JSON Methodology

The JSON data type produced depends on the Java object type being serialized.

Primitives and primitive objects are converted to JSON primitives.
Beans and Maps are converted to JSON objects.
Collections and arrays are converted to JSON arrays.
Anything else is converted to JSON strings.

Data type conversions:

POJO type	JSON type	Example	Serialized form
String	String	`serialize("foobar");`	`'foobar'`
Number	Number	`serialize(123);`	`123`
Boolean	Boolean	`serialize(true);`	`true`
Null	Null	`serialize(null);`	`null`
Beans with properties of any type on this list	Object	`serialize(new MyBean());`	`{p1:'val1',p2:true}`
Maps with values of any type on this list	Object	`serialize(new TreeMap());`	`{key1:'val1',key2:true}`
Collections and arrays of any type on this list	Array	`serialize(new Object[]{1,"foo",true});`	`[1,'foo',true]`

In addition, swaps can be used to convert non-serializable POJOs into serializable forms, such as converting Calendar object to ISO8601 strings, or byte[] arrays to Base-64 encoded strings.