The whole file is an array and there are objects and other arrays (e.g. cars) in the whole array of the file.

As you say, the outermost layer of your JSON blob is an array. Therefore, your parser will return a JSONArray. You can then get JSONObjects from the array ...

  JSONArray a = (JSONArray) parser.parse(new FileReader("c:\\exer4-courses.json"));

  for (Object o : a)
  {
    JSONObject person = (JSONObject) o;

    String name = (String) person.get("name");
    System.out.println(name);

    String city = (String) person.get("city");
    System.out.println(city);

    String job = (String) person.get("job");
    System.out.println(job);

    JSONArray cars = (JSONArray) person.get("cars");

    for (Object c : cars)
    {
      System.out.println(c+"");
    }
  }

For reference, see "Example 1" on the json-simple decoding example page.

Please try this:

 public static void main(String[] args) {

    JSONParser parser = new JSONParser();

    try {
        Object obj = parser.parse(new FileReader("data.json"));

        JSONArray jsonObjects =  (JSONArray) obj;

        for (Object o : jsonObjects) {
            JSONObject jsonObject = (JSONObject) o;
            String name = (String) jsonObject.get("name");
            System.out.println(name);

            Long totalSales = (Long)jsonObject.get("totalSales");
            System.out.println(totalSales);

            String salesPeriod = (String) jsonObject.get("salesPeriod");
            System.out.println(salesPeriod);

            String exp = (String) jsonObject.get("exp");
            System.out.println(exp);
        }

    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (ParseException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

The org.json library is easy to use.

Just remember (while casting or using methods like getJSONObject and getJSONArray) that in JSON notation

• [ … ] represents an array, so library will parse it to JSONArray
• { … } represents an object, so library will parse it to JSONObject

Example code below:

import org.json.*;

String jsonString = ... ; //assign your JSON String here
JSONObject obj = new JSONObject(jsonString);
String pageName = obj.getJSONObject("pageInfo").getString("pageName");

JSONArray arr = obj.getJSONArray("posts"); // notice that `"posts": [...]`
for (int i = 0; i < arr.length(); i++)
{
    String post_id = arr.getJSONObject(i).getString("post_id");
    ......
}

You may find more examples from: Parse JSON in Java

Downloadable jar: http://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.json/json

Using the json.org reference implementation (org.json homepage, Download here). The code is a bit messy but I think it does what you are asking for. You can take alot of shortcuts by not creating all this objects but to access them directly. The reason that I do it this way is an attempt to make it easier to follow whats happening.

package com.mypackage;

import org.json.JSONArray;
import org.json.JSONException;
import org.json.JSONObject;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String jsonStr = "{\"status\": \"OK\",\"origin_addresses\": [ \"Vancouver, BC, Canada\", \"Seattle, État de Washington, États-Unis\" ],\"destination_addresses\": [ \"San Francisco, Californie, États-Unis\", \"Victoria, BC, Canada\" ],\"rows\": [ {\"elements\": [ {\"status\": \"OK\",\"duration\": {\"value\": 340110,\"text\": \"3 jours 22 heures\"},\"distance\": {\"value\": 1734542,\"text\": \"1 735 km\"}}, {\"status\": \"OK\",\"duration\": {\"value\": 24487,\"text\": \"6 heures 48 minutes\"},\"distance\": {\"value\": 129324,\"text\": \"129 km\"}} ]}, {\"elements\": [ {\"status\": \"OK\",\"duration\": {\"value\": 288834,\"text\": \"3 jours 8 heures\"},\"distance\": {\"value\": 1489604,\"text\": \"1 490 km\"}}, {\"status\": \"OK\",\"duration\": {\"value\": 14388,\"text\": \"4 heures 0 minutes\"},\"distance\": {\"value\": 135822,\"text\": \"136 km\"}} ]} ]}";

        try {
            JSONObject rootObject = new JSONObject(jsonStr); // Parse the JSON to a JSONObject
            JSONArray rows = rootObject.getJSONArray("rows"); // Get all JSONArray rows

            for(int i=0; i < rows.length(); i++) { // Loop over each each row
                JSONObject row = rows.getJSONObject(i); // Get row object
                JSONArray elements = row.getJSONArray("elements"); // Get all elements for each row as an array

                for(int j=0; j < elements.length(); j++) { // Iterate each element in the elements array
                    JSONObject element =  elements.getJSONObject(j); // Get the element object
                    JSONObject duration = element.getJSONObject("duration"); // Get duration sub object
                    JSONObject distance = element.getJSONObject("distance"); // Get distance sub object

                    System.out.println("Duration: " + duration.getInt("value")); // Print int value
                    System.out.println("Distance: " + distance.getInt("value")); // Print int value
                }
            }
        } catch (JSONException e) {
            // JSON Parsing error
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

You need to find the JSONObject in the array first. You are trying to find the field natural of the top-level JSONObject, which only contains the field numbers so it is returning null because it can't find natural.

To fix this you must first get the numbers array.

Try this instead:

JSONParser parser = new JSONParser();
Object obj = parser.parse(new FileReader("...")); //the location of the file
JSONObject jsonObject = (JSONObject) obj;
JSONArray numbers = (JSONArray) jsonObject.get("numbers");

for (Object number : numbers) {
    JSONObject jsonNumber = (JSONObject) number;
    String natural = (String) jsonNumber.get("natural");
    System.out.println(natural);
}