I'm looking for good way or complete API to create a hierarchical JSON from plain java.util.Properties object.
Exist java.util.Properties object, e.g.:
car.color=blue
car.places=4
car.motor.dimension=2L
car.motor.ps=120
and the target json structur should be:
{
"car":
{"color":"blue",
"places":4,
"motor":
{"dimension":"2L",
"ps":120
}
}
}
public void run() throws IOException {
Properties properties = ...;
Map<String, Object> map = new TreeMap<>();
for (Object key : properties.keySet()) {
List<String> keyList = Arrays.asList(((String) key).split("\\."));
Map<String, Object> valueMap = createTree(keyList, map);
String value = properties.getProperty((String) key);
value = StringEscapeUtils.unescapeHtml(value);
valueMap.put(keyList.get(keyList.size() - 1), value);
}
Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().setPrettyPrinting().create();
String json = gson.toJson(map);
System.out.println("Ready, converts " + properties.size() + " entries.");
}
@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
private Map<String, Object> createTree(List<String> keys, Map<String, Object> map) {
Map<String, Object> valueMap = (Map<String, Object>) map.get(keys.get(0));
if (valueMap == null) {
valueMap = new HashMap<String, Object>();
}
map.put(keys.get(0), valueMap);
Map<String, Object> out = valueMap;
if (keys.size() > 2) {
out = createTree(keys.subList(1, keys.size()), valueMap);
}
return out;
}
The following project 'Java Properties to JSON' achieves exactly what you seek.
However, it has a restriction on Java 8.
Would be great if someone actually provides changes to make it Java 7 compatible.
You will need to parse your properties to Map<String, Object> where your Object will be either another Map<String, Object> or a String. For this you will have to write your own code. I suppose you will need to take your properties keys and split them over "." using method String.split(). Note that in your code you will need to use "\\." as a parameter as "." is a regular expression. Once you build your Map it is very easy to convert it to JSON using Jackson library or any available JSON library.
