Gson successfully parses from variable but not from file

Question

I have a class and am trying to parse JSON string to instantiate that class. Here is the code and json file:

JSON:

{'walk': ['walk_1','walk_2'], 'jump': ['jump']}

Class:

import java.util.ArrayList;

public class AnimationSheet {

    public ArrayList<String> walk, jump;

}

Function:

Gson json = new Gson();
sheet = json.fromJson(jsonFile, AnimationSheet.class);

But it gives this error:

Exception in thread "LWJGL Application" com.google.gson.JsonSyntaxException: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Expected BEGIN_OBJECT but was STRING at line 1 column 1

But it parses successfully if i parse it from a variable as follows:

Gson json = new Gson();
String txt = "{'walk': ['walk_1','walk_2'], 'jump': ['jump']}";
sheet = json.fromJson(txt, AnimationSheet.class);

What is the reason behind this? How can i fix it?

Thank you.

Answer 1

My guess would be that the file doesn't contain the same as your txt String. Looking at the message, it looks like perhaps the file has a stray String at the beginning instead of an object which is what it was expecting. The object in your example String is { or in other words a hash, map or dictionary. If you println the contents of the file to the command line, I expect it doesn't have the exact same characters in it.