Difference between JSONObject and JSONArray
Best programmatically Understanding.
when syntax is
{}
then this isJsonObject
when syntax is
[]
then this isJsonArray
A JSONObject
is a JSON-like object that can be represented as an element in the JSONArray
. JSONArray
can contain a (or many) JSONObject
Hope this will helpful to you !
The difference is the same as a (Hash)Map vs List.
JSONObject:
- Contains named values (key->value pairs, tuples or whatever you want to call them)
- like
{ID : 1}
- like
- Order of elements is not important
- a JSONObject of
{id: 1, name: 'B'}
is equal to{name: 'B', id: 1}
.
- a JSONObject of
JSONArray:
- Contains only series values
- like
[1, 'value']
- like
- Order of values is important
- array of
[1,'value']
is not the same as['value',1]
- array of
Example
JSON Object --> { "":""}
JSON Array --> [ , , , ]
{"employees":[
{"firstName":"John", "lastName":"Doe"},
{"firstName":"Anna", "lastName":"Smith"},
{"firstName":"Peter", "lastName":"Jones"}
]}
When you are working with JSON data in Android, you would use JSONArray
to parse JSON which starts with the array brackets. Arrays in JSON are used to organize a collection of related items (Which could be JSON objects).
For example: [{"name":"item 1"},{"name": "item2} ]
On the other hand, you would use JSONObject
when dealing with JSON that begins with curly braces. A JSON object is typically used to contain key/value pairs related to one item.
For example: {"name": "item1", "description":"a JSON object"}
Of course, JSON arrays and objects may be nested inside one another. One common example of this is an API which returns a JSON object containing some metadata alongside an array of the items matching your query:
{"startIndex": 0, "data": [{"name":"item 1"},{"name": "item2"} ]}