How to deserialize json and retrieve specific property values in c# - c#

I'm quite new to JSON with C# (Using VS2017). Tried accessing each element of this object via code (e.g. Getting the strings "Obj1", "Obj2", "Obj3" and then the values of each of their members (Id and name).
I do not know in advance how many "ObjX" there will be or their names. I'm trying to load this list into some class and then convert it into a CSV (or SQL inserts).
Tried with JSON.net and JsonFx but I think my skills are just not strong enough to understand how to do this other than brute-force string manipulation functions. Can anyone help?
{
"OBJ1":{
"id":1,
"name":"Name1",
},
"OBJ2":{
"id":2,
"name":"Name2",
},
"OBJ3":{
"id":3,
"name":"Name3",
}
}

Create a class, MyClass with two properties, int Id and string Name.
public class MyClass
{
public int Id {get; set;}
public string Name {get;set;}
}
Then, depending on how you want to do it you can either deserilize it to a Dictionary or create a MyClassRoot object with three MyClass properties.
I recommend the Dictionary approach.
If you use the Dictionary approach your code will still work if more properties gets added to the JSON. If you use the MyClassRoot solution you will need to add the corresponding property to the MyClassRoot if the json updates.
Then with JSON.Net you can deserialize the object like this.
var result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string, MyClass>>(json);
The "OBJ1", "OBJ2" and so on will then be keys in the dictionary and you can access the values like this:
var obj1 = result["OBJ1"];
var obj1Name = obj1.Name;
var obj1Id = obj1.Id;
To get all the MyClass objects to a list, simply do the following:
var list = result.ToList();
MyClassRoot approach(not recommended at all, just a POC):
public class MyClassRoot
{
public MyClass Obj1 {get;set;}
public MyClass Obj2{get;set;}
public MyClass Obj3{get;set;}
}
var result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<MyClassRoot>(json);
var obj1Name = result.Obj1.Name;
var obj1Id = result.Obj1.Id;

Related

Deserialize array of array using json .net

I have a json that looks like so:
[
["0",true,"90","0","1647537980","0","243729846566","105591923388",false,["0","0","0"],[false,"0","0","0"]],["1",true,"42","0","1646708581","1646708581","111003905","0",false,["156","94348800","1646426440"],[false,"135238559235","14754525","4"]],
["2",true,"20","0","1646708602","1646708602","54061667","0",false,["52","31449600","1646538934"],[false,"2031490329","223870","2"]],
]
How would one go about deserializing this json?
I tried adding [JsonConstructor] on the MyModel constructor, but it never gets called.
var obj = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<List<MyModel>>(json);
Thanks!
you have a double list , so or fix json or use this code
var obj = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<List<List<object>>>(json);
The class should have at least one property. Your json doesnt' have any properties at all, so only array can be used in this case. It can be converted to the class, for example like this
public class MyClass
{
public List<object> Details {get;set;}
}
var jsonParsed = JArray.Parse(json);
List<MyClass> objects = jsonParsed.Select(p => p)
.Select(x => new MyClass { Details=x.ToObject<List<object>>() }).ToList();
now if you want more details you have to convert array to your class,
Each element of array should get name, for example
public class Details
{
public Id {get; set;}
public bool IsActive {get;set}
...and so on
}
after this you can use this class already
public class MyClass
{
public Details Details {get;set;}
}

C# Parse/Deserialize JSON partially with Newtonsoft

I have to extract a part of json-string using .net or newtonsoft json.
JSON:
var json = "{\"method\":\"subtract\",\"parameters\":{\"minuend\":\"SOME_CUSTOM_JSON_OBJECT_DIFFERENT_FOR_EACH_METHOD\",\"subtrahend\":23}}";
C# Class:
class MyJson{
public string method { get; set; }
//public string parameters {get; set;}
public object parameters {get; set;}
}
I do not need to parse all the children of "parameters" json-object. "parameters" could be a very big object ([{obj1}...{obj1000}], objX of 1000 fields), parse which would be not performant.
I would like i.e. to pass it exactly as it is on some point, so conversion "string-C#object-string" would be redundant.
I do not want use Regexp or string transformations (string.Substring, Split and co), because of error margin, I know that all .net and newtonsoft string transformations based.
Question 1: if I define a property of type "object", how newtonsoft will handle this? (Documentation is worse than msdn, so I'm looking for the input from you, who already tried this).
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var json = "{\"method\":\"subtract\",\"parameters\":{\"minuend\":42,\"subtrahend\":23}}";
var data = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<MyJson>(j);
// what internal representaion of data.parameters?
// How is it actually converted from json-string to an C# object (JObject/JsonObject).
}
In perfect case:
"parameters" is a string and calling
ExtractMyJson(jsonString)
gives me the json string of parameters.
Basically I need the newtonsoft version of
string ExtractMyJson(jsonString){
var p1 = jsonString.Split(",");
// .. varios string transformations
return pParams;
}
Note: please don't reference "dynamic" keyword or ask why no string transformations, it's the very specific question.
If you know that your parameters are unique you can do something like this:
class MyJson
{
public string method { get; set; }
public Dictionary<string,object> parameters { get; set; }
}
................
string json = "{\"method\":\"subtract\",\"parameters\":{\"minuend\":{\"img\": 3, \"real\": 4},\"subtrahend\":23}}";
var data = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<MyJson>(json);
If you let it as object is going to receive the type Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JObject.
Have you tried JTOKEN?
It is a rather simple solution to partially read basic or nested JSONs as described in this post.
For a nested JSON
{
"key1": {
"key11": "value11",
"key12": "value12"
}
"key2": "value2"
}
it would look like this
JToken token = JToken.Parse(json);
var value12 = token.SelectToken("key1.key12");
to get the element of the key "key12.
I think this could go nicely with your problem.
Well Objects are treated the same way your parent object is treated. It will start from the base of the graph. So if you have something like:
Person
{
Address Address {get;set;}
}
The Json will start Deserializing Address and then add in the Person object.
If you want to limit thesize of the graph depth you can use a setting like :
JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<IList<IList<string>>>>(json, new JsonSerializerSettings
{
MaxDepth = 2
});
For more configurations of the JsonSerializer check JsonSerializerSettings
If your field is an object then that object will have the KeyValuePair of every property that it holds, based on that when you cast that field you can access that type.(the behaviour is the same as assigning a type to an object in C#).
Update: So if you question using JsonObject or type, well JObject is and intermediary way to construct the json format in a generic format. But using the Type deserializatin means you can ignore properties you are not interested in. Mapping to a json with a type makes more sense because it creates a new object and dismisses the old JObject.

How to parse non-array JSON?

I am trying to read json from a local .json file and parse the contents using StreamReader and Json.NET. Json & my code:
contents of .json file: {"rate":50,"information":{"height":70,"ssn":43,"name":"andrew"}}
using (var sr = new StreamReader(pathToJsonFile))
{
dynamic jsonArray = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(sr.ReadToEnd());
foreach(var item in jsonArray)
{
Console.WriteLine(item.rate);
Console.WriteLine(item.ssn);
}
}
This gives me an error on the line foreach(var item in array): Object reference not set to an instance of an object. I am guessing this is because my json is not actually an array but that is how I am trying to parse it. How can I parse this json in order to pull out fields such as rate or ssn?
NB - please do not flag this question as a duplicate of Read and parse a Json File in C#, as that is where I got my original code from.
EDIT: As has been pointed out in other answers, jsonArray is null. That explains my error but still does not answer my question. How else can I parse this json in order to extract the desired fields?
A couple things:
If you want to manually parse out the values, you should try using JObject rather than JsonConvert.DeserializeObject. The following code should work:
dynamic jsonObject = JObject.Parse("{'rate':50,'information':{'height':70,'ssn':43,'name':'andrew'}}");
Console.WriteLine(jsonObject["rate"]);
Console.WriteLine(jsonObject["information"]["ssn"]);
However, if you know how the json is structured, you should create a .net class like:
public class Person
{
public int rate {get;set;}
public Information information {get;set;}
}
public class Information
{
public int height {get;set;}
public int ssn {get;set;}
public string name {get;set;}
}
and then use:
var person = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Person>(thestringtodeserialize);
That way you can have a strongly typed object.
In any case, I would check for null (DeserializeObject can obviously return null):
using (var sr = new StreamReader(pathToJsonFile))
{
dynamic jsonArray = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(sr.ReadToEnd());
if(jsonArray != null) //new check here
{
foreach(var item in jsonArray)
{
Console.WriteLine(item.rate);
Console.WriteLine(item.ssn);
}
}
I am guessing this is because my json is not actually an array
True, the returned object is dynamic, so make use of dynamic:
var json = "{\"rate\":50,\"information\":{\"height\":70,\"ssn\":43,\"name\":\"andrew\"}}";
dynamic obj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(json);
Console.WriteLine("rate: {0}. ssn: {1}", obj.rate, obj.information.ssn);
See live sample here: https://dotnetfiddle.net/nQYuyX
Are you sure it's an array?
If that's the format the you expect from Json, maybe you should consider defining a class.
For example:
class SomeJsonObject
{
public int rate {get;set;}
[JsonProperty("information")] //if you want to name your property something else
public InformationObject Information {get;set;}
}
class InformationObject
{
[JsonProperty("height", NullValueHandling = NullValueHandling.Ignore)] //some other things you can do with Json
public int Height {get;set;}
public int ssn {get;set;}
public string name {get;set;}
}
This way you can just deserialize it to an object:
SomeJsonObject jsonArray = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<SomeJsonObject>(sr.ReadToEnd());
I think your question is similar to this Deserialize JSON with C# . you can use JavaScriptSerializer
I don't get a null reference (with Json.net 6.0.3) but your code has one obvious bug:
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string s = "{'rate':50,'information':{'height':70,'ssn':43,'name':'andrew'}}".Replace('\'', '\"');
var obj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(s);
dynamic jsonArray = obj;
foreach (var item in jsonArray)
{
Console.WriteLine(item.rate);
Console.WriteLine(item.ssn);
}
}
The bug is Console.WriteLine(item.rate) will throw.
Your 'array' jsonArray is not actually an array, it is a dictionary!
Therefore, item=the first Key-Value-pair in the dictionary, = {"rate":50}.
You can prevent the code from throwing by getting rid of your foreach loop.
i would fire up nuget and get the JSON.net package
https://www.nuget.org/packages/Newtonsoft.Json/
http://james.newtonking.com/json
it is well documented and can save you a tonne of work.
see also http://json2csharp.com/
EDIT: you are already using this

How to map a data contract to refer to correct fields in a JSON object?

I'm recieving a JSON object that looks like the example below.
{
"name1":{"name1a":"value1a","name1b":"value1b"},
"name2":{"name2a":"value2a","name2b":"value2b"}
}
I've set up a data contract for it (since I only need to access a single data field at the moment) like this.
[DataContract]
public class MyThingy
{
[DataMember(Name="name1b")]
public string Name1b { get; set; }
public MyThingy() { }
public MyThingy(String name1b)
{
Name1b = name1b;
}
}
When I've serialized the object, I try to print it out (which works, since I'm getting a string description of the class) and them the field Name1b. The last part doesn't work and I'm getting null there. My guess is that I must have mapped the data contract wrongly but I can't see how to correct it.
How should the MyThingy class be declared?
My JSON object is fetched as described in this post.
I would use JavaScriptSerializer here,
string json = #"{
""name1"":{""name1a"":""value1a"",""name1b"":""value1b""},
""name2"":{""name2a"":""value2a"",""name2b"":""value2b""}
}";
var obj = new JavaScriptSerializer()
.Deserialize<Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, string>>>(json);
Console.WriteLine(obj["name1"]["name1b"]);
You can also use Json.Net and dynamic together
dynamic obj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(json);
Console.WriteLine(obj.name1.name1b);

Json.net deserializing list gives duplicate items

I have just started using Newtonsoft.Json (Json.net). In my first simple test, I ran into a problem when deserializing generic lists. In my code sample below I serialize an object, containing three types of simple integer lists (property, member var and array).
The resulting json looks fine (the lists are converted into json-arrays). However, when I deserialize the json back to a new object of the same type, all list items are duplicated, expect for the array. I've illustrated that by serializing it a second time.
From searching around, I've read that there may be a "private" backing field to the lists that the deserializer also fills.
So my question is: Is there a (preferably simple) way to avoid duplicate items in following case?
Code
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Newtonsoft.Json;
namespace JsonSerializeExample
{
public class Program
{
static void Main()
{
var data = new SomeData();
var json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(data);
Console.WriteLine("First : {0}", json);
var data2 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<SomeData>(json);
var json2 = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(data2);
Console.WriteLine("Second: {0}", json2);
}
}
public class SomeData
{
public string SimpleField;
public int[] IntArray;
public IList<int> IntListProperty { get; set; }
public IList<int> IntListMember;
public SomeData()
{
SimpleField = "Some data";
IntArray = new[] { 7, 8, 9 };
IntListProperty = new List<int> { 1, 2, 3 };
IntListMember = new List<int> { 4, 5, 6 };
}
}
}
Resulting output
First : {"SimpleField":"Some data","IntArray":[7,8,9],"IntListMember":[4,5,6],"IntListProperty":[1,2,3]}
Second: {"SimpleField":"Some data","IntArray":[7,8,9],"IntListMember":[4,5,6,4,5,6],"IntListProperty":[1,2,3,1,2,3]}
There may be some overlap here with Json.Net duplicates private list items. However, I think my problem is even simpler, and I still haven't figured it out.
That is because you are adding items in the constructor. A common approach in deserializers when processing a list is basically:
read the list via the getter
if the list is null: create a new list and assign via the property setter, if one
deserialize each item in turn, and append (Add) to the list
this is because most list members don't have setters, i.e.
public List<Foo> Items {get {...}} // <=== no set
Contrast to arrays, which must have a setter to be useful; hence the approach is usually:
deserialize each item in turn, and append (Add) to a temporary list
convert the list to an array (ToArray), and assign via the setter
Some serializers give you options to control this behavior (others don't); and some serializers give you the ability to bypass the constructor completely (others don't).
I'm pretty sure that this post is not relevant anymore, but for future reference, here a working solution.
Just need to specify that ObjectCreationHandling is set to Replace, i.e. Always create new objects and not to Auto (which is the default) i.e. Reuse existing objects, create new objects when needed.
var data = new SomeData();
var json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(data);
Console.WriteLine("First : {0}", json);
var data2 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<SomeData>(json, new JsonSerializerSettings() { ObjectCreationHandling = ObjectCreationHandling.Replace });
var json2 = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(data2);
Console.WriteLine("Second: {0}", json2);
I encountered a similar issue with a different root cause. I was serializing and deserializing a class that looked like this:
public class Appointment
{
public List<AppointmentRevision> Revisions { get; set; }
public AppointmentRevision CurrentRevision
{
get { return Revision.LastOrDefault(); }
}
public Appointment()
{
Revisions = new List<AppointmentRevision>();
}
}
public class AppointmentRevision
{
public List<Attendee> Attendees { get; set; }
}
When I serialized this, CurrentRevision was being serialized too. I'm not sure how, but when it was deserializing it was correctly keeping a single instance of the AppointmentRevision but creating duplicates in the Attendees list. The solution was to use the JsonIgnore attribute on the CurrentRevision property.
public class Appointment
{
public List<AppointmentRevision> Revisions { get; set; }
[JsonIgnore]
public AppointmentRevision CurrentRevision
{
get { return Revision.LastOrDefault(); }
}
public Appointment()
{
Revisions = new List<AppointmentRevision>();
}
}
How to apply ObjectCreationHandling.Replace to selected properties when deserializing JSON?
Turns out (I'm in 2019), you can set the list items in your constructor as you were doing in your question. I added the ObjectCreationHandling.Replace attribute above my declaration of the list, then serialising should replace anything stored in the list with the JSON.

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