Package oracle.dbtools.plugin.api.json.objects

API for creating in memory representations of JSON object graphs (JSONObjects) and for serializing object graphs to JSON representations. Developers may find this an easier to use API compared to the JSONStreams stream based API, however since JSONObjects requires storing a representation of an entire JSON document in memory it requires greater memory overhead and is not suitable for parsing or generating documents that may exceed available memory in size. In general, developers are encouraged to use the JSONStreams API in preference to this API. See below for instructions on how to:
  • Read a JSON Document into an in-memory representation.
  • Modify an in-memory representation of a JSON document.
  • Write an in-memory representation of a JSON document to a text stream.
  • Write Java object graphs to JSON representation.

Reading a JSON Document

  @Provides
  class SomeService {
    @Inject SomeService(JSONObjects json) {
     this.json = json;
    }
    
    void doSomething(InputStream content) throws IOException {
     JSONObject object = (JSONObject)json.read(content); // assumes root is an object
     ... // process the JSONObject instance
    }
  }

Iterating over a JSONObject's properties

   JSONObject object = (JSONObject)json.read(content); // assumes root is an object
   for ( String propertyName: object.propertyNames() ) {
    Object value = object.get(propertyName);
    ... // process the value
   }

JSON Value Types

The value will be one of the following:

  • null if no such property exists or the property has a null value.
  • An instance of String if the value is a JSON String
  • An instance of BigDecimal if the value is a JSON numeric.
  • An instance of Boolean if the value is a JSON boolean.
  • An instance of JSONArray if the value is a JSON array.
  • An instance of JSONObject if the value is a JSON object.

The instanceof operator can be used to determine which actual type a value is

Iterating over a JSONArray's elements

   JSONArray array = (JSONArray)json.read(content); // assumes root is an array
   for ( Object value: array.values() ) {
    ... // process the value
   }
  • The JSONArray.values() method returns an Iterable of all values in the array
  • Each value will be an instance of one of the types defined in the JSON Value Types section.

Modifying a JSONObject

JSONObjects are immutable objects, to create a modified JSONObject instance, the JSONObject.Builder type must be used.

   JSONObject existing = ... // acquire a handle to existing JSONObject
   JSONObject modified = existing.modify()
                                 .add("someProperty","someValue")
                                 .remove("someOtherProperty")
                                 .build();

Modifying a JSONArray

JSONArrays are immutable objects, to create a modified JSONArray instance, the JSONArray.Builder type must be used.

   JSONArray existing = ... // acquire a handle to existing JSONArray
   JSONArray modified = existing.modify()
                                 .add("someValue")
                                 .remove(0)
                                 .build();

Creating JSONObjects and JSONArrays

   JSONObjects json = ... // acquire handle to JSONObjects service
   JSONArray array = json.array().add("something").add(2).addNull().build();
   
   // array => ["something",2,null]
   
   JSONObject object = json.object().add("foo","bar").add("nested",array).build();
   
   // object => {"foo": "bar", "nested": ["something",2,null]}

Writing in-memory JSON representations

JSONNode graphs can be written to streams using the JSONObjects.write(Appendable, JSONNode) and JSONObjects.write(java.io.OutputStream, JSONNode) methods.

  java.io.Writer out = ... // acquire handler to Appendable instance
  JSONObjects json = ... // acquire handle to JSONObjects service
  
  // create a JSON graph
  JSONArray array = json.array().add("something").add(2).addNull().build();
  JSONObject object = json.object().add("foo","bar").add("nested",array).build();
  
  // write the graph to the stream
  json.write(out,object);
  
  // out contents => {"foo": "bar", "nested": ["something",2,null]}

Serializing Java Object Graphs

Any Java object graph conforming to the rules outlined below may be serialized to a JSON representation using the JSONObjects.write(java.io.OutputStream, Object) method:

Supported Types

The nodes in the object graph can be any of the following sub-types:

Scalar Types

  • CharSequence and all sub-types, including String.
  • char[] array, which is treated in the same manner as a CharSequence.
  • Number and all sub-types (excluding the Character and Byte types), and their primitive type equivalents.
  • Boolean type and it's primitive type equivalent.
  • Date type and all sub-types.
  • Readable type and all sub-types.
  • The null value.

Container Types

  • A java array instance, whose elements are all one of the supported types, excluding char[] and byte[] arrays.
  • Iterables, whose elements are all one of the supported types
  • Iterators, whose elements are all one of the supported types
  • Maps, whose keys can be converted to a String via the Object.toString() method and whose values are all one of the supported types.
Cycles in the graph are not permitted.
Author:
cdivilly