Convert a string (having escape characters, new line chars) to plain string

I have a string :

String str = "[{\\n            \\\"country_group\\\": [\\\"Asia\\\"],\\n            \\\"country\\\": [\\n                \\\"IND\\\" , \\\"China\\\"\\n            ]\\n        },\\n        {\\n            \\\"country_group\\\": [\\\"NAmerica\\\"],\\n            \\\"country\\\": [\\n                \\\"US\\\"\\n            ]\\n        }]";

On Sysout it gives me :

[{\n            \"country_group\": [\"Asia\"],\n            \"country\": [\n                \"IND\" , \"China\"\n            ]\n        },\n        {\n            \"country_group\": [\"NAmerica\"],\n            \"country\": [\n                \"US\"\n            ]\n        }]

I want to convert it to a plain string which on sysout will give me below output :

[{
            "country_group": ["Asia"],
            "country": [
                "IND" , "China"
            ]
        },
        {
            "country_group": ["NAmerica"],
            "country": [
                "US"
            ]
        }]

My ultimate objective is to convert it to a JSONObject. If I get this above output, then I will be able to do so.

Edit: I am seeking a function which will directly convert this. without using any regex.

firstly I would address your own comment. I think it's inappropriate, especially since you could probably find a lot of content for the given problem, and please do give the community time to see your question and answer it.

As for the given problem, as you've noticed already, you are dealing with a JSON input. When dealing with something such as this, it's best to use a third-party library, so you are taken care of and you save up a lot of time on it.

My recommendation for this situation is to use Gson or JSONOrg libraries. Now, those the libraries for reading JSON as a "normal" String, so you can play with it, modify it, or anything you like. But we encounter another problem, it is that we have to "unescape" the String. Fortunately, it is also solvable with a library, Apache commons in this case. So the code for "unescaping" the string will look like this.

StringEscapeUtils.unescapeJson(str)

Now that we've got that out of the way, we can process the JSON if we wish.

public class TestClass {

public String convertWithGson(String jsonInput) {
    GsonBuilder gsonBuilder;
    Gson gson;

    gsonBuilder = new GsonBuilder();
    gsonBuilder.setPrettyPrinting();
    gson = gsonBuilder.create();

    CountryTest[] countryTest = gson.fromJson(jsonInput, CountryTest[].class);
    /*
    Do with the object what you like
     */
    return gson.toJson(countryTest);
}

public String convertWithJSONOrg(String jsonInput) {
    JSONTokener jsonTokener = new JSONTokener(jsonInput);
    JSONArray jsonArray = new JSONArray(jsonTokener);

    return jsonArray.toString(2);
}

}

Gson is more suitable if you wish to map the objects and manipulate it with Java easily.
The CountryTest class:

public class CountryTest {

private List<String> country_group;
private List<String> country;
}

With all the getters and setters of course.

Running it would look like:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    TestClass testClass = new TestClass();

    String str = "[{\\n            \\\"country_group\\\": [\\\"Asia\\\"],\\n            \\\"country\\\": [\\n                \\\"IND\\\" , \\\"China\\\"\\n            ]\\n        },\\n        {\\n            \\\"country_group\\\": [\\\"NAmerica\\\"],\\n            \\\"country\\\": [\\n                \\\"US\\\"\\n            ]\\n        }]";
    System.out.println(testClass.convertWithGson(StringEscapeUtils.unescapeJson(str)));
    System.out.println("-----------");
    System.out.println(testClass.convertWithJSONOrg(StringEscapeUtils.unescapeJson(str)));
}

With an output:

[
  {
    "country_group": [
      "Asia"
    ],
    "country": [
      "IND",
      "China"
    ]
  },
  {
    "country_group": [
      "NAmerica"
    ],
    "country": [
      "US"
    ]
  }
]
-----------
[
  {
    "country": [
      "IND",
      "China"
    ],
    "country_group": ["Asia"]
  },
  {
    "country": ["US"],
    "country_group": ["NAmerica"]
  }
]

Process finished with exit code 0

I hope I have been of help, and please, do take it slow, programming is very fun, but not something we want to rush. It always comes back to us.