This tutorial will guide you through how to convert json to avro and then back to json. I suggest you first read through the documentation on Avro to familiarize yourself with it. This tutorial assumes you have a maven project already setup and a resources folder.

POM:

Add Avro Dependency

Add Jackson Dependency

Avro Schema File:

Next you need to create the avro schema file in your resources folder. Name the file “schema.avsc”. The extension avsc is the Avro schema extension.

{
    "namespace": "test.avro",
    "type": "record",
    "name": "MY_NAME",
    "fields": [
        {"name": "name_1", "type": "int"},
        {"name": "name_2", "type": {"type": "array", "items": "float"}},
        {"name": "name_3", "type": "float"}
    ]
}

Json Record to Validate:

Next you need to create a json file that conforms to your schema you just made. Name the file “record.json” and put it in your resources folder. The contents can be whatever you want as long as it conforms to your schema above.

{ "name_1": 234, "name_2": [23.34,654.98], "name_3": 234.7}

It’s Avro Time:

Imports:

import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.DataInputStream;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;

import org.apache.avro.Schema;
import org.apache.avro.generic.GenericData;
import org.apache.avro.generic.GenericDatumReader;
import org.apache.avro.generic.GenericDatumWriter;
import org.apache.avro.io.DatumReader;
import org.apache.avro.io.Decoder;
import org.apache.avro.io.DecoderFactory;
import org.apache.avro.io.Encoder;
import org.apache.avro.io.EncoderFactory;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.JsonNode;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;

Conversion to Avro and Back:

private void run() throws IOException {
	//Get the schema and json record from resources
	final ClassLoader loader = getClass().getClassLoader();
	final File schemaFile = new File(loader.getResource("schema.avsc").getFile());
	final InputStream record = loader.getResourceAsStream("record.json");
	
	//Create avro schema
	final Schema schema = new Schema.Parser().parse(schemaFile);

	//Encode to avro
	final byte[] avro = encodeToAvro(schema, record);

	//Decode back to json
	final JsonNode node = decodeToJson(schema, avro);

	System.out.println(node);
	System.out.println("done");
}

/**
 * Encode json to avro
 * 
 * @param schema the schema the avro pertains to
 * @param record the data to convert to avro
 * @return the avro bytes
 * @throws IOException if decoding fails
 */
private byte[] encodeToAvro(Schema schema, InputStream record) throws IOException {
	final DatumReader<GenericData.Record> reader = new GenericDatumReader<>(schema);
	final DataInputStream din = new DataInputStream(record);
	final Decoder decoder = new DecoderFactory().jsonDecoder(schema, din);
	final Object datum = reader.read(null, decoder);
	final GenericDatumWriter<Object> writer = new GenericDatumWriter<>(schema);
	final ByteArrayOutputStream outputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
	final Encoder encoder = new EncoderFactory().binaryEncoder(outputStream, null);
	writer.write(datum, encoder);
	encoder.flush();

	return outputStream.toByteArray();
}

/**
 * Decode avro back to json.
 * 
 * @param schema the schema the avro pertains to
 * @param avro the avro bytes
 * @return the json
 * @throws IOException if jackson fails
 */
private JsonNode decodeToJson(Schema schema, byte[] avro) throws IOException {
	final ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
	final DatumReader<GenericData.Record> reader = new GenericDatumReader<>(schema);
	final Decoder decoder = new DecoderFactory().binaryDecoder(avro, null);
	final JsonNode node = mapper.readTree(reader.read(null, decoder).toString());

	return node;
}