Java servlet JSON
last modified August 24, 2023
Java servlet JSON tutorial shows how to return JSON data from a Java servlet. We use Gson library to work with JSON data format. The web application is deployed on Jetty server.
Jetty is an open-source project providing an HTTP server, HTTP client, and Java Servlet container. Gson is an open source Java library to serialize and deserialize Java objects to (and from) JSON.
Java Servlet
Servlet is a Java class which responds to a particular type of network request - most commonly an HTTP request. Java servlets are used to create web applications. They run in servlet containers such as Tomcat or Jetty. Modern-day Java web development uses frameworks that are built on top of servlets.
JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format.
It is easy for humans to read and write and for machines to parse and generate.
The official Internet media type for JSON is application/json.
The JSON filename extension is .json.
Java servlet JSON application
The following web application uses a Java servlet to send data (list of cities) to the client in JSON format.
pom.xml
src
├── main
│ ├── java
│ │ └── com
│ │ └── zetcode
│ │ ├── model
│ │ │ └── City.java
│ │ ├── service
│ │ │ ├── CityService.java
│ │ │ └── ICityService.java
│ │ ├── util
│ │ │ └── JsonConverter.java
│ │ └── web
│ │ └── GetCities.java
│ ├── resources
│ └── webapp
│ └── index.html
└── test
└── java
This is the project structure.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0
http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>org.example</groupId>
<artifactId>ServletJson</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<properties>
<maven.compiler.source>17</maven.compiler.source>
<maven.compiler.target>17</maven.compiler.target>
<project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>jakarta.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>jakarta.servlet-api</artifactId>
<version>6.0.0</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
<artifactId>gson</artifactId>
<version>2.9.0</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.2.3</version>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.eclipse.jetty</groupId>
<artifactId>jetty-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>11.0.11</version>
<configuration>
<webApp>
<contextPath>/app</contextPath>
</webApp>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</project>
This is the Maven POM file. We have two artifacts: javax.servlet-api
for servlets and gson for JSON processing in Java. The
maven-war-plugin is responsible for collecting all artifact
dependencies, classes and resources of the web application and packaging them
into a web application archive (WAR).
The jetty-maven-plugin is a useful Maven plugin for rapid
development and testing. It creates a web application, starts a Jetty web
server, and deploys the application on the server.
package com.zetcode.model;
import java.util.Objects;
public class City {
private Long id;
private String name;
private int population;
public City(Long id, String name, int population) {
this.id = id;
this.name = name;
this.population = population;
}
public Long getId() {
return id;
}
public void setId(Long id) {
this.id = id;
}
public String getName() {
return name;
}
public void setName(String name) {
this.name = name;
}
public int getPopulation() {
return population;
}
public void setPopulation(int population) {
this.population = population;
}
@Override
public int hashCode() {
int hash = 3;
hash = 97 * hash + Objects.hashCode(this.id);
hash = 97 * hash + Objects.hashCode(this.name);
hash = 97 * hash + this.population;
return hash;
}
@Override
public boolean equals(Object obj) {
if (this == obj) {
return true;
}
if (obj == null) {
return false;
}
if (getClass() != obj.getClass()) {
return false;
}
final City other = (City) obj;
if (this.population != other.population) {
return false;
}
if (!Objects.equals(this.name, other.name)) {
return false;
}
return Objects.equals(this.id, other.id);
}
}
This is the City bean. It has three attributes: id, name, and
population.
package com.zetcode.web;
import com.zetcode.model.City;
import com.zetcode.service.CityService;
import com.zetcode.util.JsonConverter;
import javax.servlet.ServletOutputStream;
import javax.servlet.annotation.WebServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.List;
@WebServlet(name = "GetCities", urlPatterns = {"/GetCities"})
public class GetCities extends HttpServlet {
@Override
protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
throws IOException {
response.setContentType("application/json;charset=UTF-8");
ServletOutputStream out = response.getOutputStream();
List<City> cities = new CityService().getCities();
var converter = new JsonConverter();
String output = converter.convertToJson(cities);
out.print(output);
}
}
This is the GetCities servlet. It retrieves data from a service
class and returns them to the client in JSON format.
response.setContentType("application/json;charset=UTF-8");
We set the content type of the response object to application/json.
ServletOutputStream out = response.getOutputStream();
We get the ServletOutputStream which is used to send data
to the client.
List<City> cities = new CityService().getCities();
From the CityService, we get the list of cities.
var converter = new JsonConverter(); String output = converter.convertToJson(cities);
We convert the list of cities into JSON string with JsonConverter.
out.print(output);
The JSON string is written to the ServletOutputStream.
package com.zetcode.service;
import com.zetcode.model.City;
import java.util.List;
public interface ICityService {
List<City> getCities();
}
ICityService contains the getCities contract method.
package com.zetcode.service;
import com.zetcode.model.City;
import java.util.List;
public class CityService implements ICityService {
@Override
public List<City> getCities() {
var cities = List.of(
new City(1L, "Bratislava", 432000),
new City(2L, "Budapest", 1759000),
new City(3L, "Prague", 1280000),
new City(4L, "Warsaw", 1748000),
new City(5L, "Los Angeles", 3971000),
new City(6L, "New York", 8550000),
new City(7L, "Edinburgh", 464000),
new City(8L, "Berlin", 3671000));
return cities;
}
}
The CityService's getCities method returns a list of
city objects.
package com.zetcode.util;
import com.google.gson.Gson;
import com.google.gson.GsonBuilder;
import com.google.gson.JsonArray;
import com.google.gson.JsonObject;
import com.zetcode.model.City;
import java.util.List;
public class JsonConverter {
private final Gson gson;
public JsonConverter() {
gson = new GsonBuilder().create();
}
public String convertToJson(List<City> cities) {
JsonArray jarray = gson.toJsonTree(cities).getAsJsonArray();
var jsonObject = new JsonObject();
jsonObject.add("cities", jarray);
return jsonObject.toString();
}
}
JsonConverter converts a list of cities into a JSON string.
We use the Gson library.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Home page</title>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
</head>
<body>
<a href="GetCities">GetCities</a>
</body>
</html>
The home page contains a link to call the servlet.
$ mvn jetty:run
We run the Jetty server and navigate to localhost:8080/app/.
Creating a request with curl
The curl is a tool to transfer data from or to a server,
using one of the supported protocols.
$ curl localhost:8080/app/GetCities
[{"id":1,"name":"Bratislava","population":432000},{"id":2,"name":"Budapest","population":1759000},
{"id":3,"name":"Prague","population":1280000},{"id":4,"name":"Warsaw","population":1748000},
{"id":5,"name":"Los Angeles","population":3971000},{"id":6,"name":"New York","population":8550000},
{"id":7,"name":"Edinburgh","population":464000},{"id":8,"name":"Berlin","population":3671000}]
This is the output. With the curl command, we issue a HTTP GET
request to the GetCities servlet.
Naming the JSON array
In case we wanted to name the returned JSON array, we can use the following code:
Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().create();
JsonArray jarray = gson.toJsonTree(cities).getAsJsonArray();
JsonObject jsonObject = new JsonObject();
jsonObject.add("cities", jarray);
out.print(jsonObject.toString());
In the servlet, we place the JSON array into another JSON object and
name the property cities.
In this article we have sent JSON data from a Java servlet.