Get all the keys in a JSON string JsonNode in java

forEach will iterate over children of a JsonNode (converted to String when printed) and fieldNames() gets an Iterator<String> over keys. Here are some examples for printing elements of the example JSON:

JsonNode rootNode = mapper.readTree(option);

System.out.println("\nchoices:");
rootNode.path("choices").forEach(System.out::println);

System.out.println("\nAllKeys:");
rootNode.fieldNames().forEachRemaining(System.out::println);

System.out.println("\nChoiceSettings:");
rootNode.path("choiceSettings").fieldNames().forEachRemaining(System.out::println);

You'll probably need fields() at some point that returns an Iterator<Entry<String, JsonNode>> so you can iterate over key, value pairs.

This should do it.

Map<String, Object> treeMap = mapper.readValue(json, Map.class);

List<String> keys  = Lists.newArrayList();
List<String> result = findKeys(treeMap, keys);
System.out.println(result);

private List<String> findKeys(Map<String, Object> treeMap , List<String> keys) {
    treeMap.forEach((key, value) -> {
      if (value instanceof LinkedHashMap) {
        Map<String, Object> map = (LinkedHashMap) value;
        findKeys(map, keys);
      }
      keys.add(key);
    });

    return keys;
  }

This will print out result as

[required, requiredMsg, choices, exc, a, b, c, required, textbox, d, choiceSettings, type, Settings]

The accepted answer works out great but issues a warning, "Type safety: The expression of type Map needs unchecked conversion to conform to Map <String, Object>"

This answer led me to change that line to the following to eliminate the warning:

Map<String, Object> treeMap = mapper.readValue(json, new TypeReference<Map<String, Object>>() {});