Hi all. Can anybody point me to a decent example for how to automatically marshall and unmarshall a ...

# multiplatform

[Darryl Pierce]

Hi all. Can anybody point me to a decent example for how to automatically marshall and unmarshall a class to and from JSON? Something akin to how we do it in Java (using Jackson and annotations) would be great.

[Chrimaeon]

https://kotlinlang.org/docs/serialization.html#serialize-and-deserialize-json

[Darryl Pierce]

@Chrimaeon Starting from this point?

https://kotlinlang.org/docs/serialization.html#example-json-serialization

[Darryl Pierce]

Do I need the JVM plugin? Hopefully not since my targets are Android and iOS for this project.

[Chrimaeon]

its multiplatform
https://github.com/Kotlin/kotlinx.serialization

[Chrimaeon]

• Complete multiplatform support: JVM, JS and Native.

[Darryl Pierce]

About to test out using this. Wish me luck, and thanks!

[Darryl Pierce]

It worked! Now to figure out why Ktor's not sending my content and I'll be good. 😄

[Chrimaeon]

ktor has its own plugin using this.
https://ktor.io/docs/server-serialization.html

[Darryl Pierce]

I have a dependency on ktor-client-content-negotiation already: is that not for doing the client-side negotiation?

[Chrimaeon]

yes, thats fine on client side.

[Chrimaeon]

and you set it up using kotlinx.serialization ?

[Darryl Pierce]

I have my HttpClient setup like this:

private val client: HttpClient = HttpClient {
        install(ContentNegotiation) {
            json(Json { isLenient = true; ignoreUnknownKeys = true })
        }

        install(Logging) {
            logger = HttpClientLogger
            level = LogLevel.ALL
        }
    }

[Darryl Pierce]

But when I just tried to send that object that was marshalled to JSON (did an evaluate expression to verify that the object was properly marshalled) I see this in Logcat:

2025-05-24 12:04:40.192 31658-31686 NoteFeedApi             app.nogeo.mobile.android             D  REQUEST: <http://192.168.86.104:8080/api/v1/location/notes/save>
                                                                                                    METHOD: POST
                                                                                                    COMMON HEADERS
                                                                                                    -> Accept: application/json
                                                                                                    -> Accept-Charset: UTF-8
                                                                                                    CONTENT HEADERS
                                                                                                    -> Content-Length: 0
                                                                                                    BODY Content-Type: null
                                                                                                    BODY START
                                                                                                    
                                                                                                    BODY END

[Darryl Pierce]

Not sure exactly what I'm doing wrong 😕

[Darryl Pierce]

My method that's making the actual call with that HttpClient is:

client.post("http://${hostname}/api/v1/location/notes/save", {
        Json.encodeToString($THEARGS))
    }).body()

[Darryl Pierce]

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong: just trying to learn as I go.

[Chrimaeon]

dont serialize it yourself 😅
https://ktor.io/docs/client-serialization.html#send_data

[Chrimaeon]

first start reading documentation 😉

[Darryl Pierce]

That's much nicer. Trying it now.

[Darryl Pierce]

Will that also be able to unmarshall the response to an object?

[Chrimaeon]

man, READ THE DOCS 😅 it the next point in the link.

[Darryl Pierce]

Yeah, sorry, sometimes it gets comfortable asking for the next fish rather than casting the line. 😄 You got me unstuck (my requests are now going through) so thank you, bud!