The easiest way to implement REST API client and JSON parser in Java?

Question

I am struggling at transfering this code from JQuery to Java:

var url = 'http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/'; 

$.getJSON( url + '?v=2&alt=json-in-script&callback=?', {
    'q': q,
  }, function(data) {gotData(q, data);});

function gotData(q, data){
  for(var i in data.feed.entry){
     // print the data...
  }
}

It calls a YouTube API and reads some of the JSON result fields.

What is the easiest and most proper way to implement this in Java? Since I need it for just one API method call, I need the lightest possible solution. But I am guessing the code will become much more complex in Java, whatever library I used.

Also, I don't want to use YouTube API client for Java, but some general REST-JSON solution instead, which I could use for a few more API-s in future.

Answer 1

I suggest Jersey-client for REST and json-simple for json parser.

please look http://code.google.com/p/json-simple/ for json parser and http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-aj-tomcat/ to create REEST Client.

Answer 2

You could use Apache HttpClient and Jackson Json:

DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
// Add query string into get request
HttpGet getRequest = new HttpGet("http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/");

getRequest.setHeader("Accept", "application/json");

HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(getRequest);

ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
Map<String, Object> jsonMap = mapper.readValue(response.getEntity().getContent(), new TypeReference<HashMap<String,Object>>() {});

Answer 3

I would use google-gson Google Gson
It annotation driven, very easy to use.