I am using ksoap2 to consume a SOAP based web-service, and the format of the response I am getting is something like:
anyType{
key1=value1;
key2=value2;
key3=anyType{
key4=value4;
key5=value5;
key6= anyType{
key7= anyType{
key8= value8;
};
};
};
key9=value9;
}
That is the JSON objects (if we assume that this is JSON) begin with anyType{ and end with }, keys and values are separated by =, and ; are field separators/statement terminators/whatever.
I tried to validate the response string using online validators but it failed. This points out that this is not a valid JSON object.
A similar example can be found in this question. But the accepted answer did not work for me because, well first the response string does not begin with { but with anyType{, and if I put anyType{ in the if condition, it still raises an exception next time when it encounters an anyType{ (a nested JSON object)
The second answer seems to work to some extent, but the problem is that my entire response string appears to come as a single property (since the propertyCount is 1), so when I print out the name or value of the property, the entire response string is printed.
I have googled it a lot and tried everything I could find. So I suppose I'll have to parse it myself.
My question is what is the best way to parse this kind of response.
Should I try to parse it using regex or should I convert the response string to a JSON format by replacing all occurances of anyType{ by {, = by :, ; by , etc. etc. , and then converting this string to a JSONObject by something like:
jsonObject= new JSONObject(responseString);
and then extract keys and values by something like:
Iterator itr= jsonObject.keys();
while(itr.hasNext()) {
String value = null;
String key= (String) itr.next();
try {
value= jsonObject.getString(key);
} catch (JSONException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
Log.i(TAG, key + " : " + value);
// ......
}
import java.util.Iterator;
import org.json.JSONException;
import org.json.JSONObject;
public class JSONPracticeOne {
private static JSONObject jsonObject;
private static String key;
private static String value;
public static void main(String[] args) {
String responseString= " anyType{key1=value1;key2=value2;key3=anyType{key4=value4;key5=value5;key6=anyType{key7=anyType{key8=value8};};};key9=value9;}";
responseString = responseString.replaceAll("anyType\\Q{\\E", "{");
responseString = responseString.replaceAll("\\Q=\\E", ":");
responseString = responseString.replaceAll(";", ",");
responseString = responseString.replaceAll(",\\Q}\\E","}");
//System.out.println(responseString);
//System.out.println();
responseString= responseString.replaceAll("(:\\{)", "-"); //Replace :{ by -
responseString= responseString.replaceAll("[:]", "\":\""); //Replace : by ":"
responseString= responseString.replaceAll("-", "\":{\""); //Replace - back to :{
//System.out.println(responseString);
//System.out.println();
responseString = responseString.replaceAll("[,]",",\"");
//System.out.println(responseString);
//System.out.println();
//String string= responseString.charAt(1) + ""; System.out.println("CHECHE " + string);
responseString = responseString.replaceFirst("[\\{]","{\"");
//System.out.println(responseString);
//System.out.println();
//responseString= responseString.replaceAll("([^\\}],)","\","); // truncation
responseString= responseString.replaceAll("(\\},)", "-"); // replace }, by -
responseString= responseString.replaceAll(",","\","); //replace , by ",
responseString = responseString.replaceAll("-","},"); // replace - back to },
//System.out.println(responseString);
//System.out.println();
responseString = responseString.replaceAll("(?<![\\}])\\}","\"}");
System.out.println(responseString);
System.out.println("**********************************************************************************************\n\n");}}
OUTPUT:-
{
"key1":"value1",
"key2":"value2",
"key3":{
"key5":"value5",
"key6":{
"key7":{
"key8":"value8"
}
},
"key4":"value4"
},
"key9":"value9"
}
Response is not JSON, it is JSON-like object and you can parse it using ksoap2's abilities.
In SoapObject.java, there are some methods like as follow:
public Object getProperty(int index) {
Object prop = properties.elementAt(index);
if(prop instanceof PropertyInfo) {
return ((PropertyInfo)prop).getValue();
} else {
return ((SoapObject)prop);
}
}
and
/**
* Get the toString value of the property.
*
* @param index
* @return
*/
public String getPropertyAsString(int index) {
PropertyInfo propertyInfo = (PropertyInfo) properties.elementAt(index);
return propertyInfo.getValue().toString();
}
and
/**
* Get the property with the given name
*
* @throws java.lang.RuntimeException
* if the property does not exist
*/
public Object getProperty(String name) {
Integer index = propertyIndex(name);
if (index != null) {
return getProperty(index.intValue());
} else {
throw new RuntimeException("illegal property: " + name);
}
}
and
/**
* Get the toString value of the property.
*
* @param name
* @return
*/
public String getPropertyAsString(String name) {
Integer index = propertyIndex(name);
if (index != null) {
return getProperty(index.intValue()).toString();
} else {
throw new RuntimeException("illegal property: " + name);
}
}
etc..
And you can try parse your object like this:
try {
androidHttpTransport.call(SOAP_ACTION, envelope);
SoapObject response = (SoapObject) envelope.getResponse();
if (response.toString().equals("anyType{}") || response == null) {
return;
} else {
String value1 = response.getPropertyAsString("key1");
String value2 = response.getPropertyAsString("key2");
SoapObject soapKey3 = (SoapObject) response.getProperty("key3");
String value4 = soapKey3.getPropertyAsString("key4");
String value5 = soapKey3.getPropertyAsString("key5");
SoapObject soapKey6 = (SoapObject) soapKey3.getProperty("key6");
SoapObject soapKey7 = (SoapObject) soapKey6.getProperty("key7");
String value8 = soapKey7.getPropertyAsString("key8");
String value9 = response.getPropertyAsString("key9");
System.out.println(value1 + ", " + value2 + ", " + value4 + ", " + value5 + ", " + value8 + ", " + value9);
}
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}