Google HTTP Client for Java

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JSON
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JSON

Pluggable streaming library

A fully pluggable JSON streaming library abstraction allows you to take advantage of the native platform’s built-in JSON library support (for example the JSON library that is built into Android Honeycomb). The streaming library enables you to write optimized code for efficient memory usage that minimizes parsing and serialization time.

A big advantage of this JSON library is that the choice of low-level streaming library is fully pluggable. There are three built-in choices, all of which extend JsonFactory. You can easily plug in your own implementation.

User-defined JSON data models

User-defined JSON data models allow you to define Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs) and define how the library parses and serializes them to and from JSON. The code snippets below are part of a more complete example, YouTube sample, which demonstrates these concepts.

Example

The following JSON snippet shows the relevant fields of a typical YouTube video search:

{
 "kind": "youtube#searchListResponse",
 "pageInfo": {
  "totalResults": 1000000,
  "resultsPerPage": 5
 },
 "items": [
  {
   "kind": "youtube#searchResult",
   "id": {
    "kind": "youtube#video",
    "videoId": "e6Tudp5lqt8"
   },
   "snippet": {
    "publishedAt": "2020-06-25T23:18:43Z",
    "channelId": "UCKwGZZMrhNYKzucCtTPY2Nw",
    "title": "Video 1 Title",
    "description": "Video 1 Description",
    "thumbnails": {
     "default": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e6Tudp5lqt8/default.jpg",
      "width": 120,
      "height": 90
     },
     "medium": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e6Tudp5lqt8/mqdefault.jpg",
      "width": 320,
      "height": 180
     },
     "high": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e6Tudp5lqt8/hqdefault.jpg",
      "width": 480,
      "height": 360
     }
    }
   }
  },
  {
   "kind": "youtube#searchResult",
   "id": {
    "kind": "youtube#video",
    "videoId": "o-NtLpiMpw0"
   },
   "snippet": {
    "publishedAt": "2020-06-25T17:28:52Z",
    "channelId": "UClljAz6ZKy0XeViKsohdjqA",
    "title": "Video Title 2",
    "description": "Video 2 Description",
    "thumbnails": {
     "default": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/o-NtLpiMpw0/default.jpg",
      "width": 120,
      "height": 90
     },
     "medium": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/o-NtLpiMpw0/mqdefault.jpg",
      "width": 320,
      "height": 180
     },
     "high": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/o-NtLpiMpw0/hqdefault.jpg",
      "width": 480,
      "height": 360
     }
    }
   }
  },
  {
   "kind": "youtube#searchResult",
   "id": {
    "kind": "youtube#video",
    "videoId": "TPAahzXZFZo"
   },
   "snippet": {
    "publishedAt": "2020-06-26T15:45:00Z",
    "channelId": "UCR4Yfr8HAZJd9X24dwuAt1Q",
    "title": "Video 3 Title",
    "description": "Video 3 Description",
    "thumbnails": {
     "default": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TPAahzXZFZo/default.jpg",
      "width": 120,
      "height": 90
     },
     "medium": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TPAahzXZFZo/mqdefault.jpg",
      "width": 320,
      "height": 180
     },
     "high": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TPAahzXZFZo/hqdefault.jpg",
      "width": 480,
      "height": 360
     }
    }
   }
  },
  {
   "kind": "youtube#searchResult",
   "id": {
    "kind": "youtube#video",
    "videoId": "gBL-AelsdFk"
   },
   "snippet": {
    "publishedAt": "2020-06-24T15:24:06Z",
    "channelId": "UCFHZHhZaH7Rc_FOMIzUziJA",
    "title": "Video 4 Title",
    "description": "Video 4 Description",
    "thumbnails": {
     "default": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gBL-AelsdFk/default.jpg",
      "width": 120,
      "height": 90
     },
     "medium": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gBL-AelsdFk/mqdefault.jpg",
      "width": 320,
      "height": 180
     },
     "high": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gBL-AelsdFk/hqdefault.jpg",
      "width": 480,
      "height": 360
     }
    }
   }
  },
  {
   "kind": "youtube#searchResult",
   "id": {
    "kind": "youtube#video",
    "videoId": "9ofe8axKjH0"
   },
   "snippet": {
    "publishedAt": "2020-06-26T11:59:32Z",
    "channelId": "UCtNpbO2MtsVY4qW23WfnxGg",
    "title": "Video 5 Title",
    "description": "Video 5 Description",
    "thumbnails": {
     "default": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9ofe8axKjH0/default.jpg",
      "width": 120,
      "height": 90
     },
     "medium": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9ofe8axKjH0/mqdefault.jpg",
      "width": 320,
      "height": 180
     },
     "high": {
      "url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9ofe8axKjH0/hqdefault.jpg",
      "width": 480,
      "height": 360
     }
    }
   }
  }
 ]
}

Here’s one possible way to design the Java data classes to represent this:

public static class ListResponse {
  @Key("items")
  private List<SearchResult> searchResults;

  @Key
  private PageInfo pageInfo;

  public List<SearchResult> getSearchResults() {
    return searchResults;
  }

  public PageInfo getPageInfo() {
    return pageInfo;
  }
}

public static class PageInfo {
  @Key
  private long totalResults;

  @Key
  private long resultsPerPage;

  public long getTotalResults() {
    return totalResults;
  }

  public long getResultsPerPage() {
    return resultsPerPage;
  }
}

public static class SearchResult {
  @Key
  private String kind;

  @Key("id")
  private VideoId videoId;

  @Key
  private Snippet snippet;

  public String getKind() {
    return kind;
  }

  public VideoId getId() {
    return videoId;
  }

  public Snippet getSnippet() {
    return snippet;
  }
}

public static class VideoId {
  @Key
  private String kind;

  @Key
  private String videoId;

  public String getKind() {
    return kind;
  }

  public String getVideoId() {
    return videoId;
  }
}

public static class Snippet {
  @Key
  private String publishedAt;

  @Key
  private String channelId;

  @Key
  private String title;

  @Key
  private String description;

  public String getPublishedAt() {
    return publishedAt;
  }

  public String getChannelId() {
    return channelId;
  }

  public String getTitle() {
    return title;
  }

  public String getDescription() {
    return description;
  }

  public Map<String, Thumbnail> getThumbnails() {
    return thumbnails;
  }
}

public static class Thumbnail {
  @Key
  private String url;

  @Key
  private long width;

  @Key
  private long height;

  public String getUrl() {
    return url;
  }

  public long getWidth() {
    return width;
  }

  public long getHeight()