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Reading and Writing Nested data JSON in C#

I have looked at several solutions over the web on reading nested json files but I haven't found one suitable to my need. Maybe because I am new to JSON. Here is my issue:
I have the following JSON in a file:
{
"ConfigError" : {
"DateSent": "2022-04-28T14:03:16.6628493-07:00",
"ToolType": "WSM",
"IsSent": true
},
"FileCopyError" : {
"DateSent": "2022-06-14T14:03:16.6628493-07:00",
"ToolType": "RMT",
"IsSent": false
}
}
For this I have written two classes. One for the Inner object:
public class SummaryEmailStatus
{
public DateTime DateSent { get; set; }
public string ToolType { get; set; }
public bool IsSent { get; set; }
}
One for the Outer Objects:
public class SummaryEmailClass
{
SummaryEmailStatus Status { get; set; } = new SummaryEmailStatus();
}
I would like to be able to read the JSON in C#. I'm primarily concerned with the inner objects. They are of same class but they need to be used differently. So ideally I'd want a function that I can pass in "ConfigError" or "FileCopyError" into and it will return SummaryEmailStatus class object populated by the values in the JSON:
public static void ReadJasonFile(string jsonFileName, string objctName)
{
List<SummaryEmailClass> emailClassList = new List<SummaryEmailClass>();
dynamic jsonFile = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(File.ReadAllText(jsonFileName));
SummaryEmailStatus sumclass = jsonFile[objctName];
}
But this gives me a run time error saying:
Cannot implicitly convert type "Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JObject to SummaryEmailStatus
How can I successfully parse out the inner summaryemailstatus objects?
Additionally, I'd like to be able to create the JSON data within C#. The reason being, when I read the JSON, I will do some task and then will need to update the values of the JSON with the current timestamps. I'd imagine, I'd need to rewrite the file. How can I write a nested JSON like this in C#?
If JSON is not the best way to do this, I am open to alternatives

you can try
string json = File.ReadAllText(jsonFileName);
Dictionary<string,SummaryEmailStatus> summaryEmailStatus =
JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string,SummaryEmailStatus>>(json);
you can use it
SummaryEmailStatus configError = summaryEmailStatus["ConfigError"];
if you want update data
summaryEmailStatus["ConfigError"].DateSent= DateTime.Now;
and serialize back
json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(summaryEmailStatus);
or if you have only 2 main properties, create a class
public class SummaryEmailClass
{
SummaryEmailStatus ConfigError { get; set; }
SummaryEmailStatus FileCopyError{ get; set; }
}
and use it
SummaryEmailClass summaryEmailStatus =
JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<SummaryEmailStatusClass>(json);
SummaryEmailStatus configError = summaryEmailStatus.ConfigError;

Summary
You need to convert your JObject into the type you are expecting, as shown here:
SummaryEmailStatus sumclass = jsonFile[objctName].ToObject<SummaryEmailStatus>();
Details
jsonFile[objtName] is of type JObject. The reason is because JsonConvert.DeserializeObject has no idea that you intend to convert that into a list of SummaryEmailStatus.
Once you have your array of JObjects, you can convert that into a SummaryEmailStatus as shown in the following snippet:
public static void ReadJasonFile(string jsonFileName, string objctName)
{
List<SummaryEmailClass> emailClassList = new List<SummaryEmailClass>();
dynamic jsonFile = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(File.ReadAllText(jsonFileName));
SummaryEmailStatus sumclass = jsonFile[objctName].ToObject<SummaryEmailStatus>();
}

Easy way is kept both objects in JSON, I rewrite your code and add root. For example, if you want to write Config Error and don't write File Copy Error, you can save one of them like null.
public class ConfigError
{
public DateTime DateSent { get; set; }
public string ToolType { get; set; }
public bool IsSent { get; set; }
}
public class FileCopyError
{
public DateTime DateSent { get; set; }
public string ToolType { get; set; }
public bool IsSent { get; set; }
}
public class Root
{
public ConfigError ConfigError { get; set; }
public FileCopyError FileCopyError { get; set; }
}
//in your method to get all data
var json = File.ReadAllText(jsonFileName);
var myDeserializedClass = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Root>(json);
Example change config and write to file
var json = #"{
""ConfigError"" : {
""DateSent"": ""2022-04-28T14:03:16.6628493-07:00"",
""ToolType"": ""WSM"",
""IsSent"": true
},
""FileCopyError"" : {
""DateSent"": ""2022-06-14T14:03:16.6628493-07:00"",
""ToolType"": ""RMT"",
""IsSent"": false
}
}";
var conf = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Root>(json);
conf.ConfigError.DateSent = DateTime.Now;
conf.ConfigError.ToolType = "New way";
conf.ConfigError.IsSent = false;
conf.FileCopyError = null;
var newJson = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(conf);
File.WriteAllText("your path", newJson);

Json.Net Deserialize dictionary without property name

I already looked at a lot of other questions with the same problem but never found a definitive solution that actually works for me. I tried using the JsonExtensionData Attribute, that doesn't work though since I can't convert my other data class to an object and it throws the Invalid extension data attribute on 'NAMESPACE'. Member 'Sols' type must implement IDictionary<string, JToken>. error.
My current data model class looks like this
public partial class Mars
{
public Dictionary<string, Sol> Sols { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("sol_keys")]
public List<long> SolKeys { get; set; }
}
public partial class Sol
{
[JsonProperty("AT")]
public At At { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("First_UTC")]
public DateTimeOffset FirstUtc { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("Last_UTC")]
public DateTimeOffset LastUtc { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("Season")]
public string Season { get; set; }
}
public partial class At
{
[JsonProperty("av")]
public double Av { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("ct")]
public long Ct { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("mn")]
public double Mn { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("mx")]
public double Mx { get; set; }
}
The json data looks like this
{
"651":
{
"AT":
{
"av": -61.957,
"ct": 302204,
"mn": -96.733,
"mx": -15.877
},
"First_UTC": "2020-09-25T02:42:14Z",
"Last_UTC": "2020-09-26T03:21:49Z",
"Season": "summer"
},
"652": {
"AT": {
"av": -65.002,
"ct": 278608,
"mn": -96.111,
"mx": -15.653
},
"First_UTC": "2020-09-26T03:21:50Z",
"Last_UTC": "2020-09-27T04:01:24Z",
"Season": "summer"
},
"sol_keys": [
"646",
"647",
"648",
"649",
"650",
"651",
"652"
]
}
I can't really modify the json data since I get it from an api.
I basically just want to select one of the numbers and then get the Sol data of that object.
Any help would be appreciated.

The JSON doesn't fit well with the C# type system. However, you can still use Json.Net to parse it. You just need to introduce some extra steps.
First step is to parse the JSON to a JObject:
var jObject = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<JObject>(json);
Then you can extract the sol_keys:
var solKeys = jObject.GetValue("sol_keys").ToObject<long[]>();
Now it becomes a bit tricky. If you remove the sol_keys from the JSON (in this case the parsed JSON) it has the structure of a dictionary of Sol objects that you are able to parse:
jObject.Remove("sol_keys");
var mars = jObject.ToObject<Dictionary<long, Sol>>();
Now you have both solKeys and mars parsed from the JSON. Furthermore the solKeys and the keys in the dictionary share the same type (long).

Json.Net Deserializing list of c# objects throwing error

I have a list of objects in below json format. I would like to deserialize using below code. It is throwing unable to convert to object error. I have tried below three options, but didnt help. jsoninput is a IEnumerable<string>converted into json object using ToJson().
Error:
{"Error converting value \"{\"id\":\"11ef2c75-9a6d-4cef-8163-94daad4f8397\",\"name\":\"bracing\",\"lastName\":\"male\",\"profilePictureUrl\":null,\"smallUrl\":null,\"thumbnailUrl\":null,\"country\":null,\"isInvalid\":false,\"userType\":0,\"profilePrivacy\":1,\"chatPrivacy\":1,\"callPrivacy\":0}\" to type 'Api.Models.UserInfo'. Path '[0]', line 1, position 271."}
var requests1 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<UsersInfo>(jsoninput);
var requests2 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<IEnumerable<UserInfo>>(jsoninput);
var requests3 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<UserInfo>>(jsoninput);
//Below are my classes,
public class UsersInfo
{
public List<UserInfo> UserInfoList { get; set; }
public UsersInfo()
{
UserInfoList = new List<UserInfo>();
}
}
public class UserInfo
{
public string Id { set; get; }
public string Name { set; get; }
public string LastName { set; get; }
public string ProfilePictureUrl { set; get; }
public string SmallUrl { set; get; }
public string ThumbnailUrl { get; set; }
public string Country { set; get; }
public bool IsInvalid { set; get; }
}
Below is my json object,
["{\"id\":\"11ef2c75-9a6d-4cef-8163-94daad4f8397\",\"name\":\"bracing\",\"lastName\":\"male\",\"profilePictureUrl\":null,\"smallUrl\":null,\"thumbnailUrl\":null,\"country\":null,\"isInvalid\":false}","{\"id\":\"318c0885-2720-472c-ba9e-1d1e120bcf65\",\"name\":\"locomotives\",\"lastName\":\"riddles\",\"profilePictureUrl\":null,\"smallUrl\":null,\"thumbnailUrl\":null,\"country\":null,\"isInvalid\":false}"]
Looping through individual items in json input and if i deserialize it like below, it works fine. But i want to deserialize the list fully. Note: jsoninput was a IEnumerable<string> before i convert in json object.
foreach (var re in jsoninput)
{
var request0 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<UserInfo>(re);
}

Please look at this fiddle: https://dotnetfiddle.net/XpjuL4
This is the code:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Newtonsoft.Json;
//Below are my classes,
public class UsersInfo
{
public List<UserInfo> UserInfoList { get; set; }
public UsersInfo()
{
UserInfoList = new List<UserInfo>();
}
}
public class UserInfo
{
public string Id { set; get; }
public string Name { set; get; }
public string LastName { set; get; }
public string ProfilePictureUrl { set; get; }
public string SmallUrl { set; get; }
public string ThumbnailUrl { get; set; }
public string Country { set; get; }
public bool IsInvalid { set; get; }
}
public class Program
{
public static void Main()
{
Console.WriteLine("Hello World");
Option1();
Option2();
}
public static void Option1(){
string json = #"{""UserInfoList"":[
{""id"":""11ef2c75 - 9a6d - 4cef - 8163 - 94daad4f8397"",""name"":""bracing"",""lastName"":""male"",""profilePictureUrl"":null,""smallUrl"":null,""thumbnailUrl"":null,""country"":null,""isInvalid"":false},
{ ""id"":""318c0885-2720-472c-ba9e-1d1e120bcf65"",""name"":""locomotives"",""lastName"":""riddles"",""profilePictureUrl"":null,""smallUrl"":null,""thumbnailUrl"":null,""country"":null,""isInvalid"":false}
]}";
var obj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<UsersInfo>(json);
obj.UserInfoList.ForEach(e => Console.WriteLine(e.Id));
}
public static void Option2(){
string json = #"[
{""id"":""11ef2c75 - 9a6d - 4cef - 8163 - 94daad4f8397"",""name"":""bracing"",""lastName"":""male"",""profilePictureUrl"":null,""smallUrl"":null,""thumbnailUrl"":null,""country"":null,""isInvalid"":false},
{ ""id"":""318c0885-2720-472c-ba9e-1d1e120bcf65"",""name"":""locomotives"",""lastName"":""riddles"",""profilePictureUrl"":null,""smallUrl"":null,""thumbnailUrl"":null,""country"":null,""isInvalid"":false}
]";
var obj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<UserInfo>>(json);
obj.ForEach(e => Console.WriteLine(e.Id));
}
}
Both work, and are basically very close to what you are doing. You can either serialize it as a list (based on your json, I think that's the closest to your use case, and that's Option 2).
However, put extra attention to the JSON. I had to re-parse your JSON to make it work (https://jsonformatter.org/json-parser is a nice website to do it). For the sake of explaining the example, in C#, # means raw string, and in raw string, quotes are escaped with double quotes "".
I would expect that the business logic generating this JSON is not correct, if the JSON you pasted is the direct result from it.
EDIT
Given the OP's comment:
Thanks Tu.ma for your thoughts. The other method returns
IEnumerable which is nothing but
Dictionary.Where(x => x.Value == null).Select(x =>
x.Key).ToHashSet(). The values in Dictionary are -> Key
is String, Value is UserInfo object serialized. So, in that case i
should deserialize one by one? If not, i should serialize entire list
in one shot? Am i right? – Raj 12 hours ago
The problem is in the way you are generating the list of UsersInfo. The result from Dictionary<string,string>.Where(x => x.Value == null).Select(x =>
x.Key).ToHashSet() is a bunch of strings, not of objects, so you need to serialize them one by one.
If you are worried about the linearity of the approach, you could consider running through it in parallel. Of course, you need to judge if it fits your application.
var userInfoStrings = Dictionary<string,string>.Where(x => x.Value == null).Select(x => x.Key).ToHashSet();
var UserInfoList = userInfoStrings.AsParallel().Select (u => JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<UsersInfo>(u)).ToList();

c# JSONConvert.DeserializeObject<List<RootObject>> returns nulls

I am trying to deserialize an HTTPWebRequest response (Json) to a c# object/class, but am having trouble. A collection with 10 instances of the object are returned, and all the objects are null.
Here is the json:
[
{
"id":2227,
"user_id":441,
"grades":
{"html_url":"https://...",
"current_score":91.26,
"current_grade":null,
},
"sis_account_id":"11",
"user":
{"id":441,
"name":"Nicholas Bailey",
}
},
Here are the classes:
public class Grade
{
public string html_url { get; set; }
public decimal current_score { get; set; }
public string current_grade { get; set; }
}
public class User
{
public int id { get; set; }
public string name { get; set; }
}
public class Enrollment
{
public int id { get; set; }
public int user_id { get; set; }
public Grade grades { get; set; }
public string sis_account_id { get; set; }
public User user { get; set; }
}
public class RootObject
{
public Enrollment enrollment { get; set; }
}
And here is my code:
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("https://(some uri)");
WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();
StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());
string content = sr.ReadToEnd();
JsonSerializerSettings settings = new JsonSerializerSettings();
settings.MetadataPropertyHandling = MetadataPropertyHandling.Ignore;
var outObject = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<RootObject>>(content, settings);
I have been looking at a lot of code on google but have not found a situation that is close to mine. Also, I'm a bit green on generic collections. The code runs fine but in the debugger the "outObject" contains 10 entries, each with an "Enrollment" object that is null.
I also have tried this with json that has well over 10 entries, but it still comes up with 10. But I'm more focused on the nulls at this point (One thing at a time!). For the sake of brevity I have removed several entries in the json, but the main pattern (an enrollment object with a grades object and a user object embedded in it) remains.
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Deserialize to List<Enrollment> not List<RootObject>:
var enrollment = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<Enrollment>>(content, settings);
The first JSON object in the root array has properties "id", "user_id" and so on that correspond to the members of Enrollment. Conversely there is no property "enrollment" in the JSON anywhere.
Sample fiddle.
Update
You asked, I tried this and now I'm getting an exception "Error converting value {null} to type 'System.Int32'. Path '[0].associated_user_id', line 1, position 165." associated_user_id was removed for brevity but I will add it back into my code. Any ideas?
Somewhere your data model you must have the following member (field or property):
public int associated_user_id;
Change this to a nullable:
public int? associated_user_id;

Deserialize JSON string into a list for dropdownlist in C#

I have a windows form application and would like to deserialize a JSON string that I'm getting from a web address so that I can get just two values from it, how would I go about doing this?
Below is the code I have to get the JSON string, and if you go to the URL that it's getting, you can also see the JSON string. I want to just get the item name, and current price of it. Which you can see the price under the current key.
private void GrabPrices()
{
using (WebClient webClient = new System.Net.WebClient())
{
WebClient n = new WebClient();
var json = n.DownloadString("http://services.runescape.com/m=itemdb_rs/api/catalogue/detail.json?item=1513");
string valueOriginal = Convert.ToString(json);
Console.WriteLine(json);
}
}
It's also going to be iterating through a SQLite database and getting the same data for multiple items based on the item ID, which I'll be able to do myself.
EDIT I'd like to use JSON.Net if possible, I've been trying to use it and it seems easy enough, but I'm still having trouble.

Okay so first of all you need to know your JSON structure, sample:
[{
name: "Micheal",
age: 20
},
{
name: "Bob",
age: 24
}]
With this information you can derive a C# object
public class Person
{
public string Name {get;set;}
public int Age {get;set;}
}
Now you can use JSON.NET to deserialize your JSON into C#:
var people = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<Person>>(jsonString);
If you look at the original JSON it is an array of objects, to deal with this I have used List<T>.
Key things to remember, you need to have the C# object mirror in properties that of the JSON object. If you don't have a list, then you don't need List<T>.
If your JSON objects have camel casing, and you want this converted to the C# conventions, then use this:
var people = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<Person>>(
jsonString,
new JsonSerializerSettings { ContractResolver = new CamelCasePropertyNamesContractResolver() });

First of all you need to create a class structure for the JSON
public class Wrapper
{
public Item item;
}
public class Item
{
public string icon { get; set; }
public string icon_large { get; set; }
public int id { get; set; }
public string type { get; set; }
public string typeIcon { get; set; }
public string name { get; set; }
public string description { get; set; }
public GrandExchange current { get; set; }
public GrandExchange today { get; set; }
public bool members { get; set; }
public GrandExchange day30 { get; set; }
public GrandExchange day90 { get; set; }
public GrandExchange day180 { get; set; }
}
public class GrandExchange
{
public string trend { get; set; }
public string price { get; set; }
}
Then you need to serialize the current item into a Wrapper class
var wrapper = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Wrapper>(json);
Then if you want multiple items in a list, you can do so with this code :
// Items to find
int[] itemIds = {1513, 1514, 1515, 1516, 1517};
// Create blank list
List<Item> items = new List<Item>();
foreach (int id in itemIds)
{
var n = new WebClient();
// Get JSON
var json = n.DownloadString(String.Format("http://services.runescape.com/m=itemdb_rs/api/catalogue/detail.json?item={0}", id));
// Parse to Item object
var wrapper = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Wrapper>(json);
// Append to list
items.Add(wrapper.item);
}
// Do something with list
It is also worth noting that Jagex limit how many times this API can be called from a certain IP within a time frame, going over that limit will block your IP for a certain amount of time. (Will try and find a reference for this)