So in the off chance this helps somebody (which seems dubious at this point) I decided to parse the Json manually using recursion. Here's how I did it:
public static void getCommentsOnLink()
{
String commentsURL= "http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1wvx52/.json?sort=top";
URL url = null;
try
{
url = new URL(commentsURL);
} catch (MalformedURLException ex)
{
System.out.println(ex.getMessage());
}
String JsonText = readCommentJsonFromURL(url);
RedditCommentResults redditCommentResults = getCommentResults(JsonText);
}
private static String readCommentJsonFromURL(URL url)
{
String JSONText = null;
try
{
BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(url.openStream()));
JSONText = readAll(bufferedReader);
} catch (IOException ex)
{
System.out.println(ex.getMessage());
}
return JSONText;
}
private static String readAll(Reader reader) throws IOException
{
StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
int cp;
while ((cp = reader.read()) != -1)
{
stringBuilder.append((char) cp);
}
return stringBuilder.toString();
}
private static RedditCommentResults getCommentResults(String JsonText)
{
JsonParser parser = new JsonParser();
JsonArray completeJson = (JsonArray) parser.parse(JsonText);
//get link and comment object from the array containing an object for each
JsonObject linkParentJson = (JsonObject) completeJson.get(0);
JsonObject commentParentJson = (JsonObject) completeJson.get(1);
//use automatic deserializer for redditLink
JsonObject linkListingDataJson = linkParentJson.getAsJsonObject("data");
JsonObject linkChildrenJson = linkListingDataJson.getAsJsonArray("children").get(0).getAsJsonObject();
JsonObject linkDataJson = linkChildrenJson.getAsJsonObject("data");
Link commentLink = gson.fromJson(linkDataJson, Link.class);
RedditLink redditCommentLink = new RedditLink(commentLink);
//parse comments manually
JsonObject commentDataJson = commentParentJson.getAsJsonObject("data");
JsonArray commentChildrenJson = commentDataJson.getAsJsonArray("children");
//get all of the comments from the JsonArray
ArrayList<RedditComment> redditComments = getNestedComments(commentChildrenJson);
RedditCommentResults redditCommentResults = new RedditCommentResults(redditComments, redditCommentLink);
return redditCommentResults;
}
private static ArrayList<RedditComment> getNestedComments(JsonArray commentWrapperJsonArray)
{
ArrayList<RedditComment> redditComments = new ArrayList();
for (JsonElement commentWrapperJson : commentWrapperJsonArray)
{
//cast Element to Object so we can search for the primitive "kind". Finally we get it as a String
String kind = commentWrapperJson.getAsJsonObject().getAsJsonPrimitive("kind").getAsString();
//if the comment is of type t1 meaning it is a comment and not a "more" (a "more" is a comment which
//hasn't been loaded yet because it does not have a great deal of upvotes relative to other comments)
if (kind.equals("t1"))
{
JsonObject commentJson = commentWrapperJson.getAsJsonObject().getAsJsonObject("data");
Comment comment = gson.fromJson(commentJson, Comment.class);
RedditComment redditComment = new RedditComment(comment);
JsonElement repliesJson = commentJson.get("replies");
//if the reply is not equal to an empty String (i.e. if there is at least one reply)
if (!repliesJson.isJsonPrimitive())
{
JsonObject dataJson = repliesJson.getAsJsonObject().getAsJsonObject("data");
JsonArray childrenJson = dataJson.getAsJsonArray("children");
ArrayList<RedditComment> nestedComments = getNestedComments(childrenJson);
redditComment.setReplies(nestedComments);
}
redditComments.add(redditComment);
}
}
return redditComments;
}