java - How to maintain the order of a JSONObject

Question

I am using a JSONObject in order to remove a certin attribute I don't need in a JSON String:

JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(jsonString);
jsonObject.remove("owner");
jsonString = jsonObject.toString();

It works ok however the problem is that the JSONObject is "an unordered collection of name/value pairs" and I want to maintain the original order the String had before it went through the JSONObject manipulation.

Any idea how to do this?

Answer 1

I have faced the same problem recently and just transitioned all our tests (which expect JSON attributes to be in the same order) to another JSON library:

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.jettison</groupId>
    <artifactId>jettison</artifactId>
    <version>1.3.5</version>
</dependency>

Internally it uses a LinkedHashMap, which maintains the order of attributes. This library is functionally equivalent to the json.org library, so I don't see any reason why not use it instead, at least for tests.