You are asking Jackson to parse a StudentList. Tell it to parse a List (of students) instead. Since List is generic you will typically use a TypeReference

List<Student> participantJsonList = mapper.readValue(jsonString, new TypeReference<List<Student>>(){});

For anyone else who might need this:

String jsonString = "[\"string1\",\"string2\",\"string3\"]";
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
List<String> strings = mapper.readValue(jsonString, List.class);

Your JSON matches an object (see HotelPromotionList below), not a list.

class HotelPromotionList {
   List<HotelPromotion> hotelPromotions;
}

class HotelPromotion {
   int id;
   int version;
   String description;
   String status; // might be an enum
   // ...
}

You will need to pass a TypeReference to readValue with the desired result type:

ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
List<Map<String, Object>> data = mapper.readValue(json, new TypeReference<List<Map<String, Object>>>(){});

You have to create another class say Output as

import java.util.List;

public class Output {
    public List<Token> getTokens() {
        return tokens;
    }

    public void setTokens(List<Token> tokens) {
        this.tokens = tokens;
    }

    private List<Token> tokens;
}

and then use

Output output = new Gson().fromJson(json, Output.class);

then you can use output to get list of tokens and go further for suggestion etc

Your input string should be as follows to qualify for a list of SomeObject

{
    [{
            "k1": 1,
            "k2": "v2",
            "k3": "v3"
        }, {
            "k1": 2,
            "k2": "v2",
            "k3": "v3"
        }
    ]
}

Below code should work ..

JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(jsonString);
SomeObject[] objectsList = gson.fromJson(jsonObject.toString(), SomeObject[].class);

For given JSON String here you can handle this way (add toString() to SomeObject for displaying it)...

import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map.Entry;

import com.google.gson.Gson;
import com.google.gson.JsonElement;
import com.google.gson.JsonObject;
import com.google.gson.JsonParser;

public class TestClass {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<SomeObject> list = new LinkedList<SomeObject>();
        String jsonString = "{\"obj_1\":{\"k1\":1,\"k2\":\"v2\",\"k3\":\"v3\"},\"obj_2\":{\"k1\":2,\"k2\":\"v2\",\"k3\":\"v3\"}}";
        Gson gson = new Gson();
        JsonObject jsonObject = new JsonParser().parse(jsonString).getAsJsonObject();
        for (Entry<String, JsonElement> entry : jsonObject.entrySet()) {
            // note entry.getKey() will be obj_1, obj_2, etc.
            SomeObject item = gson.fromJson(entry.getValue().getAsJsonObject(), SomeObject.class);
            list.add(item);
        }
        System.out.println(list);
    }
}

Sample Run

[SomeObject [k1=1, k2=v2, k3=v3], SomeObject [k1=2, k2=v2, k3=v3]]

NOTE: the value of k1 must be a number and without quotes as k1 is declared as int in SomeObject

This way is worked for me:

Convert all list to String.

String element = gson.toJson(
                    groupsList,
           new TypeToken<ArrayList<GroupItem>>() {}.getType());

Create JSONArray from String:

    JSONArray list = new JSONArray(element);

Your root JSON is an Array, so first create a JSONArray from your String.

Do this:

JSONArray arr = new JSONArray(jstring);
for (int i = 0; i < arr.length(); i++) { // Walk through the Array.
    JSONObject obj = arr.getJSONObject(i);
    JSONArray arr2 = obj.getJSONArray("fileName");
    // Do whatever.
}

For more info, please refer to the docs on JSONArray and JSONObject.