Working With JSON Data From Java

UPDATE : I have uploaded the example to github : JSONized@Github.

I am preparing excercises for the Xtend tutorial Sebastian and I will be giving on Monday at EclipseCon.  For one excercise we parse an itunes music library in JSON format in order to execute different queries on that data. Of course the data is well structured, so why not adding a thin typed facade over the generic JSON objects?   I've built a little active annotation which let's you do the following:

Step 1: Find some Data

Let’s take data from Yahoo as an example. The data contains the most popular new album releases. Here's the first album:

{
 "query": {
  "count": 24,
  "created": "2013-03-21T20:13:42Z",
  "lang": "en-US",
  "results": {
   "Release": [
    {
     "UPC": "602527291567",
     "explicit": "0",
     "flags": "2",
     "id": "218641405",
     "label": "Streamline/Interscope/Kon Live",
     "rating": "-1",
     "releaseDate": "2009-11-23T08:00:00Z",
     "releaseYear": "2009",
     "rights": "160",
     "title": "The Fame Monster",
     "typeID": "2",
     "url": "http://new.music.yahoo.com/lady-gaga/albums/fame-monster--218641405",
     "Artist": {
      "catzillaID": "0",
      "flags": "115202",
      "hotzillaID": "1810013384",
      "id": "58959115",
      "name": "Lady Gaga",
      "rating": "-1",
      "trackCount": "172",
      "url": "http://new.music.yahoo.com/lady-gaga/",
      "website": "http://www.ladygaga.com/"
     },
     "ItemInfo": {
      "ChartPosition": {
       "last": "1",
       "this": "1"
      }
     }
    },
.... 
}

Step 2: Copy the example data into a @Jsonized annotation:

@Jsonized('{
 "query": {
  "count": 24,
  "created": "2013-03-21T20:13:42Z",
  "lang": "en-US",
  "results": {
   "Release": [
    {
     "UPC": "602527291567",
     "explicit": "0",
     "flags": "2",
     "id": "218641405",
     "label": "Streamline/Interscope/Kon Live",
     "rating": "-1",
     "releaseDate": "2009-11-23T08:00:00Z",
     "releaseYear": "2009",
     "rights": "160",
     "title": "The Fame Monster",
     "typeID": "2",
     "url": "http://new.music.yahoo.com/lady-gaga/albums/fame-monster--218641405",
     "Artist": {
      "catzillaID": "0",
      "flags": "115202",
      "hotzillaID": "1810013384",
      "id": "58959115",
      "name": "Lady Gaga",
      "rating": "-1",
      "trackCount": "172",
      "url": "http://new.music.yahoo.com/lady-gaga/",
      "website": "http://www.ladygaga.com/"
     },
     "ItemInfo": {
      "ChartPosition": {
       "last": "1",
       "now": "1"
      }
     }
    }]
   }
  }
}')
class MusicReleases {
  // empty
}

Step 3: Enjoy statically-typed accessor methods!

The annotation will create getters and setters derived from the example data. It's just a super thin layer and you have full access to the underlying JsonObject if you want to go more dynamic. If you want to learn how to do such things, you should come to our tutorial. It's going to be fun!