You can also try something like this with Gson Library:

package com.stackoverflow.works;

import java.lang.reflect.Type;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

import com.google.gson.Gson;
import com.google.gson.reflect.TypeToken;

/*
 * @Author: sarath_sivan
 */

public class MapToJsonConverter {

    /*
     * @Description: Method to convert Map to JSON String
     * @param: map Map<String, String> 
     * @return: json String
     */
    public static String convert(Map<String, String> map) {
        Gson gson = new Gson();
        String json = gson.toJson(map);
        return json;
    }

    /*
     * @Description: Method to convert JSON String to Map
     * @param: json String 
     * @return: map Map<String, String> 
     */
    public static Map<String, String> revert(String json) {
        Gson gson = new Gson();
        Type type = new TypeToken<Map<String, String>>(){}.getType();
        Map<String, String> map = gson.fromJson(json, type);
        return map;
    }

    /*
     * @Description: Method to print elements in the Map
     * @param: map Map<String, String> 
     * @return: void 
     */
    public static void printMap(Map<String, String> map) {
        for (String key : map.keySet()) {
            System.out.println("map.get(\"" + key + "\") = " + map.get(key));
        }
    }

    /*
     * @Description: Method to print the JSON String
     * @param: json String 
     * @return: void 
     */
    public static void printJson(String json) {
        System.out.println("json = " + json);
    }

    /*
     * @Description: Main method to test the JSON-MAP convert/revert logic
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Map<String, String> paymentCards = new HashMap<String, String>();
        paymentCards.put("card_switch", "Master");
        paymentCards.put("issuing_bank", "ICCI");
        paymentCards.put("card_Type", "DebitCard");

        String json = convert(paymentCards); //converting Map to JSON String
        System.out.println("Map to JSON String");
        System.out.println("******************");
        printJson(json); 

        System.out.println();

        paymentCards = revert(json); //converting JSON String to Map
        System.out.println("JSON String to Map");
        System.out.println("******************");
        printMap(paymentCards);
    }

}

The output look like this:

Try this :

public static class User
{
    public User(int userId, int roleId)
    {
        this.userId = userId;
        this.roleId = roleId;
    }
    private int userId;
    private int roleId;
    public int getUserId()
    {
        return userId;
    }
    public int getRoleId()
    {
        return roleId;
    }
    public void setUserId(int userId)
    {
        this.userId = userId;
    }
    public void setRoleId(int roleId)
    {
        this.roleId = roleId;
    }
}

Test :

Map<String, Object> responseObj = new HashMap<String, Object>();
List<User> userList = new ArrayList<User>();
userList.add(new User(1, 1));
userList.add(new User(2, 2));
responseObj.put("canApprove", true); //1
responseObj.put("approvers", userList);

System.out.println(new JSONObject(responseObj));

Prints :

{"approvers":[{"userId":1,"roleId":1},{"userId":2,"roleId":2}],"canApprove":true}

(formatted)

Mapping a python dict to a json array is ... more work than you'd expect. It'd be better to make it into either a json object or start with a list, which can be mapped straight to a json array. Info on serializing between python and java.

Here's a code example where I create a list structure in Python, and then grab it in an Android application:

#!/usr/bin/python

print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"

import json
from collections import defaultdict

mystuff = list()
mystuff.append( ('1', 'b', 'c', 'd') )
mystuff.append( ('2', 'f', 'g', 'h') )

stufflist = list()

for s in stufflist:
    d = {}
    d['a'] = s[0]
    d['b'] = s[1]
    d['c'] = s[2]
    d['d'] = s[3]
    stufflist.append(d)

print json.write(stufflist)

And in Android:

// Convert the string (sb is a string butter from the http response) to a json array. 
JSONArray jArray = new JSONArray(sb.toString());

for(int i = 0; i < jArray.length(); i++){
    // Get each item as a JSON object. 
    JSONObject json_data = jArray.getJSONObject(i);

    // Get data from object ... 
    Int a = json_data.getInt("a");
    String b = json_data.getString("b");
    String c = json_data.getString("c");
    String d = json_data.getString("d");

    // Do whatever with the data ... 
}

In recursive way:

public static Map<String, Object> jsonToMap(JSONObject json) throws JSONException {
    Map<String, Object> retMap = new HashMap<String, Object>();
    
    if(json != JSONObject.NULL) {
        retMap = toMap(json);
    }
    return retMap;
}

public static Map<String, Object> toMap(JSONObject object) throws JSONException {
    Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<String, Object>();

    Iterator<String> keysItr = object.keys();
    while(keysItr.hasNext()) {
        String key = keysItr.next();
        Object value = object.get(key);
        
        if(value instanceof JSONArray) {
            value = toList((JSONArray) value);
        }
        
        else if(value instanceof JSONObject) {
            value = toMap((JSONObject) value);
        }
        map.put(key, value);
    }
    return map;
}

public static List<Object> toList(JSONArray array) throws JSONException {
    List<Object> list = new ArrayList<Object>();
    for(int i = 0; i < array.length(); i++) {
        Object value = array.get(i);
        if(value instanceof JSONArray) {
            value = toList((JSONArray) value);
        }

        else if(value instanceof JSONObject) {
            value = toMap((JSONObject) value);
        }
        list.add(value);
    }
    return list;
}

Using Jackson library:

import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;

Map<String, Object> mapping = new ObjectMapper().readValue(jsonStr, HashMap.class);

I hope you were joking about writing your own parser. :-)

For such a simple mapping, most tools from http://json.org (section java) would work. For one of them (Jackson https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-databind/#5-minute-tutorial-streaming-parser-generator), you'd do:

Map<String,Object> result =
        new ObjectMapper().readValue(JSON_SOURCE, HashMap.class);

(where JSON_SOURCE is a File, input stream, reader, or json content String)

Parse the JSONObject and create HashMap

public static void jsonToMap(String t) throws JSONException {

        HashMap<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>();
        JSONObject jObject = new JSONObject(t);
        Iterator<?> keys = jObject.keys();

        while( keys.hasNext() ){
            String key = (String)keys.next();
            String value = jObject.getString(key); 
            map.put(key, value);

        }

        System.out.println("json : "+jObject);
        System.out.println("map : "+map);
    }

Tested output:

json : {"phonetype":"N95","cat":"WP"}
map : {cat=WP, phonetype=N95}