JSON Methodology

The JSON data type produced depends on the Java object type being serialized.

• Primitives and primitive objects are converted to JSON primitives.
• Beans and Maps are converted to JSON objects.
• Collections and arrays are converted to JSON arrays.
• Anything else is converted to JSON strings.

Data type conversions:

POJO type	JSON type	Example	Serialized form
String	String	serialize("foobar");	'foobar'
Number	Number	serialize(123);	123
Boolean	Boolean	serialize(true);	true
Null	Null	serialize(null);	null
Beans with properties of any type on this list	Object	serialize(new MyBean());	{p1:'val1',p2:true}
Maps with values of any type on this list	Object	serialize(new TreeMap());	{key1:'val1',key2:true}
Collections and arrays of any type on this list	Array	serialize(new Object[]{1,"foo",true});	[1,'foo',true]

Date/time types (Calendar, Date, Temporal subtypes, Duration) are serialized natively as ISO 8601 strings. Swaps can be used to convert non-serializable POJOs into serializable forms (such as byte[] arrays to Base-64 encoded strings) or to override the default format for types that already have built-in support.