I want to return the string form of the Json respo...

# android

[T]

I want to return the string form of the Json response.
The error I get is "Expected a string but was BEGIN_OBJECT at path$"

private const val BASE_URL = "<https://newsapi.org/v2/>"
private const val API_KEY = "1234"

private val moshi = Moshi.Builder()
    .add(KotlinJsonAdapterFactory())
    .build()

private val retrofit = Retrofit.Builder()
    .addConverterFactory(MoshiConverterFactory.create())
    .baseUrl(BASE_URL)
    .build()

interface NewsApiService {
    @GET("top-headlines?country=us&apiKey=${API_KEY}")
    fun getProperties():
            Call<String>
}

object NewsApi {
    val retrofitService : NewsApiService by lazy {
        retrofit.create(NewsApiService::class.java) }
}

class NewsViewModel : ViewModel() {

    // The internal MutableLiveData String that stores the most recent response
    private val _response = MutableLiveData<String>()

    // The external immutable LiveData for the response String
    val response: LiveData<String>
        get() = _response

    /**
     * Call getNewsData() on init so we can display status immediately.
     */
    init {
        getNewsData()
    }

    /**
     * Sets the value of the status LiveData to the News API status.
     */
    private fun getNewsData() {

        _response.value = NewsApi.retrofitService.getProperties().enqueue(
            object: Callback<String> {
                override fun onFailure(call: Call<String>, t: Throwable){
                    _response.value = "Failure: " + t.message
                }

                override fun onResponse(call: Call<String>, response: Response<String>) {
                   _response.value = response.body()
                }
            }).toString()
    }
}

[T]

This is how the json response look like

[allan.conda]

you have to write your own converter I think

[jw]

yep. make an annotation @Json, annotate the endpoint with @Json and have its body type as String, in a custom converter match on both the type == String::class.java and the annotations array contains an instance of Json::class.java and then just call ResponseBody.string() and return it.

[jw]

Of course, nothing guarantees that the return format from the endpoint is actually JSON. You can also just install the scalars converter that Retrofit ships and use String and it'll do exactly the same thing

[jw]

Or you can just declare ResponseBody as your type and call string() yourself

[T]

Thanks @jw I actually added scalar converter to my gradle build and the magic happened.

[T]

What is the difference between the MoshiConverterFactory and ScalarConverterFactory

[T]

How do I return the List of array in articles from the sample Json response?