Something like this:

ArrayList<String> jsonStringToArray(String jsonString) throws JSONException {

    ArrayList<String> stringArray = new ArrayList<String>();

    JSONArray jsonArray = new JSONArray(jsonString);

    for (int i = 0; i < jsonArray.length(); i++) {
        stringArray.add(jsonArray.getString(i));
    }

    return stringArray;
}

Here you get JSONObject so change this line:

JSONArray jsonArray = new JSONArray(readlocationFeed); 

with following:

JSONObject jsnobject = new JSONObject(readlocationFeed);

and after

JSONArray jsonArray = jsnobject.getJSONArray("locations");
for (int i = 0; i < jsonArray.length(); i++) {
    JSONObject explrObject = jsonArray.getJSONObject(i);
}

JSONParser parser = new JSONParser();
JSONArray array = (JSONArray)parser.parse("[{\"user_id\": 1}]");
System.out.println(((JSONObject)array.get(0)).get("user_id"));

You need to cast to a JSONArray as that is what the string contains.

If you want or need to work with a Java array then you can always use the java.util.Arrays utility classes' static asList() method to convert your array to a List.

Something along those lines should work.

String mStringArray[] = { "String1", "String2" };

JSONArray mJSONArray = new JSONArray(Arrays.asList(mStringArray));

Beware that code is written offhand so consider it pseudo-code.

To have a string value inside your JSON array, you must remember to backslash escape your double-quotes in your Java program. See the declaration of s below.

String s = "[[\"110917       \", 3.0099999999999998, -0.72999999999999998, 2.8500000000000001, 2.96, 685.0, 38603.0], [\"110917    \", 2.71, 0.20999999999999999, 2.8199999999999998, 2.8999999999999999, 2987.0, 33762.0]]";

Your code in the main() method works fine. Below is just a minor modification of your code in the main() method.

System.out.println("String to Json Array Stmt");
JsonParser parser = new JsonParser();
JsonElement tradeElement = parser.parse(s);
JsonArray trade = tradeElement.getAsJsonArray();
System.out.println(trade);

Lastly, remember to prefix your statement "com.google.gson.*" with the keyword "import", as shown below.

import com.google.gson.*;

If you're talking about using the JSON in java library, then since your input string is a JSON object, not a JSON array, you should first load it using JSONObject:

String response=getResponseFromServer();
JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(response);

After that, you can use toJSONArray() to convert a JSONObject to JSONArray given an array of key strings:

String[] names = JSONObject.getNames(jsonObject);
JSONArray jsonArray = jsonObject.toJSONArray(new JSONArray(names));