Java - How to Read JSON File as String

In this post we will look at how to read a JSON file as a String variable in Java. This is sometimes useful, especially in API testing when you want to POST a JSON payload to an endpoint.

You can put the JSON payload in a file, then read the JSON file as a String and use it as the body of a POST request.

Read JSON File as String

Suppose we have a JSON file in the following location:

src/test/resources/myFile.json

{
  "name":"David",
  "age":30,
  "hobbies":["Football","Cooking","Swimming"],
  "languages":{"French":"Beginner","German":"Intermediate","Spanish":"Advanced"}
}

Then we can use the following Java code to read the above JSON file as String:

import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class ReadJsonAsString {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        String file = "src/test/resources/myFile.json";
        String json = readFileAsString(file);
        System.out.println(json);
    }
    public static String readFileAsString(String file)throws Exception
    {
        return new String(Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(file)));
    }
}

Output:

{
  "name":"David",
  "age":30,
  "hobbies":["Football","Cooking","Swimming"],
  "languages":{"French":"Beginner","German":"Intermediate","Spanish":"Advanced"}
}