Using GSON in Android to parse a complex JSON object

I'm relatively new to Java programming and need to parse a complex JSON object across the wire. I've been reading documentation on GSON the past day and Haven't had much luck being able to fully parse this type of structure:

{
  'Events' : [{
    'name' : 'exp',
    'date' : '10-10-2010',
    'tags' : ["tag 1", "tag2", "tag3"]
    },...more events...],
  'Contacts' : [{
    'name' : 'John Smith',
    'date' : '10-10-2010',
    'tags' : ["tag 1", "tag2", "tag3"]
    },...more contacts...],
}

I've been able to get it to work similarly to this question but can't figure out how to get that additional array level to work.


The correct way to do it using GSON in the format I'm looking for is:

//somewhere after the web response:
Gson gson = new Gson();

Event[] events = gson.fromJson(webServiceResponse,  Event[].class);


//somewhere nested in the class:
static class Event{
    String name;
    String date;

    public String getName()
    {
        return name;
    }

    public String getDate()
    {
        return date;
    }

    public void setName(String name)
    {
        this.name = name;
    }

    public void setDate(String date)
    {
        this.date = date;
    }
}

Java has his own JSON parser: we can use it on Android as well.

Below you can find how you can get all events from your String.

String TAG        = "JSON EXAMPLE";
    String jsonString = "{\"Events\" : [{\"name\" : \"exp\",\"date\" : \"10-10-2010\",\"tags\" : [\"tag 1\",\"tag 2\",\"tag 3\"]}],\"Contacts\" : [{\"name\" : \"John Smith\",\"date\" : \"10-10-2010\",\"tags\" : [\"tag 1\",\"tag 2\",\"tag 3\"]}]}";

    try {
        JSONObject jsonObj    = new JSONObject(jsonString);     // create a json object from a string
        JSONArray  jsonEvents = jsonObj.getJSONArray("Events"); // get all events as json objects from Events array

        for(int i = 0; i < jsonEvents.length(); i++){
            JSONObject event = jsonEvents.getJSONObject(i); // create a single event jsonObject
            Log.e(TAG, "Event name:" + event.getString("name") + " date: " + event.getString("date"));


            JSONArray eventTags = event.getJSONArray("tags");

            for(int j = 0; j < eventTags.length(); j++){
                Log.e(TAG, "Event tag: " + eventTags.getString(j));
            }

        }           

    } catch (JSONException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

Be aware: Your JSON Object(from your question) will throw a exception because it is not valid( I'm not sure, but it look like a javascript object). You have to add some quotes to each property(key) and ecape them with \ (\").
This tool is really nice to test if a JSON String is valid or not.