Jackson JSON: get node name from json-tree

This answer applies to Jackson versions prior to 2+ (originally written for 1.8). See @SupunSameera's answer for a version that works with newer versions of Jackson.

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The JSON terms for "node name" is "key." Since JsonNode#iterator() does not include keys, you need to iterate differently:

for (Map.Entry<String, JsonNode> elt : rootNode.fields())
{
    if ("foo".equals(elt.getKey()))
    {
        // bar
    }
}

If you only need to see the keys, you can simplify things a bit with JsonNode#fieldNames():

for (String key : rootNode.fieldNames())
{
    if ("foo".equals(key))
    {
        // bar
    }
}

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And if you just want to find the node with key "foo", you can access it directly. This will yield better performance (constant-time lookup) and cleaner/clearer code than using a loop:

JsonNode foo = rootNode.get("foo");
if (foo != null)
{
    // frob that widget
}

fields() and fieldNames() both were not working for me. And I had to spend quite sometime to find a way to iterate over the keys. There are two ways by which it can be done.

One is by converting it into a map (takes up more space):

ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
Map<String, Object> result = mapper.convertValue(jsonNode, Map.class);
for (String key : result.keySet())
{
    if(key.equals(foo))
    {
        //code here
    }
}

Another, by using a String iterator:

Iterator<String> it = jsonNode.getFieldNames();
while (it.hasNext())
{
    String key = it.next();
    if (key.equals(foo))
    {
         //code here
    }
}

For Jackson 2+ (com.fasterxml.jackson), the methods are little bit different:

Iterator<Entry<String, JsonNode>> nodes = rootNode.get("foo").fields();

while (nodes.hasNext()) {
  Map.Entry<String, JsonNode> entry = (Map.Entry<String, JsonNode>) nodes.next();

  logger.info("key --> " + entry.getKey() + " value-->" + entry.getValue());
}