creating json array from arraylist android - php

Question

I've been toying around with this for a little while and I'm looking for some help. I have an ArrayList that I turn into a JSONArray and then place inside JSONObject. The problem is my formatting. Allow me to show you.
I get the values for my ArrayList and add them like so (small code snippet)
if (v instanceof EditText) {
String answer = ((EditText) v).getText().toString();
if (answer.equals("")) {
error.setText(v.getTag().toString()
+ " Needs an answer");
((EditText) v).setHint("Fill me out!");
((EditText) v).setHintTextColor(getResources()
.getColor(R.color.red_bg));
} else {
error.setText("");
}
String question = v.getTag().toString();
String combo = question + ": " + answer;
myList.add(combo);
Log.v("INFO", "Storing: " + combo);
}
This works, but adding the ":" is the start of my problems. The log prints out
06-19 12:13:33.630: V/INFO(3272): Storing: Height: 6`4
Now when I create my JSON to be sent over I use the following
if (error.getText().toString().equals("")) {
JSONObject json = new JSONObject();
JSONArray jArray = new JSONArray(myList);
try {
json.putOpt("array", jArray);
} catch (JSONException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
Again, this works. Now the problem clearly illustrated, it prints out JSON like this
{
"array":
[
"Store #: 00608",
"Phone #: null",
"Address: 3014 N. SCOTTSDALE RD.",
"City: SCOTTSDALE",
"Zip: 85251",
"State: AZ",
"Height: 6`4",
"Weight: 230",
"Ethnicity: White",
"Age: 23",
"Eye Color: Blue",
"Favorite Food: Thai",
"Comments: awesome"
]
}
If you're familiar with JSON you know I've goofed it here. I was merely trying to keep the question and answer together. However by adding the ":" to the middle it looks like I'm trying to use question as the key and answer as the value (kind of). Anyways in the end this looks like legitimate JSON, and it is, but it doesn't work the way I need it to.
My question is, should I just make "question" the key, and "answer" the value?
If so how would I go about creating my JSONArray so that my JSON looks like this
{
"array":
[
"Store #" : "00608",
"Phone #" : "null",
"Address" : "3014 N. SCOTTSDALE RD.",
"City" : "SCOTTSDALE",
"Zip" : "85251",
"State" : "AZ",
"Height" : "6`4",
"Weight" : "230",
....
]
}
So that a simple
var_dump(json_decode($json));
var_dump(json_decode($json, true));
in PHP will provide me with the data I need server side.
or alternatively would it just be simpler to keep this format and split the strings as I parse them server side? Whichever answer you choose please supply a few lines of code with to illustrate your answer. As you can tell I'm a visual person.
Thanks for the help, I hope this helps other people in the future as well!

Answer 1

You can solve this a bunch of ways. If you want to keep the formatting the way it is you just need to process your strings first. When you get values from your ArrayList just split the combo into parts
int splitPoint = combo.indexOf(":")
String key = combo.substring(0, splitPoint);
String value = combo.substring(splitPoint + 1);
Once you split the key and value out just create a new JSONObject and add the key and value as a string
JSONObject jObject = new JSONObject();
jObject.put(key, value);
This will add the JSONString to its own JSONObject. Then you can add this object to the JSONArray that you want to create
JSONArray jArray = new JSONArray();
jArray.puJSONObject(jObject);
I broke this down in to parts but if you just decalre your JSONArray ouside a for loop or some other iterator and loop through your ArrayList, processing each combo string and adding the resulting object to a JSONArray you can acheive the desired result

Answer 2

I am not sure that you can do the following in JSON
[ "key":"value, ...."].
You may be able to do it with Key Value object pairs, as in
[ {"key":"value"},...]
If you do it with objects, you will have to create a new object for each pair, and it might become pretty complicated since the key in JSON corresponds with the name of an instance variable.
My suggestion is to leave it the way you have it now and split the strings. I am not familiar with PHP, but it should be as simple as looping through the JSON array and calling something like split(':') on the strings.

Answer 3

You can make a JSONObject with dynamic keys like so:
{
"Store #" : "00608",
"Phone #" : "null",
"Address" : "3014 N. SCOTTSDALE RD.",
"City" : "SCOTTSDALE",
"Zip" : "85251",
"State" : "AZ",
"Height" : "6`4",
"Weight" : "230",
....
}
The question what is simpler, can only be answered by you yourself, as obviously you implement the App and the Server part. So whatever works best for you is the right way.
Performance-wise, joining strings on one side and splitting them on the other side is not the best, but it also depends on how many entries there are in your array.