json-simple Trying to get specific value from JSON

Question

I'm trying to geocode an address and get the lat/lng coordinates in java. I'm able to geocode the address and have it return in a json object, but I'm unable to figure out how to use json-simple to parse the json below to get the lat/lng. Any help is appreciated.

{
   "results" : [
      {
         "address_components" : [
            {
               "long_name" : "Minneapolis",
               "short_name" : "Minneapolis",
               "types" : [ "locality", "political" ]
            },
            {
               "long_name" : "Hennepin County",
               "short_name" : "Hennepin County",
               "types" : [ "administrative_area_level_2", "political" ]
            },
            {
               "long_name" : "Minnesota",
               "short_name" : "MN",
               "types" : [ "administrative_area_level_1", "political" ]
            },
            {
               "long_name" : "United States",
               "short_name" : "US",
               "types" : [ "country", "political" ]
            }
         ],
         "formatted_address" : "Minneapolis, MN, USA",
         "geometry" : {
            "bounds" : {
               "northeast" : {
                  "lat" : 45.05125,
                  "lng" : -93.193794
               },
               "southwest" : {
                  "lat" : 44.890144,
                  "lng" : -93.32916299999999
               }
            },
            "location" : {
               "lat" : 44.983334,
               "lng" : -93.26666999999999
            },
            "location_type" : "APPROXIMATE",
            "viewport" : {
               "northeast" : {
                  "lat" : 45.05125,
                  "lng" : -93.193794
               },
               "southwest" : {
                  "lat" : 44.890144,
                  "lng" : -93.32916299999999
               }
            }
         },
         "types" : [ "locality", "political" ]
      }
   ],
   "status" : "OK"
}

I've tried many different things, but this is my latest failure:

JSONObject json = (JSONObject)parser.parse(addressAsString);
JSONObject results = (JSONObject) json.get("results");    <-- LINE 186
JSONArray geometry = (JSONArray) results.get("geometry");

for(int i = 0; i < geometry.size(); i++) {
    JSONObject p = (JSONObject) geometry.get(i);
    System.out.println(p);
}

It produces this stacktrace:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ClassCastException: org.json.simple.JSONArray cannot be cast to org.json.simple.JSONObject
    at com.AddressGeocoder.geocode(AddressGeocoder.java:186)
    at com.AddressGeocoder.<init>(AddressGeocoder.java:48)
    at com.Geocoder.main(Geocoder.java:7)

Answer 1

So let me break it down for you so you can understand in JSON's {} denotes an object [] denotes an array. Simple? Yeah.

visual breakdown

results 
   index 0 ->
            addressed_components(array)-->
                                       long_name(single entity)
                                       short_name(single entity)
                                       types(array)

            formatted_address(single entity)
            geometry(huge ass object with nested objects)
            types(array)

• Basically, in the code you have right now results 0 index would contain "address_components", "formatted_address", "geometry", "types". (NOTE THIS IS ALL ONE OBJECT)

• "Address_components" is a array.

• Which contain multiple "Address_components."

• "Geometry" is just a very very large object in which has many different attributes.

• Lastly types is an array.

---

psuedo code to retrieve items from arrays, yo!

LOOP THROUGH JSON ARRAY
     ASSIGN OBJECT VALUES // getting different objects that are indexed in the array.

(if you want to see code to see how all this is done let me know)

gl man.