title: Deserialize JSON element containing arbitrary names and datatypes
body: <p>I have am trying to deseriliaze a JSON element where the element can contain 0 to many name/value pairs and 0 to many name/[] pairs. The values can be int, String, date, etc</p>
  
  <p>An example element:</p>
  
  <pre><code>{"custom_fields":{ 
      "custom_label_36562": 25057, 
      "custom_label_36677": "some string",
      "custom_label_36566": [25085],
      "custom_label_36564": [25076,25077,28709,25078]   }}
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What is the best approach to this? I tried parsing it into:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><code>HashMap&lt;String,List&lt;&lt;String&gt;&gt;</code> </li>
  <li><code>HashMap&lt;String,List</code>>`</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>but both times it just ends up null. I actually know the datatypes of each "custom label" so I just need to get the value into Java, and I can cast it later. </p>
  
  <p>PS How do I enter a &lt; sign without a space after it and not have all the text disappear?</p>