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Showing posts with label custom gson converter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label custom gson converter. Show all posts

Using custom gson converter to parse dynamic json with free source code

We often come across issue where a json dynamically switches its type based on the response. For example, in normal cases suppose that you have a list of cars returned as an array from your backend, but when the number of cars in the list is one, you are given just an abject instead of array. In such cases, your code should be ready to handle the response no matter whether it is an array or an object.


To handle such cases, Gson provides plenty of customisation options. One such option is registerTypeAdapter. So lets dive deeper to check how its done.

In this tutorial we will be using retrofit to make the network calls and of course gson-converter, so go to your app level build.gradle and add the following as dependencies

implementation 'com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.0.0-beta4'
implementation 'com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-gson:2.3.0'

please add the latest dependency versions for retrofit, converter-gson
Now check the following json strcutures that we will be parsing

cars_object_json.json
{
"cars" : {
   "car_type" : "Hatchback", 
   "car_models" : {"car_name":"Swift" , "power_window":"yes" }
  }
}

cars_array_json.json
{
"cars" : {
   "car_type" : "Sedan" , 
   "car_models" : [ 
      { 
         "car_name" : "Xcent",
         "power_window" : "no"
      },
      {
         "car_name" : "Ciaz",
         "power_window" : "yes"
      } 
  ]}
}


In cars_object_json.json you can see that car_models is an object because there is only one item inside it whereas in cars_array_json.json  car_models is an array since there are more than one items in it. We have to write a parser which could automatically identify the response format and parse both the cases easily. registerTypeAdapter is exactly what we want here.

Alright, lets see some code now

First of all, there are two type of object models or POJOs that we need to create for the above json >> Cars,CarModels

1) Automatic model class/pojo class generation using http://www.jsonschema2pojo.org/
Specify Target language as Java, Source Type as JSON and annotation style as Gson
  • Now click preview and copy the generated java files
Now copy the contents of the class and add it in android studio project

Now copy the classes Cars,CarModels from http://www.jsonschema2pojo.org/ and add it to your project like this

Cars.java

public class Cars {
    @SerializedName("car_type")
    @Expose
    private String carType;
    @SerializedName("car_models")
    @Expose
    private List<CarModel> cardModels = null;

    public String getCarType() {
        return carType;
    }

    public void setCarType(String carType) {
        this.carType = carType;
    }

    public List<CarModel> getCardModels() {
        return cardModels;
    }

    public void setCardModels(List<CarModel> cardModels) {
        this.cardModels = cardModels;
    }

}


CarModels.java

public class CarModel {
    @SerializedName("car_name")
    @Expose
    private String carName;
    @SerializedName("power_window")
    @Expose
    private String powerWindow;

    public String getCarName() {
        return carName;
    }

    public void setCarName(String carName) {
        this.carName = carName;
    }

    public String getPowerWindow() {
        return powerWindow;
    }

    public void setPowerWindow(String powerWindow) {
        this.powerWindow = powerWindow;
    }
}


Now, create a deserializer like shown below

GsonBuilder b = new GsonBuilder();
        b.registerTypeAdapter(Cars.class, new JsonDeserializer<Cars>() {
            @Override
            public Cars deserialize(JsonElement arg0, Type arg1,
                                     JsonDeserializationContext arg2) throws JsonParseException {
                JsonObject CarsObj = arg0.getAsJsonObject();
                JsonObject innerObj=CarsObj.getAsJsonObject("cars");

                Gson g = new Gson();
                Cars a = g.fromJson(arg0, Cars.class);
                List<CarModel> carModels = null;

                if (innerObj.get("car_models").isJsonArray()) {
                    carModels = g.fromJson(innerObj.get("car_models"),
                            new TypeToken<List<CarModel>>() {
                            }.getType());
                } else {
                    CarModel single = g.fromJson(innerObj.get("car_models"), CarModel.class);
                    carModels = new ArrayList<CarModel>();
                    carModels.add(single);
                }
                a.setCardModels(carModels);
                return a;
            }
        });

In the above deserializer, you can clearly see that we have checked whether car_models is an array or an object and then parsed the response accordingly.

Now go ahead and attach the converter to your retrofit implementation so that the entire code for your MainActivity.java will look like this

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        parseJson();
    }

    private void parseJson() {

        GsonBuilder b = new GsonBuilder();
        b.registerTypeAdapter(Cars.class, new JsonDeserializer<Cars>() {
            @Override
            public Cars deserialize(JsonElement arg0, Type arg1,
                                     JsonDeserializationContext arg2) throws JsonParseException {
                JsonObject CarsObj = arg0.getAsJsonObject();
                JsonObject innerObj=CarsObj.getAsJsonObject("cars");

                Gson g = new Gson();
                Cars a = g.fromJson(arg0, Cars.class);
                List<CarModel> carModels = null;

                if (innerObj.get("car_models").isJsonArray()) {
                    carModels = g.fromJson(innerObj.get("car_models"),
                            new TypeToken<List<CarModel>>() {
                            }.getType());
                } else {
                    CarModel single = g.fromJson(innerObj.get("car_models"), CarModel.class);
                    carModels = new ArrayList<CarModel>();
                    carModels.add(single);
                }
                a.setCardModels(carModels);
                return a;
            }
        });
        
        Retrofit retrofit = new Retrofit.Builder()
                .baseUrl("https://navneet7k.github.io/")
                .addConverterFactory(GsonConverterFactory.create(b.create()))
                .build();
        

        RequestInterface request = retrofit.create(RequestInterface.class);
        Call<Cars> call1=request.getJson();
        call1.enqueue(new Callback<Cars>() {
            @Override
            public void onResponse(Call<Cars> call, Response<Cars> response) {
                Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this,"Success!",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
            }

            @Override
            public void onFailure(Call<Cars> call, Throwable t) {
                Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this,"Failure",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
            }

        });
    }

}

And your RequestInterface.java for cars_object_json.json  will be like this

interface RequestInterface {
    @GET("cars_object_json.json")
    Call<Cars> getJson();
}

RequestInterface.java for cars_array_json.json  will be like this


interface RequestInterface {
    @GET("cars_array_json.json")
    Call<Cars> getJson();
}

By this method you will get the correct response for Response<Cars> response in the retrofit callbacks even if your response changes dynamically.
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How to use custom gson converter to parse dynamically changing json with Retrofit 2, Android


We often come across situations where our json response contains attributes that switches its type dynamically. For example , if a particular key returns JSONObject usually, but in some errror conditions it returns just an error message which is a String. In such cases, if we have configured our network callbacks to return a JSONObject then when a String is returned for error case, the network method callbacks may not be able to handle the response. In such cases we will have to perform dynamic json parsing. For such cases, you may use JsonDeserializer to intercept the response and convert it to appropriate type(using gson) even before it reaches the network method callbacks(onResponse,onFailure in case of retrofit).


Consider the following json structure in which the key responseMessage dynamically changes between a String and a JSONObject


{
"applicationType":"1",
"responseMessage":{
"surname":"Jhon",
"forename":" taylor",
"dob":"17081990",
"refNo":"3394909238490F",
"result":"Received"
}
}



{
       "applicationType":"4",
       "responseMessage":"Success"          
 }

Let us now see how to implement a custom gson converter to dynamically parse this response.

In the above cases we may create a model class like this


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public class ResponseWrapper {

    @SerializedName("applicationType")
    @Expose
    private String applicationType;
    @SerializedName("responseMessage")
    @Expose
    private ResponseMessage responseMessage;

    public String getApplicationType() {
        return applicationType;
    }

    public void setApplicationType(String applicationType) {
        this.applicationType = applicationType;
    }

    public ResponseMessage getResponseMessage() {
        return responseMessage;
    }

    public void setResponseMessage(ResponseMessage responseMessage) {
        this.responseMessage = responseMessage;
    }

}
where ResponseMessage will be an inner object for the json object with the same name

But this will work only when ResponseMessage is a JSONObject(the first json) but what happens if the response dynamically switches between a JSONObject and String??

One solution is that we could use  gson-converter

 Dependencies/Libraries to be used :

  1. compile 'com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.3.0'
  2. compile 'com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-gson:2.3.0'

First of all you will need three model classes like the following


ResponseWrapper

 
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public class ResponseWrapper {

    @SerializedName("applicationType")
    @Expose
    private String applicationType;
    @SerializedName("responseMessage")
    @Expose
    private Object responseMessage;

    public String getApplicationType() {
        return applicationType;
    }

    public void setApplicationType(String applicationType) {
        this.applicationType = applicationType;
    }

    public Object getResponseMessage() {
        return responseMessage;
    }

    public void setResponseMessage(Object responseMessage) {
        this.responseMessage = responseMessage;
    }

}



ResponseMessage

 
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public class ResponseMessage extends ResponseWrapper {

@SerializedName("surname")
@Expose
private String surname;
@SerializedName("forename")
@Expose
private String forename;
@SerializedName("dob")
@Expose
private String dob;
@SerializedName("refNo")
@Expose
private String refNo;
@SerializedName("result")
@Expose
private String result;

public String getSurname() {
    return surname;
}

public void setSurname(String surname) {
    this.surname = surname;
}

public String getForename() {
    return forename;
}

public void setForename(String forename) {
    this.forename = forename;
}

public String getDob() {
    return dob;
}

public void setDob(String dob) {
    this.dob = dob;
}

public String getRefNo() {
    return refNo;
}

public void setRefNo(String refNo) {
    this.refNo = refNo;
}

public String getResult() {
    return result;
}

public void setResult(String result) {
    this.result = result;
}

}


ResponseString

 
1
public class ResponseString extends ResponseWrapper { }

Here we have subclassed ResponseMessage, ResponseString from ResponseWrapper. The reason for this approach is that deserialize() method defined in UserResponseDeserializer have a return type of ResponseWrapper, so either of the subclassed classes can be returned from deserialize() depending on the response is an object/string

So implement a custom gson converter as shown below

UserResponseDeserializer(custom deserialiser)

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public class UserResponseDeserializer implements JsonDeserializer<ResponseWrapper> {
@Override
public ResponseWrapper deserialize(JsonElement json, Type typeOfT, JsonDeserializationContext context) throws JsonParseException {


        if (((JsonObject) json).get("responseMessage") instanceof JsonObject){
            return new Gson().fromJson(json, ResponseMessage.class);
        } else {
            return new Gson().fromJson(json, ResponseString.class);
        }

}
}

The deserialize() method is an overridden method that provides us with the json to be parsed. Here we can check the type of the json(json object/string) using instanceof method and decide whether to return ResponseMessage.class/ResponseString.class


Now pass the above UserResponseDeserializer to our GsonConverterFactory to  complete the implementation of our custom gson converter as shown below

Retrofit 2.0 Implementation

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Gson userDeserializer = new GsonBuilder().setLenient().registerTypeAdapter(ResponseWrapper.class, new UserResponseDeserializer()).create();


    Retrofit retrofit = new Retrofit.Builder()
            .baseUrl("base_url")
            .addConverterFactory(GsonConverterFactory.create(userDeserializer))
            .build();


    UserService request = retrofit.create(UserService.class);
    Call<ResponseWrapper> call1=request.listAllUsers();

    call1.enqueue(new Callback<ResponseWrapper>() {
        @Override
        public void onResponse(Call<ResponseWrapper> call, Response<ResponseWrapper> response) {
            ResponseWrapper responseWrapper=response.body();
            Log.i("DYNAMIC RESPONSE", String.valueOf(response.body().getResponseMessage()));
        }

        @Override
        public void onFailure(Call<ResponseWrapper> call, Throwable t) {
        }
    });

Thats it! you can now parse a json key which dynamically switches as a json object/string. Similar procedures can be followed for json arrays as well(just check instanceof JsonArray)

 You may also check this example which provides free source code download

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