Is it reasonable to read the json file and assign it to a string, then a string to an Arraylist?

Question

Java

Hello!
I have a task:

movie data is stored in a JSON file ( movies.json ). You need to write a program that reads it from a file and can perform the following actions with it:

Display a collection of movies on the screen;
Search and display movies by full and partial match in the title.
Sort the entire collection of films in ascending and descending order by the following fields:
by year of release of the film
by title
by director

I decided to read the json-File, then assign the data to the String, then add the String to the List, and then do the manipulations described in the task.
Question: Is this a dumb decision? if yes, how to solve this problem?
my code :

public class Movies implements Actionable{
    Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().setPrettyPrinting().create();
    Scanner sc;
    private String str;
    private List<String> list = new ArrayList<>();
    
public  void readJson(){
        try {
            FileReader fileReader = new FileReader("movies.json");
             sc = new Scanner(fileReader);
             while (sc.hasNextLine()){
                 str += sc.nextLine(); // записать данные из файла в строку str
             }
             fileReader.close();
            sc.close();
            list.add(str); // далее добавить строку в list
        }catch (IOException exception){
            exception.printStackTrace();
        }
}

json file:

{
  "movies": [
    {
      "name": "Good omens",
      "year": 2019,
      "description": "TV Series",
      "director": {
        "fullName": "Douglas Mackinnon"
      },
      "cast": [
        {
          "fullName": "Michael Sheen",
          "role": "Aziraphale"
        },
        {
          "fullName": "David Tennant",
          "role": "Crowley"
        }
      ]
    },

Answer 1

Hello!

Question: Is this a dumb decision? if yes, how to solve this problem?

Rather, you went a very long way.
Here is the structure of your json.

{
  "movies": [
    {
      "name": "Good omens",
      "year": 2019,
      "description": "TV Series",
      "director": {
        "fullName": "Douglas Mackinnon"
      },
      "cast": [
        {
          "fullName": "Michael Sheen",
          "role": "Aziraphale"
        },
        {
          "fullName": "David Tennant",
          "role": "Crowley"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

It's better to read it directly into a list of objects
You can map json into an object using this site - www.jsonschema2pojo.org
It will turn out something like this:

-----------------------------------com.example.Example.java-----------------------------------


public class Example {

@SerializedName("movies")
@Expose
public List<Movie> movies = null;

}

-----------------------------------com.example.Movie.java-----------------------------------

public class Movie {

@SerializedName("name")
@Expose
public String name;
@SerializedName("year")
@Expose
public Integer year;
@SerializedName("description")
@Expose
public String description;
@SerializedName("director")
@Expose
public Director director;
@SerializedName("cast")
@Expose
public List<Cast> cast = null;

}

-----------------------------------com.example.Director.java-----------------------------------


public class Director {

@SerializedName("fullName")
@Expose
public String fullName;

}
-----------------------------------com.example.Cast.java-----------------------------------

public class Cast {

@SerializedName("fullName")
@Expose
public String fullName;
@SerializedName("role")
@Expose
public String role;

}

Read for example this article how to read json into object
https://mkyong.com/java/how-to-parse-json-with-gson/

Answer 2

Is this a dumb decision?

Not the most optimal. And not object-oriented.
You need to:
1. Create a model from your json file.
2. Overtake, using gson, for example, a file into this model. You should get some kind of list from movie.
3. Perform actions with this list. An excellent opportunity to understand the Stream API.