I like using records in Java and getting rid of the boilerplate on my immutable objects. I also like using gson (google’s serialization/deserialization library) for my lightweight JSON needs. All I need is an annotation to use a different field type. (For complex parsing I use Jackson)
Suppose I want parse this
var json = """
{"first":"Mickey",
"last":"Mouse",
"birth_year":1928}
""";
For example before records, I would write:
class Name {
private String first;
private String last;
@SerializedName("birth_year") int birthYear;
// boilerplate methods
}
I needed to use my IDE to generate a constructor, getters, and a toString(). And additionally, equals/hashCode if needed for that class.
In Java 17, I switched to records. I didn’t realize I could use them with gson annotations until recently. Turns out all I need to write is:
record Name(String first,
String last,
@SerializedName("birth_year") int birthYear) { }
The parsing code remains the same
var gson = new Gson();
var name = gson.fromJson(json, Name.class);
System.out.println(name);
