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C# Deserialize JSON array

I am having an issue deserializing and defining this JSON structure would be great to get some assistance. I have reverted this back to last known working position because I am just going off the rails here.
my JSON stucture is:
[{
"name": "Name1",
"description": "Description of this process",
"Location": "ANY",
"SubItems": [{
"name": "sub1",
"required": true,
"description": "This is a short description"
}, {
"name": "sub2",
"required": true,
"description": "This is a short description"
}, {
"name": "sub3",
"required": true,
"description": "This is a short description"
}],
"outputs": [{
"name": "out1",
"required": false
}, {
"name": "exit code",
"required": false
}]
}, {
"name": "Name2",
"description": "This is a short description",
"Location": "ANY",
"SubItems": [{
"name": "sub1",
"required": false,
"description": "This is a short description"
}]
}]
Here are my C# Json definitions that were last working.
public class JsonObject
{
[JsonProperty("name")]
public string ProcessName { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("description")]
public string ProcessDescription { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("Location")]
public string KnownLocation { get; set; }
}
I am only capturing a couple of definitions at the moment for testing.
Here is my deserializing object
var Object = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject <List<JsonObject>>(txt);
foreach (JsonObject JsonObject in Object)
{
Console.WriteLine("Name: " + JsonObject.ProcessName);
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine("Description: " +JsonObject.ProcessDescription);
Console.WriteLine();
}
So as I had stated, I can get at least the first 3 top-most level JSON elements in the output. The problem starts when I start trying to get the "SubItems" and "outputs"
I followed the structure of the below linked post and tried very hard to understand it, but after a while I realized that solution is not for this issue. I simply have a multi-dimentional array JSON object. Literally has a top tier, and 2 sub tiers
I attempted to try and do...
List<List<JsonObject>>Object = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject <List<List<JsonObject>>>(txt);
and tried to have 2 lists of the same with different names with 3 sets of JSON Definitions.
and implemented the tiered foreach loops, but then I wasn't able to access the definitions for the top most JSON, and nothing was writing for the actual elements for "SubItems"
What I need is to get to each object, really.
How to deserialize a json file with multidimensional array to convert it to object in c#
Related Issue

It is not a multi dimentional array. Just an array objects containing arrays.
So your model can be as follows
public class SubItem
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public bool Required { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
}
public class Output
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public bool Required { get; set; }
}
public class JsonObject
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public string Location { get; set; }
public List<SubItem> SubItems { get; set; }
public List<Output> Outputs { get; set; }
}
and you can deserialize as
var obj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<JsonObject>>(jsonstring);
PS: you can use JsonProperty to decorate that model as you do in question

c# How do I parse a non array array

I need to parse a jsonfile that has a structure like this:
"number": {
"1": {
"branch": null,
"build": 1,
"files": [
[
"zip",
"client",
"4d96d6e8f1543c5fa1184f4771ce16e2"
],
[
"zip",
"src",
"fd397591148fac49a7d57aafdccac6a3"
],
[
"zip",
"server",
"d7e1df9a91ded33be81ee8226b027c2f"
],
[
"txt",
"changelog",
"df98aec1a868ce99532c64f246387d55"
]
],
"jobver": "1.3.2",
"mcversion": "1.1",
"modified": 1328269373.0,
"version": "1.3.2.01"
},
"2": {
"branch": null,
"build": 2,
"files": [
[
"zip",
"server",
"80fbd5d837a5867c2dd7b7967e3aa2a9"
],
[
"zip",
"client",
"0cedb5e9844e490f877b6cf04601f929"
],
[
"txt",
"changelog",
"87e9fba9322e9dbc2ea482a2c3edeec6"
],
[
"zip",
"src",
"292d5596879bd13c159a2afe571ec5eb"
]
],
"jobver": "1.3.2",
"mcversion": "1.1",
"modified": 1328613907.0,
"version": "1.3.2.2"
}
(The entire json file can be found here: http://files.minecraftforge.net/maven/net/minecraftforge/forge/json)
I have figure out the internals, in the "1" and the externals that leads to this code part, however using the Json.NET library I can't figure out how to deal with the "1" and "2"s without writing a seperate class for each. I have over 1000 of these to parse trough, so I need some way that can do it relatively simple.
My current class for parsing looks something like this:
public class forgemaven
{
public string homepage { get; set; }
public string name { get; set; }
public List<Number> number { get; set; }
public string webpath { get; set; }
}
public class Number
{
public string branch { get; set; }
public int build { get; set; }
public List<String> files { get; set; }
public string jobver { get; set; }
public string mcversion { get; set; }
public string modified { get; set; }
public string version { get; set; }
}
Note: I removed some of the things, like the first 1000 lines of version/build, since they aren't needed and json.net seems fine with that.
I have tried parsing it with http://json2csharp.com/ sadly that crashes my webbrowser. I also tried the desktop version of it, but that give me almost a MB of classes, which again isn't optimal, since new builds are constantly added to this file, so I would have to change my structure all the time, and it would be horrible to use the data from here.
So for my question: How do I do this in a maintainable way?

Your problem is that {"1" : something, "2" ; something} is not a json array, it's a json map.
In .net, you will want to deserialize that to a Dictionary<int,TObject>. Then you can process it afterwards if it really should be a `List' or an array, but you can't do that while deserializing: you got bad json in the first place, you have to deal with it.
Here is a fiddle demonstrating the thing (with the json you gave and your own classes only very slightly modified: the files property is a List<List<string>> instead of a List<String>) using Json.Net : https://dotnetfiddle.net/feqFZd

You must replace
public List<Number> number { get; set; }
with
public Dictionary<int,Number> number { get; set; }

Json modelling issue

I'm currently working with the following json structure and I'm not sure how to model it on my classes, since I've never run into this kind of structure before. Would appreciate any leads or help:
{ "messages": { "1": { "tid": "309", "status": "0", "timestamp": "1379795079", "uid": "1111111111", "txt": "sometext" }, "2": { "tid": "310", "status": "0", "timestamp": "1379795523", "uid": "2222222222", "txt": "sometext2" } }, "status": 1 }
The messages value objects are not a common json structure that i know of, I understand that these are objects, but I don't know how to map them with my classes.

I Use json2csharp, to model my objects for me. Consider the following json object:
{
"employees": [
{ "firstName":"John" , "lastName":"Doe" },
{ "firstName":"Anna" , "lastName":"Smith" },
{ "firstName":"Peter" , "lastName":"Jones" }]
}
I get these objects from the tool:
public class Employee
{
public string firstName { get; set; }
public string lastName { get; set; }
}
public class RootObject
{
public List<Employee> employees { get; set; }
}
Source: http://json2csharp.com/

Technically, your json object is a dictionary, associative array or even hash-table (select appropriate for your target language). Such a data structure is a perfectly reasonable thing to serialize.
However, that particular object would probably have been better serialized as something like:
{ "messages":
[
{ "tid": "309"
, "status": "0"
, "timestamp": "1379795079"
, "uid": "1111111111"
, "txt": "sometext"
}
,
{ "tid": "310"
, "status": "0"
, "timestamp": "1379795523"
, "uid": "2222222222"
, "txt": "sometext2" }
}
]
, "status": 1
}
(unless the sender wanted the option of sending the individual messages items out of order). That's certainly how I would represent it.

This is how I've solved it:
public class MessagesResponse
{
[JsonProperty("messages")]
public Dictionary Messages { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("status")]
public int Status { get; set; }
}
THanks to #rici, I've realized that the use of a dictionary would solve the problem

C# List<List<T>>

I have a class with the following property: Education.cs
Apologize for the perhaps basic question
public List<List<Education>>data { get; set; }
public class Education
{
public From school { get; set; }
public From year { get; set; }
public string type { get; set; }
}
This is the class I have defined for deserializing json string
From is another .cs file
public string id { get; set; }
public string name { get; set; }
Here is my json string
education": [
{
"school": {
"id": "107751089258341",
"name": "JNTU, Kakinada, India"
},
"year": {
"id": "132393000129123",
"name": "2001"
},
"type": "College"
},
{
"school": {
"id": "103710319677602",
"name": "University of Houston"
},
"year": {
"id": "113125125403208",
"name": "2004"
},
"type": "Graduate School"
}
]
Can someone tell me how to access the members of Education(school, year)? It could be a piece of cake for you.
In my aspx.cs,
I have to write a foreach or any other to access my variables, school.name, year.name
Will have to work this access of class members into my aspx.cs
url= "https://graph.facebook.com/me?fields=education&access_token=" + oAuth.Token;
json = oAuth.WebRequest(oAuthFacebook.Method.GET, url, String.Empty);
List<Education>??? = js.Deserialize<List<??>(json)
Thanks
Smitha

You need two foreach loops inside of eachother; one for each level of List<>.

#Slaks solution should work for you. Though I believe your data is better represented as List<Education> (or better still, IEnumerable<Education>) and what you may want to do is to Flatten it out.
It would be better to flatten it out at the source, to make sure your code is cleaner at other places.
If you are on .NET 3.5 you can do it like
var flattenData = data.SelectMany(x => x);
If you are on pre .NET 3.5 / C# 3.0, you can do it like this
//Your original code block
{
IEnumerable<Education> flattenData = FlattenMyList(data);
//use flatten data normally
}
IEnumerable<T> FlattenMyList<T> (List<List<T> data){
foreach(List<T> innerList in data){
foreach(T item in innerList){
yield return item;
}
}
yield break;
}

parsing Json using system.web.script.seriarilization or using json.net

json ="{
"data": [
{
"id": "1000",
"from": {
"name": "Anthony Waema",
"category": "message",
"id": "192"
},
"message": "this is the message",
"updated_time": "2001-05-06T19:34:15+0000",
"likes": {
"data": [
{
"id": "100001692250255",
"name": "\u00dcnal Turanl\u0131"
},
{
"id": "100001060078996",
"name": "S\u00e9f\u00e2 K\u00e2ql\u00e4Nn"
}]
},
{
"id": "10150186255753553",
"from": {
"name": "another name",
"category": "message",
"id": "100001"
},
"message": "this is the message",
"updated_time": "2001-04-06T19:34:15+0000",
"likes": {
"data": [
{
"id": "1002345",
"name": "\u00dcnal Turanl\u0131"
},
{
"id": "100234",
"name": "S\u00e9f\u00e2 K\u00e2ql\u00e4Nn"
}]
}
}
]
}";
public class Allstatus
{
public List<sdata> data { get; set; }
public scpaging paging { get; set; }
}
public class sdata
{
public string id { get; set; }
public sfrom from { get; set; }
public string message { get; set; }
public string updated_time {get; set;}
public List<likesdata> likes { get; set; }
}
public class likesdata
{
public string id{ get; set; }
public string name{ get; set; }
}
public class sfrom
{
public string name {get; set;}
public string category {get; set;}
public string id {get; set;}
}
JavaScriptSerializer ser = new JavaScriptSerializer();
page = ser.Deserialize<allstatus>(json);
foreach (sdata cd in page.data)
{
foreach(likesdata ld in cd.likes.data)
{
Console.WriteLine(ld.id+"\t"+ld.name);
}
}
problem:
I need to parse the json and retrieve likes data.
I can access "from" data but not "likes" data.. I get nullreference error when I do this. help needed here.. Thanks.

Edit2:
Referring https://gist.github.com/973510, its clear from the returned json, that if a particular facebook message doesnt have any likes, then the returned json doesnt contain a property called likes. Hence likes property of sdata object is null. Thats just how the server returns the data.
There are two ways you can deal with this. Either do a manual check whether likes is null. Or initialize the likes property in the sdata constructor. And initialize the likesdata list in the likesdatacollection constructor.
Code:
public class sdata
{
// other properties
public likedatacollection likes { get; set; }
public sdata()
{
likes = new likedatacollection();
}
}
public class likedatacollection
{
public List<likesdata> data { get; set; }
public likedatacollection()
{
data = new List<likesdata>();
}
}
This way, even if fb doesnt return any likes, the constructors will initialize the properties, so they will not be null. You can then check whether likes.data.Count > 0. If yes, then fb returned likes, else fb didnt return likes.
Edit1:
From the OP's comment, its clear that the json is properly formed. Meaning, the json is as retrieved from some server api. Therefore it is the sdata class that is the culprit. Please look at this gist for the full solution.
The short version. For the simplest case, your c# classes need to follow the exact same structure as your json. As per the json, data has a property called likes. the likes object has a property called data which is an array of objects with properties id and name.
So your c# class sdata should have a property called likes of type likesdatacollection. This class should have a property data of type List<likesdata>...
Off topic, people generally seem to prefer Json.Net ... so you may want to use that. The reason I use it is because I need it to work in a .Net 2.0 code base ...

You should try running your JSON through a validator like JSON Lint. That should help you find any JSON errors.