Part 1 – Simple Serialization + Deserialization

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-kcvxYZrB4[/embedyt]

In this video series we take a look at the GSON library, which is provided by Google and makes the process of turning Java objects into their JSON representation (serialization) and JSONs into Java objects (deserialization) very easy.

In part 1 we are going to create a simple Java class, create an object of it, turn it into a JSON and then turn that JSON back into the java object. We will also learn how to use the @SerializedName annotation to use different keys and variable names.

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Links & DependenciesEmployee.javaMainActivity.javaemployee.json

Library on GitHub with installation instructions:

github.com/google/gson

package com.codinginflow.gsonexample;

import com.google.gson.annotations.SerializedName;

public class Employee {
    @SerializedName("first_name")
    private String mFirstName;
    @SerializedName("age")
    private int mAge;
    @SerializedName("mail")
    private String mMail;

    public Employee(String firstName, int age, String mail) {
        mFirstName = firstName;
        mAge = age;
        mMail = mail;
    }
}

package com.codinginflow.gsonexample;

import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;

import com.google.gson.Gson;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

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

        Gson gson = new Gson();

        /*
        Employee employee = new Employee("John", 30, "john@gmail.com");
        String json = gson.toJson(employee);
        */

        String json = "{\"first_name\":\"John\",\"age\":30,\"mail\":\"john@gmail.com\"}";
        Employee employee = gson.fromJson(json, Employee.class);
    }
}

{
  "age": 30,
  "first_name": "John",
  "mail": "john@gmail.com"
}