How to create correct JSONArray in Java using JSONObject

Here is some code using java 6 to get you started:

JSONObject jo = new JSONObject();jo.put("firstName", "John");jo.put("lastName", "Doe");JSONArray ja = new JSONArray();ja.put(jo);JSONObject mainObj = new JSONObject();mainObj.put("employees", ja);

Edit: Since there has been a lot of confusion about put vs add here I will attempt to explain the difference. In java 6 org.json.JSONArray contains the put method and in java 7 javax.json contains the add method.

An example of this using the builder pattern in java 7 looks something like this:

JsonObject jo = Json.createObjectBuilder()  .add("employees", Json.createArrayBuilder()    .add(Json.createObjectBuilder()      .add("firstName", "John")      .add("lastName", "Doe")))  .build();

I suppose you're getting this JSON from a server or a file, and you want to create a JSONArray object out of it.

String strJSON = ""; // your string goes hereJSONArray jArray = (JSONArray) new JSONTokener(strJSON).nextValue();// once you get the array, you may check items likeJSONOBject jObject = jArray.getJSONObject(0);

Hope this helps :)

Small reusable method can be written for creating person json object to avoid duplicate code

JSONObject  getPerson(String firstName, String lastName){   JSONObject person = new JSONObject();   person .put("firstName", firstName);   person .put("lastName", lastName);   return person ;} public JSONObject getJsonResponse(){    JSONArray employees = new JSONArray();    employees.put(getPerson("John","Doe"));    employees.put(getPerson("Anna","Smith"));    employees.put(getPerson("Peter","Jones"));    JSONArray managers = new JSONArray();    managers.put(getPerson("John","Doe"));    managers.put(getPerson("Anna","Smith"));    managers.put(getPerson("Peter","Jones"));    JSONObject response= new JSONObject();    response.put("employees", employees );    response.put("manager", managers );    return response;  }