You can prefer quick-json parser to meet your requirement...

quick-json parser is very straight forward, flexible, very fast and customizable. Try this out

[quick-json parser] (https://code.google.com/p/quick-json/) - quick-json features -

• Compliant with JSON specification (RFC4627)

• High-Performance JSON parser

• Supports Flexible/Configurable parsing approach

• Configurable validation of key/value pairs of any JSON Heirarchy

• Easy to use # Very Less foot print

• Raises developer friendly and easy to trace exceptions

• Pluggable Custom Validation support - Keys/Values can be validated by configuring custom validators as and when encountered

• Validating and Non-Validating parser support

• Support for two types of configuration (JSON/XML) for using quick-json validating parser

• Require JDK 1.5 # No dependency on external libraries

• Support for Json Generation through object serialization

• Support for collection type selection during parsing process

For e.g.

JsonParserFactory factory=JsonParserFactory.getInstance();
JSONParser parser=factory.newJsonParser();
Map jsonMap=parser.parseJson(jsonString);

ArrayList<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
list.add("blah");
list.add("bleh");
JSONArray jsArray = new JSONArray(list);

This is only an example using a string arraylist

Using Jackson's ObjectMapper class,you can read values and map them to an object, or an array of objects.

final ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
Address [] mdls = objectMapper.readValue(addressJson, Address [].class);

For List<Address> use:

List<Address> mdls = objectMapper.readValue(addressJson, new TypeReference<List<Address>>() {});

If you don't already have a JSONArray object, call

JSONArray jsonArray = new JSONArray(jsonArrayString);

Then simply loop through that, building your own array. This code assumes it's an array of strings, it shouldn't be hard to modify to suit your particular array structure.

List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
for (int i=0; i<jsonArray.length(); i++) {
    list.add( jsonArray.getString(i) );
}

Input String

[
   {
      "userName": "sandeep",
      "age": 30
   }, 
   {
      "userName": "vivan",
      "age": 5
   }
]

Simple Way to Convert String to JSON

public class Test
{

    public static void main(String[] args) throws JSONException
    {
        String data = "[{\"userName\": \"sandeep\",\"age\":30},{\"userName\": \"vivan\",\"age\":5}]  ";
        JSONArray jsonArr = new JSONArray(data);

        for (int i = 0; i < jsonArr.length(); i++)
        {
            JSONObject jsonObj = jsonArr.getJSONObject(i);

            System.out.println(jsonObj);
        }

    }
}

Output

{"userName":"sandeep","age":30}
{"userName":"vivan","age":5}