Retrieving single items from a volley jsonArray

Question

I have the following which is part of my response from my API server using volley.

      "products": [
{
  "seller": "Geff Baraka Hardware",
  "sellerId": "57",
  "category": "Hardware",
  "id": "794",
  "code": null,
  "name": "Devki Barbed Wire 610m (16G X 25kg)",
  "desc": "<p style=\"margin-bottom: 1.3em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Lato, sans-serif; overflow-wrap: break-word;\">Shop for this Devki Barbed Wire 610m (16G X 25kg) on Kenya’s local business hosting platform. For All your Quality Assured Trusted Brands. Long-lasting barbed wire is constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands.</p><p style=\"margin-bottom: 1.3em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Lato, sans-serif; overflow-wrap: break-word;\">Order for&nbsp;Devki Barbed Wire 610m (16G X 25kg) on Swiva hardware partners.&nbsp;</p><p style=\"margin-bottom: 1.3em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Lato, sans-serif; overflow-wrap: break-word;\">Details</p><p style=\"margin-bottom: 1.3em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Lato, sans-serif; overflow-wrap: break-word;\">&gt;<span style=\"font-size: 1rem;\">Stainless Steel Fencing Wire</span></p><p style=\"overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 1.3em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Lato, sans-serif;\">&gt; Constructed With Sharp Edges Or Point Arranged At Intervals Along The Strands<br>&gt; Low Cost<br>&gt; Easy To Install<br>&gt; 610m<br>&gt; High Quality Fence</p><p style=\"overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 1.3em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Lato, sans-serif;\">Package Contents</p><p style=\"overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 1.3em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Lato, sans-serif;\">&gt; Devki Barbed Wire 610m (16G X 25kg)</p>",
  "cost": "5.00",
  "discounted_cost": "0.00",
  "quantity": "10",
  "sku": "Item",
  "owner_id": "57",
  "cat_id": "25",
  "sub_cat_id": "115",
  "color": "Silver",
  "size": "610M",
  "brand": "Devki",
  "path": "[\"swiva_product2211062201.jpg\",\"swiva_product960899477.jpg\"]",
  "avg_rate": "1",
  "top_rate": "1",
  "low_rate": "1",
  "status_id": "7",
  "created_at": "2022-07-16 19:14:36",
  "updated_at": "2022-07-19 07:11:58"
}]

I am interested in path which contains links to images, I would like to display only the first image as the icon but do not know how to go about it. I have tried looping through each of the jsonarray elements and retrieved path as a jsonArray from which I'm attempting to getString of index 0 as follows

      for(int i=0; i<productArray.length();i++){
          jsonObject = productArray.getJSONObject(i);
          id= jsonObject.getInt("id");
      .
      .
      .
         image = jsonObject.getJSONArray("path").getString(0);
     }

but that is now working

I have tried Log.d("TAG", "retrievedProductPhotos: "+ jsonObject.getString("path")); and that gives me ["swiva_product2211062201.jpg","swiva_product960899477.jpg"] . But on trying Log.d("TAG", "retrieveProductPhotos: "+ jsonObject.getJSONArray("path")); I get nothing Any idea on how to go about it?

Answer 1

It looks like your JSON array was saved as a string, so

"path": "[\"a\", \"b\"]"

instead of

"path": ["a", "b"]

(note the extra quotes). To parse that you would need to read it as a string first, then parse that as a JSONArray:

String pathStr = jsonObject.getString("path");
JSONArray pathArr = new JSONArray(pathStr);
String firstPath = pathArr.getString(0);

However, if you control the source of the JSON response, fixing it to properly encode the array would be better, then you could use the getJSONArray approach.