Develop Reference

Python json/list to dictionary cast not working

I'm currently deveolping an Android application that has Django framework as it's server side.
When i'm posting a data of a new user to my database i am POSTing a multipart request that has a user part inside.
The user for some reason is represented as a list but when i take it out of the request.data['user'] it's a str instance (Yea i dont know why...)
When i fetch that str i started working on it with json package.
I looked up on the internet (to many places..) how to convert a string in json format to a dictionary.
What i found is that when you use the json.loads command it doesn't give a dict back but a str instance :)
This is the code on my server side when i enter the create function of the ModelViewSet that handles the creation of the user.
userJson = request.data['user']
userJson = json.dumps(userJson)
userJson = json.loads(userJson)
What i tried to do is to make a string of my own in JSON format and that called the json.loads() command which gave me the dict object..
There seems to be a problem with processing the str from the http request of django rest framework for some reason or there's something else i am not seeing.
I tried the following links -
Converting JSON String to Dictionary Not List
http://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/scenarios/json/
Didn't worked also..
Now, i tried accessing the str i got from json.loads() like a dictionary in this way.
id = userJson['id']
Now lets say maybe i passed a wrong json format to the loads function, it should have thrown an exception..
The code above (getting the id) raised an exception of 'String indices must be integer' - it doesn't convert it to dict! LOL xD
Good note worth mentioning - I'm trying to convert the json to a dictionary so i could access it like this - dictObject['id']
Well i would really appreciate every help!
Thanks :)

For some reason , when i did this commands-
userJson = request.data['user']
userJson = json.loads(userJson)
userJson = json.loads(userJson)
What i got to have inside the userJson after the second json.loads(userJson) I got the actual dict object to the userJson member.
Appearently it is a bug.
21 January - another update, I truly was doing double Json encoding on the Android application so that was the reason for double json. loads()

Ajax post data in android java

I am new t ajax, but quite familiar with android. I am converting a ajax program to android app. As a part of it, i need to post data to the server. Below is the given post command in ajax.
var postTo = 'xyz.php';
$.post(postTo,{employee_name: $('[name=employee_name]').val() , phone: $('[name=phone]').val(), employee_type: 'guest' } ,
function(data) {
if(data.success){
window.localStorage["sa_id"] = data.mid;
window.location="getempdb.html";
}
if(data.message) {
$('#output').html(data.message);
} else {
$('#output').html('Could not connect');
}
},'json');
I want to implement this in android but under very little from the above statements. Could anyone who is good at ajax help me out with this thing. As of now, i get the user name and telephone number as a edit text input. I need to send this to php using http client. I know how to send data using php, but do not know what format to send and whether its a string to send or as a json object to send. Please help in interpreting the above code and oblige.

Apparently, this uses UrlEncodedFormEntity if you are using HttpClient in android.
This is created by using a List of NameValuePair.
from the parameters to the $.post:
{employee_name: $('[name=employee_name]').val() , phone: $('[name=phone]').val(), employee_type: 'guest' }
You have to create a NameValuePair for employee_name, one for phone ... each of which is fetched from a HTML element name employee_name, phone ... This is where you put the values from your EditTexts.
It returns a JSON formatted String, which you have to parse (typically using JSONObject obj = new JSONObject(result); once you have fetched the result from the server)
In this JSON object, you have a key named success, which format is not specified, except you can assume things went well if it is present ; a key mid, and a key message.

Converting multiple datas into a single string for uploading using json in android

I have to submit data from 30 pages into the server.These datas from 30 pages are to be made into a single string and that i have to upload that single string into the server using json.
Each page may contain many answers tht may be either in plain text(value we receive from edit text),from check boxes(yes or no) and so on.....please suggest me a way to add all these data into a single string and upload it using json.

Based on the comment I suspect that you believe that you need to treat these "pages" as strings that you concat. However, what I think you're overlooking is that JSON is pretty versatile in how you add objects to it.
So, let's say you have the thing that you want to ship to your server and you call it
JSONObject myEntireFile = new JSONObject();
you can now add stuff to it at any time like this...
JSONObject page1 = new JSONObject();
myEntireFile.put("page1", page1);
meanwhile you can put whatever you want IN page 1 (cause that's just another serialized container).
You can keep doing this until you're ready to send it, at which time you just call
myEntireFile.toString();
which will convert your object into one long, well formatted, JSON string, that you can then open store for later use.

json, wcf and fractions in string

If you check my previous questions, you will see that they are all in some way related to "\" or "/" for Android and why my implementations of code wasn't working when other people's versions were.
I now know why mine wasn't working.
I am developing for a live client who has access to a content management system, from which I am getting the data. Other than the general checks, they can post anything they want to the site.
They are posting sizes in inches; e.g. 5-1/2
It is this, and this alone, which is screwing up my Restful json.
For example, 1 eigth has become
1\\\/8
Currently, I am doing a string rewrite at the WCF point to catch these 'fractions' and turn them into decimal just so I can continue development. But I can't code for every eventuality and Android/Eclipse fails at JSONArray json=new JSONArray(result);
Would appreciate any input on this.
Dave

On reflection, and further investigation, it isn't the escaped fractions causing the problem.
It is something more fundamental.
Will close the question.

I have searched high and wide for an answer to this, and have finally found it.
I will share for anyone else experiencing the same issue:
It is the WCF Rest service.
Learning WCF and Android at the same time led me to believe that the response from WCF should be a String serialized in the Json format.
To do this, a .Net object, array or whatever would go through DataContractJsonSerializer before being returned as a String to Android for further parsing.
Something like this:
Dim stream1 As MemoryStream = New MemoryStream
Dim ser As DataContractJsonSerializer = New DataContractJsonSerializer(GetType(myType))
ser.WriteObject(stream1, myThing)
Dim _json As String = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(stream1.ToArray())
stream1.Close()
return _json
Wrong.
Keep your object, array or whatever and return that instead; WCF will take care of the proper escaping for you.
For example (this is VB);
IService:
<OperationContract()> _
<WebGet(BodyStyle:=WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest, RequestFormat:=WebMessageFormat.Json, ResponseFormat:=WebMessageFormat.Json, UriTemplate:="/MyKit/{AccountID}")> _
Function GetKit(ByVal AccountID As String) As MyKit
Service:
Public Function GetKit(ByVal AccountID As String) As MyKit Implements IService1.GetKit
Dim allKit As New MyKit() //Your object
objDal.CommandText = 'run some sql here - or whatever
Using dr As SqlDataReader = "blah"
//populate your object
End Using
Return allKit //return the object, not the string representation of it
End Function
Using DataContractJsonSerializer for sending as Json to Android from WCF effectively 'pre-escapes' the data. When it gets to Android, the Json parser is unable to handle it, because it also escapes the data.

Create list in android app

I want to know a good way to create a list in my android app. I have all info in my DB and want to load data from it each time I start the app and make a list from it (id and title).
What is the best approach?
Should I make a PHP-script that responds with a JSON encoded array with all list items or should I make an XML-file that generates each time the data in the DB changes that I import to the app each time it starts? or any other good way to do it?
Since all stuff are made by XML-files in android it feels like importing a XML would be a good thing, is it? And how do I import an XML-file from a web server into the app?
// Daniel

You can use either JSON or XML.
You can use the web service approach or you can include your db with your application.
In fact, I most often choose to create a sqlite3 database of my data and include it in the assets folder, which can be copied to the app's data folder on startup.
As for copying your sqlite3 database from assets/ to the db data directory, I found these instructions helpful.

In your situation I would pick JSON over XML for all the reason's stated in the following post: http://ajaxian.com/archives/json-vs-xml-the-debate
Plus, in android, there are JSON Array's built in by default so you don't have to do any extra passing of the code.
return new JSONArray("my json string goes here...");
Since we are talking about a mobile device, I would always generate changes in your php script rather than have a full sync as this will be a lot smaller in size that a full sync. However, you will need to give your user a option to do a full re-sync if this is applicable to your app. I would use a SQLite database to store the data and only update the changes in that.
To also make the stream smaller, you can gzip compress your output from php as this can be natively read by the android device. In my app, I compress 500kb down to ~110kb before transmitting, a huge saving on performance. Here a partial example of how to read the stream:
InputStream in = null;
HttpURLConnection httpConn = null; // you will have to write your on code for this bit.
if (httpConn.getContentEncoding() != null)
{
String contentEncoding = httpConn.getContentEncoding().toString();
if (contentEncoding.contains("gzip"))
{
in = new GZIPInputStream(httpConn.getInputStream());
}
}
else
{
in = httpConn.getInputStream();
}
I hope that this all makes sense, it's been a long day programming :)
Stu