Bdtjtk

I do work for a project currently, where the data is send to the server as application/x-www-form-urlencoded (which is bad, and it should be JSON, but unfortunately I am not able to change this one).

My question is, how can I transfer the given structure to JSON, or, even better, deserialize it directly to an object?

_id=[5bfad95450642c333010daca], 

_rev=[1-9ce33949c3acd85cea6c58467e6a8144], 

type=[Group], 

user=[aUSer], 

default=[aDetail], 

store[aDetail][prop]=[5], 

store[aDetail][lprop1][0][time]=[00:00], 

store[aDetail][lprop1][0][value]=[14], 

store[aDetail][lprop1][0][timeAsSeconds]=[0],

store[aDetail][lprop1][1][time]=[07:00], 

store[aDetail][lprop1][1][value]=[8], 

store[aDetail][lprop1][1][timeAsSeconds]=[25200], 

store[aDetail][anprop]=[25], 

store[aDetail][lprop2][0][time]=[00:00], 

store[aDetail][lprop2][0][value]=[61], 

store[aDetail][lprop2][0][timeAsSeconds]=[0],   

store[bDetail][prop]=[6], 

store[bDetail][lprop1][0][time]=[00:10], 

store[bDetail][lprop1][0][value]=[12], 

store[bDetail][lprop1][0][timeAsSeconds]=[0],

store[bDetail][lprop1][1][time]=[07:10], 

store[bDetail][lprop1][1][value]=[9], 

store[bDetail][lprop1][1][timeAsSeconds]=[25200], 

store[bDetail][anprop]=[25], 

store[bDetail][lprop2][0][time]=[00:00], 

store[bDetail][lprop2][0][value]=[61], 

store[bDetail][lprop2][0][timeAsSeconds]=[0], 

created_at=[2018-01-11T20:48:22.574+0100]

In json, this would look something like this (skippen most of the already given values):

{

_id: 5bfad95450642c333010daca,

_rev: 1-9ce33949c3acd85cea6c58467e6a8144,

type: Group,

user: aUSer,

default: aDetail,

store: [

  aDetail: {

    prop: 0,

    lprop1: [

      {

        time: 00:00,

        value: 14,

        timeAsSeconds: 0

      }

    ]

  }

]

}   

The conversion from this form format to json is rather annoying. Any help is appreciated. BTW, me is using Jackson and Java and/or Kotlin, if this is of any help.

I have a rather naive solution, which takes nested objects and arrays into account. This works for me, and there can/will be some major drawbacks, if used in other environments.

The solution is written in kotlin but most probably could be written in a not as complex way.

fun parseToMap(map: MutableMap<String, Any>, key: String, value: Any): MutableMap<String, Any> {

    val cleanedV = if (value is String) URLDecoder.decode(value, "UTF-8") else value



    if (!key.contains("[")) {

        map.putIfAbsent(key, cleanedV)

    } else {

        // mapKey is the key going to get stored in the map

        val mapKey = key.substring(0, key.indexOf("["))



        // nextKey is the next key pushed to the next call of parseToMap

        var nextKey = key.removePrefix(mapKey)

        nextKey = nextKey.replaceFirst("[", "").replaceFirst("]", "")



        var isArray = false

        var index = -1



        if (nextKey.contains("[") &&

                nextKey.substring(0, nextKey.indexOf("[")).matches(Regex("[0-9]+"))) {

            index = nextKey.substring(0, nextKey.indexOf("[")).toInt()

            isArray = true

        }



        // mapkey used for object in list

        val newMapKey = if (isArray) nextKey.substring(nextKey.indexOf("[") + 1, nextKey.indexOf("]")) else ""



        val child: Any?

        var childMap: MutableMap<String, Any> = mutableMapOf()



        if (map.containsKey(mapKey)) {

            println("key $mapKey exists already")

            child = map[mapKey]



            when (child) {

                is MutableList<*> -> {

                    if (child == null || child.isEmpty()) {

                        childMap = mutableMapOf()

                        val tmpList = child as MutableList<Any>

                        tmpList.add(childMap)

                        map.put(newMapKey, tmpList)

                    } else {

                        if (child.size > index) {

                            childMap = child.get(index) as MutableMap<String, Any>

                            childMap = parseToMap(childMap, newMapKey, value)

                        } else {

                            childMap = parseToMap(childMap, newMapKey, value)

                            val tmpList = child as MutableList<Any>

                            tmpList.add(childMap)

                        }

                    }

                }

                is MutableMap<*, *> -> childMap = map.get(mapKey) as MutableMap<String, Any>

            }

        } else {

            if (isArray) {

                child = mutableListOf<Any>()

                childMap = parseToMap(childMap, newMapKey, value)

                child.add(childMap)

                map.put(mapKey, child)

            } else {

                childMap = mutableMapOf<String, Any>()

            }

        }



        if (!isArray) parseToMap(childMap, nextKey, value)



        map.putIfAbsent(mapKey, childMap)

    }



    return map

}

This method should be called with a Map and each parameter key (like bespoken in my question already) as well as the value of each parameter.