Data conversion

Last modified on January 25, 2023

AnyLogic Cloud API abstracts away from the Java code you use to create and run models in AnyLogic, allowing for using multiple different languages to interact with the model.

JSON is used as a universal data transfer format in all languages of AnyLogic Cloud API. It also serves as the primary format of the REST API.

To convert data between JSON and Java, AnyLogic Cloud uses Jackson.

Simply put, in terms of data conversion it does not matter which API language you use. When, for example, setting inputs for your API-based experiments, you always will provide values in the JSON format. This data will then be converted into the appropriate format for working in Java.

The table below contains the conversion examples, with additional recommendations and requirements.

When converting from JSON to Java, Jackson identifies the target data type and will try to match the incoming string accordingly. When converting from Java to JSON, the target type is not identified.

In the left column, the examples of inputs for various data types are demonstrated. You will always use them when providing inputs for your Cloud-based experiments.

Most complex data types are presented in JSON as strings: see the bottom of the table.

{
    dataX:[1,2,3,4],
    dataY:[10,20,30,40]
}

{
    hits: [0,0,0,1,5,67,335,441,138,13],
    hitsOutHigh: 0,
    hitsOutLow: 0,
    intervalWidth: 1.2,
    lowerBound: -8.6,
    statistics:{
        count: 1000,
        max: 2.83,
        mean: 0.0005,
        min: -3.91,
        type: "DISCRETE",
        variance: 0.959
    }
}

{
    hits: [
        [8, 4, 4, 4, 9],
        [5, 6, 8, 2, 1],
        [3, 8, 7, 6, 8],
        [7, 8, 5, 7, 9],
        [3, 4, 3, 9, 6],
    ],
    hitsOutHigh: [0,0,0,0,0],
    hitsOutLow: [0,0,0,0,0],
    xMax: 10,
    xMin: 0,
    yMax: 1,
    yMin: 0
}

{
    type: "CONTINUOUS",
    count:1375730,
    min:0.0,
    max:10.0,
    mean:0.9915478405530092,
    variance:0.14075328464389159,
    totalTime:999999.2699032243
}

{
    type: "DISCRETE",
    count: 1000,
    max: 2.83,
    min: -3.91,
    mean: 0.0005,
    variance: 0.959
}

public class Person {
    private String name;
    private int age;

    public String getName() { return name; }

    public int getAge() {return age; }

    public void setName(String name ) {
    this.name = name;
    }

    public void setAge(int age ) {
    this.age = age;
    }
}

public class Person {
    public String name;
    public int age;
}

To make sure you have safe bidirectional JSON-Java conversion for your custom objects, you should follow simple rules:

• Class fields that you wish to pass should either be declared public in Java or, if they are private, they must have public setters and getters
• There should be a default public constructor available in the Java class

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