How to write JSON to a file using Gson in Java

In this short article, you'll learn how to write JSON data to a file by using Gson. Gson is a popular JSON processing library developed by Google for reading, writing, and parsing JSON data in Java.

Dependencies

To add Gson to your Gradle project, add the following dependency to the build.gradle file:

implementation 'com.google.code.gson:gson:2.8.6'

For Maven, include the below dependency to your pom.xml file:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
  <artifactId>gson</artifactId>
  <version>2.8.6</version>
</dependency>

Write Java Map to a JSON File

To write a Java Map to a JSON file, you can use the toJson() method from Gson as shown below:

try {
    // create a map
    Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<>();
    map.put("name", "John Deo");
    map.put("email", "john.doe@example.com");
    map.put("roles", new String[]{"Member", "Admin"});
    map.put("admin", true);

    // create a writer
    Writer writer = new FileWriter("user.json");

    // convert map to JSON File
    new Gson().toJson(map, writer);

    // close the writer
    writer.close();
    
} catch (Exception ex) {
    ex.printStackTrace();
}

The above code will produce the following user.json JSON file:

{"roles":["Member","Admin"],"name":"John Deo","admin":true,"email":"john.doe@example.com"}

Write Java Object to a JSON File

Let us first create a simple Java class called User.java that we will use to convert a Java Object to a JSON file:

public class User {

    public String name;
    public String email;
    private String[] roles;
    private boolean admin;

    public User() {
    }

    public User(String name, String email, String[] roles, boolean admin) {
        this.name = name;
        this.email = email;
        this.roles = roles;
        this.admin = admin;
    }

    // getters and setters, toString() .... (omitted for brevity)
}

The following example demonstrates how you can convert and write a User object to a JSON file:

try {
    // create user object
    User user = new User("John Doe", "john.doe@example.com",
            new String[]{"Member", "Admin"}, true);

    // create Gson instance
    Gson gson = new Gson();

    // create a writer
    Writer writer = Files.newBufferedWriter(Paths.get("user.json"));

    // convert user object to JSON file
    gson.toJson(user, writer);

    // close writer
    writer.close();

} catch (Exception ex) {
    ex.printStackTrace();
}

The user.json file will have the following JSON data:

{"roles":["Member","Admin"],"name":"John Deo","admin":true,"email":"john.doe@example.com"}

Write a List of Java Objects to a JSON File

Just like a single Java Object, you can also write a list of Java Objects to a JSON file using the same toJson() method, as shown below:

try {
    // create a list of users
    List<User> users = Arrays.asList(
            new User("John Doe", "john.doe@example.com",
                    new String[]{"Member", "Admin"}, true),
            new User("Tom Lee", "tom.lee@example.com",
                    new String[]{"Member"}, false)
    );

    // create writer
    Writer writer = new FileWriter("users.json");

    // convert users list to JSON file
    new Gson().toJson(users, writer);

    // close writer
    writer.close();

} catch (Exception ex) {
    ex.printStackTrace();
}

The above code will create the following users.json file:

[{"name":"John Doe","email":"john.doe@example.com","roles":["Member","Admin"],"admin":true},
{"name":"Tom Lee","email":"tom.lee@example.com","roles":["Member"],"admin":false}]

Write Java Object to a Pretty Print JSON File

You can use the GsonBuilder class to enable the pretty-print JSON output:

try {
    // create user object
    User user = new User("John Doe", "john.doe@example.com",
            new String[]{"Member", "Admin"}, true);

    // create a Gson instance with pretty-printing
    Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().setPrettyPrinting().create();

    // create a writer
    Writer writer = Files.newBufferedWriter(Paths.get("user.json"));

    // convert user object to JSON file
    gson.toJson(user, writer);

    // close writer
    writer.close();

} catch (Exception ex) {
    ex.printStackTrace();
}

Here is how the user.json file looks like after JSON pretty-print is enabled:

{
  "name": "John Doe",
  "email": "john.doe@example.com",
  "roles": [
    "Member",
    "Admin"
  ],
  "admin": true
}

For more Gson examples, check out the how to read and write JSON using Gson in Java tutorial.

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