We Keep Coding

Convert JSON Key into Object [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How can I deserialize JSON to a simple Dictionary<string,string> in ASP.NET?
(22 answers)
Closed 2 years ago.
I have a scnerio where i donot know the names of the keys so properties can;t be created beforehand.
The JSON needs to be parsed and loaded into Dictionary that is present in a class.
The format of JSON is like
"SearchCriteria":{
"firstname":"user1",
"surname":"User2"
},
"RequiredGroups":{
"UserGroup":"g1",
"TeacherGroup":"g2"
}
The problem is that the Parameters count and name are not known and can be anything.
The JSON also contains other sections as well such as RequiredGroups which have known key names and are mapped with Objects.
Need to convert into Dictionary. Any leads....

Example using Newtonsoft.Json.Linq:
using System;
using Newtonsoft.Json.Linq;
public class Program
{
public static void Main()
{
string json = #"{'SearchCriteria':{'firstname':'user1','surname':'User2'},'RequiredGroups':{'UserGroup':'g1','TeacherGroup':'g2'}}";
JObject o = JObject.Parse(json);
var dict = o.ToObject<Dictionary<string, object>>();
}
}

string str1 = "{\"SearchCriteria\":{ \"firstname\":\"user1\", \"surname\":\"User2\" }, \"RequiredGroups\":{ \"UserGroup\":\"g1\",\"TeacherGroup\":\"g2\" }}";
var jObject1 = JObject.Parse(str1);
Dictionary<string, string> dictObj = new Dictionary<string, string>();
IList<string> keys = jObject1.Properties().Select(p => p.Name).ToList();
foreach(var k in keys)
{
var s = jObject1[k].ToString();
dictObj.Add(k, s);
}

How to deserialize JSON to IList<KeyValuePair<string, object>> with whitespaces in key?

I have a big problem with deserializing my JSON to an object. It should be deserialized to IList<KeyValuePair<string, object>> the problem is that the keys have white spaces.
"spec": {
"SOMETHING WITH SPACES" : "10"
etc.
...
}
public class SomeObject
{
...
public IList<KeyValuePair<string, object>> spec{ get; set; }
...
}
Deserializing code:
var sr = new ServiceStack.Text.JsonSerializer<SomeObject>();
var esResult = sr.DeserializeFromString(responseJson);
responseJson is a GET from ElasticSearch.
What I get to my field it is null.
If I have key without whitespaces it's deserializing normally and I'm getting my IList<KeyValuePair<string, object>>

You can't use IList or List here, because your source JSON has no [ ] in it, which is a requirement if you want to parse into such a collection. In other words, without [ ] you can't parse into a collection, at least not without going through lots of hoops.
Instead you need to use a Dictionary as was suggested already in comments.
Note: I used Newtonsoft JsonConvert because you didn't state what your parser is, but that should make little or no difference to my arguments.
Working code:
var json = "{ \"spec\": { \"SOMETHING WITH SPACES\" : \"10\" } }";
var someObj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<SomeObject>(json);
public class SomeObject
{
public Dictionary<string, object> spec{ get; set; }
}
After that, you can cast the spec property to an IEnumerable and loop through whatever was found:
foreach (var pair in someObj.spec as IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<string, object>>)
{
Console.WriteLine(pair.Key + " -> " + pair.Value);
}
Or even convert it to a List:
var list = someObj.spec.ToList();
foreach (var pair in list)
{
Console.WriteLine(pair.Key + " -> " + pair.Value);
}
.NET Fiddle: https://dotnetfiddle.net/15l2R3

If you don't mind using Newtonsoft.Json:
const string json = #"{""spec"": { ""SOMETHING WITH SPACES"" : ""10"", ""SOMETHING WITH MORE SPACES"" : ""20"" }}";
dynamic data = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(json);
Dictionary<string, string> list = data["spec"].ToObject<Dictionary<string, string>>();
foreach (var item in list)
{
Console.WriteLine(item.Key + ", " + item.Value);
}

I guess your JSON serialiazer makes some trouble. I'd recommend to use Newtonsoft.Json (in NuGet)
I've tried following code, and it works fine:
var o1 = new SomeObject() { spec = new List<KeyValuePair<string, object>>() };
o1.spec.Add(new KeyValuePair<string, object>("test with spaces", 10));
var r1 = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(o1);
Console.WriteLine(r1);
var o2 = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<SomeObject>(r1);
var r2 = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(o2);
Console.WriteLine(r2);
The outcome is
{"spec":[{"Key":"test with spaces","Value":10}]}
{"spec":[{"Key":"test with spaces","Value":10}]}
No null values, all works fine.
EDIT: I actually see no reason, why spaces should be any problem at all. They are just part of the string.

How do I get the value in a generic Dictionary?

I have a json string like this:
{
"ipaddress": "xxx",
"hostname": "comcast.xxx",
"popup": {
"position": "1256",
"pagename": "home"
}
}
In my Windows Form code I've been using JavaScriptSerializer for phare those line to dictionary.
var obj = new JavaScriptSerializer().Deserialize<Dictionary<string, object>>(json);
It is working fine at the moment, but I don't know how to get value inside popup? Because it's another dictionary.
[7] = {[popup, System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[System.String,System.Object]]}

The fastest (yet unsafe) way of doing it is like this is via the indexer:
First extract the first dictionary and cast, since the first dictionary will yield an object of type object:
var popup = (Dictionary<string, object>)obj["popup"];
Then, you extract the values based on keys:
var position = popup["position"];
var pagename = popup["pagename"];
If you're not sure both keys will exist in the result, you can use Dictionary.TryGetValue if they exist:
obj position;
if (!popup.TryGetValue("position", out position))
{
// Key isn't in the dictionary.
}

Use JSON .Net, then simply:
JObject dynJson = JObject.Parse(jsonString);
followed by:
string data = dynJson["popup"]["position"];
JObject.Parse

Iterate through dynamic form object

Using mvc i get values like this to avoid class declarations and router changes.
public dynamic Create([FromBody] dynamic form)
{
var username = form["username"].Value;
var password = form["password"].Value;
var firstname = form["firstname"].Value;
...
I like to iterate through all values and check them for null or empty.

If you get a json from the argument, you could convert it to an Dictionary<string, dynamic> where the string key is the name of the property and the dynamic is a value that can assume any type. For sample:
var d = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string, dynamic>>(form);
var username = d["username"];
You also could loop between Keys property from the Dictionary<>:
foreach(var key in d.Keys)
{
// check if the value is not null or empty.
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(d[key]))
{
var value = d[key];
// code to do something with
}
}

This is quite old, but I came across this and am wondering why the following was not proposed:
var data = (IDictionary<string, object>)form;

You can use JavaScriptSerializer and dynamic object:
JavaScriptSerializer serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
dynamic myDynamicObject = serializer.DeserializeObject(json);
For example, if you want to loop through myDynamicObject["users"]:
foreach (KeyValuePair<string, dynamic> user in myDynamicObject["users"]){
Console.WriteLine(user.Key+": "+user.Value["username"]);
Console.WriteLine(user.Key+": "+user.Value["email"]);
}

Deserializing JSON with dynamic keys

I'm quite new to JSON, and am currently learning about (de)serialization.
I'm retrieving a JSON string from a webpage and trying to deserialize it into an object. Problem is, the root json key is static, but the underlying keys are dynamic and I cannot anticipate them to deserialize. Here is a mini example of the string :
{
"daily": {
"1337990400000": 443447,
"1338076800000": 444693,
"1338163200000": 452282,
"1338249600000": 462189,
"1338336000000": 466626
}
}
For another JSON string in my application, I was using a JavascriptSerializer and anticipating the keys using class structure. What's the best way to go about deserializing this string into an object?

Seriously, no need to go down the dynamic route; use
var deser = new JavaScriptSerializer()
.Deserialize<Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, int>>>(val);
var justDaily = deser["daily"];
to get a dictionary, and then you can e.g.
foreach (string key in justDaily.Keys)
Console.WriteLine(key + ": " + justDaily[key]);
to get the keys present and the corresponding values.

You can use dynamic in .NET 4 or later. For example with JSON.NET I can do:
dynamic obj = JsonConvert.Deserialize<dynamic>("{x: 'hello'}");
You can then do:
var str = obj.x;
However, unsure how it will handle numeric keys. You can of course just use JObject directly itself, for example:
var obj = JObject.Parse("{'123456': 'help'}");
var str = obj["123456"];

Whenever you have JSON with dynamic keys it can usually be deserialized into a Dictionary<string, SomeObject>. Since the inner JSON keys are dynamic (in this question) the JSON can be modelled as:
Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, int>>
I would recommend using NewtonSoft.Json (JSON.Net) or System.Text.Json (if you're working in .NET-Core 3.0 and up).
Newtonsoft.Json
Use DeserializeObject<T> from JsonConvert:
var response = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, int>>>(json);
System.Text.Json
Use Deserialize<T> from JsonSerializer:
var response = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, int>>>(json);

This is not convenient to use, because in с# can not be defined a variable starts with a number. Add prefix to keys.
Or try this:
string json = "
{ daily:[
{ key: '1337990400000', val:443447 },
{ key: '1338076800000', val:444693 },
{ key: '1338163200000', val:452282 },
{ key: '1338249600000', val:462189 },
{ key: '1338336000000', val:466626 }]
}";
public class itemClass
{
public string key; // or int
public int val;
}
public class items
{
public itemClass[] daily;
}
items daily = (new JavascriptSerializer()).Deserialize<items>(json);
Then you can:
var itemValue = items.Where(x=>x.key=='1338163200000').Select(x=>x.val).FirstOrDefault();