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Use JSON content in JAX-RS application requests and responses

JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a common media format that RESTful services consume and produce. We can use this lightweight data-interchange format based on the object-literal notation of JavaScript to exchange data.

JSON is a popular data format that is programming-language neutral. Multiple web browsers and JavaScript libraries such as Dojo provide support for JSON. WebSphere supports the Jackson and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON4J) libraries.

The Jackson library is a JSON processor (both parser and generator) based on streaming API for XML (StAX) pull parser technology. It provides basic JSON reading and writing (parsing and generating), a full node-based tree model, as well as object-to-JSON data binding.

We can use the Jackson library to unmarshal and marshal JSON data to and from Plain Old Java Objects (POJOs) and JAXB objects. To use Jackson to process JSON data, include the Jackson libraries in the class path. After adding Jackson to the class path, you use POJOs and JAXB objects to represent request and response message bodies. Jackson is included in the server-side run time of this product.

The JSON4J library is an implementation of a set of JSON handling classes for use within Java environments. The JSON4J library provides a simple Java model for constructing and manipulating data to be rendered as JSON data.

We can use the JSON4J library to output JSON data. To use JSON4J types as supported entity types, include the JSON4J library in the class path. After adding JSON4J to the class path, we can use the JSONObject, and the JSONArray classes from the JSON4J library as types to represent request and response message bodies. JSON4J is included in the server-side runtime environment of this product.

  1. Configure the development environment.

  2. Define resources in JAX-RS web applications.

  3. Configure the JAX-RS application.

  4. Implement a resource method using JSON content for a request and response entity.

  5. Assemble JAX-RS web applications.

  6. Deploy JAX-RS web applications.


Results

You have developed and deployed a JAX-RS web application on the application server that uses JSON4J libraries to process JSON content for requests and responses.


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Related tasks

  • Implement a resource method using IBM JSON4J
  • Get started with the JSON4J libraries

  • Web services specifications and APIs