diff --git a/hive-serdes/pom.xml b/hive-serdes/pom.xml
index c2358db..c644be0 100644
--- a/hive-serdes/pom.xml
+++ b/hive-serdes/pom.xml
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
 
   <groupId>com.cloudera.serde</groupId>
   <artifactId>hive-serdes</artifactId>
-  <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
+  <version>1.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
   <packaging>jar</packaging>
 
   <name>hive-serdes</name>
@@ -91,6 +91,11 @@
       <artifactId>jackson-core-asl</artifactId>
       <version>1.9.8</version>
     </dependency>
+    <dependency>
+	  <groupId>org.codehaus.jackson</groupId>
+	  <artifactId>jackson-mapper-asl</artifactId>
+      <version>1.9.8</version>
+    </dependency>
 
     <!-- Hadoop Dependencies -->
     <dependency>
diff --git a/hive-serdes/src/main/java/com/cloudera/hive/serde/JSONSerDe.java b/hive-serdes/src/main/java/com/cloudera/hive/serde/JSONSerDe.java
index f649042..3034dd0 100644
--- a/hive-serdes/src/main/java/com/cloudera/hive/serde/JSONSerDe.java
+++ b/hive-serdes/src/main/java/com/cloudera/hive/serde/JSONSerDe.java
@@ -1,13 +1,13 @@
 /**
  * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
- * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
  * distributed with this work for additional information
- * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
  * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
  * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
- * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ * with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
  *
- *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
  *
  * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
  * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
@@ -114,6 +114,7 @@ public void initialize(Configuration conf, Properties tbl)
    * table, and looking up those fields in the parsed JSON object. If the value
    * of the field is not a primitive, the object is parsed further.
    */
+  @SuppressWarnings("rawtypes")
   @Override
   public Object deserialize(Writable blob) throws SerDeException {
     Map<?,?> root = null;
@@ -129,9 +130,9 @@ public Object deserialize(Writable blob) throws SerDeException {
     }
 
     // Lowercase the keys as expected by hive
-    Map<String, Object> lowerRoot = new HashMap();
+    Map<String, Object> lowerRoot = new HashMap<String, Object>();
     for(Map.Entry entry: root.entrySet()) {
-      lowerRoot.put(((String)entry.getKey()).toLowerCase(), entry.getValue());
+      lowerRoot.put(patchKey((String) entry.getKey()), entry.getValue());
     }
     root = lowerRoot;
     
@@ -148,6 +149,25 @@ public Object deserialize(Writable blob) throws SerDeException {
     return row;
   }
   
+  /*
+   * replace dot/minus and do lowerCase at once
+   */
+  static final String patchKey(String key) {
+    StringBuilder buffer = new StringBuilder(key.length());
+    for (char character : key.toCharArray()) {
+      switch (character) {
+        case '.':
+        case '-':
+          buffer.append('_');
+          break;
+        default:
+          buffer.append(Character.toLowerCase(character));
+          break;
+      }
+    }
+    return buffer.toString();
+  }
+  
   /**
    * Parses a JSON object according to the Hive column's type.
    * 
@@ -186,6 +206,7 @@ private Object parseField(Object field, TypeInfo fieldTypeInfo) {
    * @return - A map representing the object and its fields
    */
   private Object parseStruct(Object field, StructTypeInfo fieldTypeInfo) {
+    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
     Map<Object,Object> map = (Map<Object,Object>)field;
     ArrayList<TypeInfo> structTypes = fieldTypeInfo.getAllStructFieldTypeInfos();
     ArrayList<String> structNames = fieldTypeInfo.getAllStructFieldNames();
@@ -206,6 +227,7 @@ private Object parseStruct(Object field, StructTypeInfo fieldTypeInfo) {
    * @return - A list of the parsed elements
    */
   private Object parseList(Object field, ListTypeInfo fieldTypeInfo) {
+    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
     ArrayList<Object> list = (ArrayList<Object>) field;
     TypeInfo elemTypeInfo = fieldTypeInfo.getListElementTypeInfo();
     
@@ -226,6 +248,7 @@ private Object parseList(Object field, ListTypeInfo fieldTypeInfo) {
    * @return
    */
   private Object parseMap(Object field, MapTypeInfo fieldTypeInfo) {
+    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
     Map<Object,Object> map = (Map<Object,Object>) field;
     TypeInfo valueTypeInfo = fieldTypeInfo.getMapValueTypeInfo();
     
diff --git a/hive-serdes/src/test/java/com/cloudera/hive/serde/TestDeserializeJSON.java b/hive-serdes/src/test/java/com/cloudera/hive/serde/TestDeserializeJSON.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..148f4ce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hive-serdes/src/test/java/com/cloudera/hive/serde/TestDeserializeJSON.java
@@ -0,0 +1,83 @@
+package com.cloudera.hive.serde;
+import static junit.framework.Assert.assertEquals;
+import static junit.framework.Assert.assertNotNull;
+
+import java.io.DataInput;
+import java.io.DataOutput;
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.util.List;
+import java.util.Properties;
+
+import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
+import org.apache.hadoop.hive.serde.serdeConstants;
+import org.apache.hadoop.hive.serde2.SerDeException;
+import org.apache.hadoop.io.Writable;
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+
+public class TestDeserializeJSON {
+
+    private static final Writable EXAMPLE = new Writable() {
+        @Override
+        public void write(DataOutput out) throws IOException {
+        }
+
+        @Override
+        public void readFields(DataInput in) throws IOException {
+        }
+
+        public String toString() {
+            return "{\"position.x\":1890,\"position.y\":11430,\"uid\":89775688,\"generator\":\"java:1.3:srv016108:4046 java:1.3:srv016108:4046\",\"pid\":674,\"time\":1399940194255,\"event\":\"playtime.start\"}";
+        };
+    };
+
+    @Test(expected = NullPointerException.class)
+    public void testPatchKeyNull() {
+        JSONSerDe.patchKey(null);
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void testPatchKeyEmpty() {
+        assertEquals("", JSONSerDe.patchKey(""));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void testPatchKeyToLowerCase() {
+        assertEquals("xxx", JSONSerDe.patchKey("XxX"));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void testPatchKeyReplaceMinus() {
+        assertEquals("x_x", JSONSerDe.patchKey("x-x"));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void testPatchKeyReplaceDot() {
+        assertEquals("x_x", JSONSerDe.patchKey("x.x"));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void testPatchKeyuntouched() {
+        assertEquals("xox", JSONSerDe.patchKey("xox"));
+    }
+    
+    @Test
+    public void testDeserializationByExample() throws SerDeException {
+        JSONSerDe jsonSerDe = new JSONSerDe();
+        
+        // init
+        Configuration testConfig = new Configuration();
+        Properties properties = new Properties();
+        properties.setProperty(serdeConstants.LIST_COLUMNS, "position_x,position_y,uid,pid,time,generator,event");
+        properties.setProperty(serdeConstants.LIST_COLUMN_TYPES, "int,int,int,tinyint,bigint,string,string");
+        jsonSerDe.initialize(testConfig, properties);
+
+        List<?> result = (List<?>)jsonSerDe.deserialize(EXAMPLE);
+        
+        assertNotNull(result);
+        assertEquals(7, result.size());
+        for (Object element : result) {
+            assertNotNull(element);
+        }
+    }
+}