1. Add Jackson maven dependency to your project
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.codehaus.jackson</groupId>
<artifactId>jackson-mapper-asl</artifactId>
<version>1.8.5</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
2. Use ObjectMapper class
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
//to array
MyClass[] myObjects = mapper.readValue(myJson, MyClass[].class);
//to list 1
List<MyClass> myObjects = mapper.readValue(jsonInput, new TypeReference<List<MyClass>>(){});
//to list 2
List<MyClass> myObjects = mapper.readValue(jsonInput, mapper.getTypeFactory().constructCollectionType(List.class, MyClass.class));