crunchify, LLC, the largest free blogging & technical resource site for beginners. Love SEO, SaaS, #webperf, WordPress, Java. With more than 14 millions pageviews/month, Crunchify has changed the life of over thousands of individual around the globe teaching Java & Web Tech for FREE. Get latest update on and .

Mulk Abdulhadi

what library are you using ?
- App Shah
  Hi Mulk – i’m using org.json maven library in this tutorial.
  
  org.json json 20151123
  
  Are you getting any error? If you want to convert project to maven project then you could follow this tutorial: https://crunchify.com/how-to-convert-existing-java-project-to-maven-in-eclipse/
Shubham Kumar Rohit

Hello Sir, I need some help from you. Actually i’m getting JSON data from a url and i want to show the data on my website. I
Successfully showing all JSON data except JSON Hierarchy data. I easily accessing Array data (“person”) and also in front
data(i.e “error”) but i can’t access hierarchy which is “updated”.
I have to access “updated.time”. I’m get very much frustrations in doing this. Can you help..?

import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URL;

import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
import org.json.simple.JSONArray;
import org.json.simple.JSONObject;
import org.json.simple.JSONValue;
import org.json.simple.parser.ParseException;

public class ParseJson1 {

public static void main(String[] args) {
String url = “http://freemusicarchive.org/api/get/genres.json?api_key=60BLHNQCAOUFPIBZ&limit=2”;
*/
{
“person”: [
{
“name”: “John”,
“city”: “Mumbai”
},
{
“name”: “Rahul”,
“city”: “Delhi”
},
{
“name”: “Sanjana”,
“city”: “Amritsar”
},
{
“name”: “Anjali”,
“city”: “Hyderabad”
},
{
“name”: “Mukund”,
“city”: “Bangalore”
},
{
“name”: “Raunak”,
“city”: “Patna”
}
],
“updated”: {
“time”: “14:17:48”,
“date”: “2016-04-10”
},
“error”: “2353”,
}

/*

try {
String genreJson = IOUtils.toString(new URL(url));
JSONObject genreJsonObject = (JSONObject) JSONValue.parseWithException(genreJson);
// get the error
System.out.println(genreJsonObject.get(“error”));

//Get Array Values
JSONArray genreArray = (JSONArray) genreJsonObject.get(“person”);
// get the first genre
JSONObject firstGenre = (JSONObject) genreArray.get(0);
System.out.println(firstGenre.get(“name”));
// get the Second
JSONObject firstGenre = (JSONObject) genreArray.get(1);
System.out.println(firstGenre.get(“name”));
// get the third
JSONObject firstGenre = (JSONObject) genreArray.get(2);
System.out.println(firstGenre.get(“city”));

} catch (IOException | ParseException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
- App Shah
  Hi Subham –
  Here is a program to get Updated.time from JSON Object.
  
  package crunchify.com.tutorials; import java.io.FileReader; import java.io.IOException; import org.json.simple.JSONObject; import org.json.simple.parser.JSONParser; import org.json.simple.parser.ParseException; /** * @author Crunchify.com * */ public class CrunchifyParseJSONObject { public static void main(String[] args) { JSONParser parser = new JSONParser(); try { Object obj = parser.parse(new FileReader("/Users/appshah/Documents/crunchify.txt")); JSONObject genreJsonObject = (JSONObject) obj; JSONObject updated = (JSONObject) genreJsonObject.get("updated"); String time = (String) updated.get("time"); System.out.println(time); } catch (IOException | ParseException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } }
  
  Also, JSONObject I’m using is:
  
  { "person": [{ "name": "John", "city": "Mumbai" }, { "name": "Rahul", "city": "Delhi" }, { "name": "Sanjana", "city": "Amritsar" }, { "name": "Anjali", "city": "Hyderabad" }, { "name": "Mukund", "city": "Bangalore" }, { "name": "Raunak", "city": "Patna" }], "updated": { "time": "14:17:48", "date": "2016-04-10" } }
Shraddha Sumit

when i am writing the below code in eclipse editor, It shows me syntax error in edirot and when i mouse hover it gives me 2 suggestiosn to fix :

1.Remove argument to match JSONObject

2.Change type of jsonData to map

public void getJSONData(String file) throws FileNotFoundException, JSONException {

String jsonData = “”;

BufferedReader br = null;

try {

String line;

br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(file));

while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {

jsonData += line + “n”;

}

} catch (IOException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

} finally {

try {

if (br != null)

br.close();

} catch (IOException ex) {

ex.printStackTrace();

}

}

System.out.println(“File Content: n” + jsonData);

//return jsonData;

JSONObject obj = new JSONObject(jsonData);

System.out.println(“blogURL: ” + obj.getString(“blogURL”));

//System.out.println(“twitter: ” + obj.getString(“twitter”));

//System.out.println(“social: ” + obj.getJSONObject(“social”));

}
- App Shah
  
  Make sure you clean your project and json dependency is added correctly. I just tried it on my eclipse and it worked fine.
- Nidhi Vora
  
  even i am facing the same problem did you fix it ?
  - App Shah
    
    Hi Nidhi – I’ve just updated above tutorial with org.json dependency. Can you try now?
Shraddha Sumit

at the following line “JSONObject obj = new JSONObject(jsonData);” I am getting error “Remove argument to match json” Or “change type of jsonData to map”
- App Shah
  
  Hi Shraddha – i didn’t get it. Can you help share screenshot or any exception you are getting?
- App Shah
  Hi Shraddha – I’ve added org.json dependency in above project. Please update project once you add .jar to your project or update pom.xml file.
  
  org.json json 20151123

Java: How to Parse JSONObject and JSONArrays – Beginner’s Guide

Create this .txt file and update path in Java project:

Java Program:

Result:

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Create this .txt file and update path in Java project:

Java Program:

Result:

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