I've inherited some code:

   Client socket;
   ...
   socket = new Client(papplet, host, port);
   ...
   if (socket.output != null)
   ...

I can't find anything about .output in the documentation, and it's not clear to me in the code what aspect of the socket is being checked.

Can anyone explain, please?

If I know a certain key (?terminology) exists in a JSON object I can get it without problems:

import org.json.*;

   JSON job1 = JSON.parse(playlist_rx);
   JSON job2 = job1.getObject("result");
   JSON job3 = job2.getArray("items");
   ...

but what if I don't know if job1 has got a "result"?

If I go ahead and say

   JSON job2 = job1.getObject("result");

and there isn't one, an exception is thrown. So I have to code like this:

   try
   {
      JSON job2 = job1.getObject("result");
   }
   catch (Exception E)
   {
      Oh, it doesn't have a "result", it must be one of the other sorts
   }

which degenerates into a horrible mess becasue I'm expecting 3 or 4 different JSON responses.

Is there any way of checking this sort of thing without throwing exceptions?