How to parse a JSON string into JsonNode in Jackson?

A slight variation on Richards answer but readTree can take a string so you can simplify it to:

ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
JsonNode actualObj = mapper.readTree("{\"k1\":\"v1\"}");

You need to use an ObjectMapper:

ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
JsonFactory factory = mapper.getJsonFactory(); // since 2.1 use mapper.getFactory() instead
JsonParser jp = factory.createJsonParser("{\"k1\":\"v1\"}");
JsonNode actualObj = mapper.readTree(jp);

Further documentation about creating parsers can be found here.

A third variant:

ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
JsonNode actualObj = mapper.readValue("{\"k1\":\"v1\"}", JsonNode.class);