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How to merge two json documents in json.net?

I'm not sure of the correct terminology as not overly knowledgeable about json. I have an existing json string/object of the following fixed format (i.e. all items are at the root level and of straightforward key/value pairs, although the number of items can vary):
{
"product_id": "1777",
"license_key": "ECHOES-SILENCE-PATIENCE-AND-GRACE",
"valid_for": "365",
"status": "active",
"times_activated_max": 1
}
I need a way to add a json string of varying schema/format that is passed into a method. This object can be of any json format. It's to be added to the root. For example adding this:
{
"name":"John",
"age":30,
"cars":["Ford", "BMW", "Fiat"]
}
..will become this:
{
"product_id": "1777",
"license_key": "ECHOES-SILENCE-PATIENCE-AND-GRACE",
"valid_for": "365",
"status": "active",
"times_activated_max": 1
"name":"John",
"age":30,
"cars":["Ford", "BMW", "Fiat"]
}
I have Newtonsoft.Json at my disposal for this.
I did read this but couldn't map it to my problem.
Hope someone can help

The JSON.NET documentation has an article just for that: Merging JSON. You can use JObject.Merge to merge two different objects into one:
JObject o1 = JObject.Parse(#"{
'FirstName': 'John',
'LastName': 'Smith',
'Enabled': false,
'Roles': [ 'User' ]
}");
JObject o2 = JObject.Parse(#"{
'Enabled': true,
'Roles': [ 'User', 'Admin' ]
}");
o1.Merge(o2, new JsonMergeSettings
{
// union array values together to avoid duplicates
MergeArrayHandling = MergeArrayHandling.Union
});
What you posted is two objects. A JSON document may be text, but what it contains are arrays and objects. "Merging" means finding a way to combine those objects/arrays and produce a new array or object.
Merge is defined by JContainer, the parent of both JObject and JArray. This means you can use Merge to merge both arrays and objects.
Another option with arrays is to use Enumerable.Union to combine the contents of both arrays, and create a new one :
var array1= JArray.Parse("[1,2,3]");
var array2= JArray.Parse("[3,4,5, \"a\"]");
var array3=new JArray(array1.Union(array2));
This returns [1,2,3,4,5,"a"]

Json.net uses the JObject type to represent arbitrary JSON objects. This has a handy Merge method for combining two JObjects.
Simply:
string s1 = #"
{
""product_id"": ""1777"",
""license_key"": ""ECHOES-SILENCE-PATIENCE-AND-GRACE"",
""valid_for"": ""365"",
""status"": ""active"",
""times_activated_max"": 1
}";
string s2 = #"
{
""name"":""John"",
""age"":30,
""cars"":[""Ford"", ""BMW"", ""Fiat""]
}";
JObject o1 = JObject.Parse(s1);
JObject o2 = JObject.Parse(s2);
o1.Merge(o2);
Console.WriteLine(o1);
See it here

Serializing a DataTable with byte[] column to json generate base64 string, but when deserialized, it generate a DataTable with string column

I have serialized a DataTable with f1 column as byte[]. The column is serialized to Base-64 string as given below:
[
{
"f1": "5hAAJEA=",
"f2": "hi_all",
"id": 1
},
{
"f1": "5hrwJEA=",
"f2": "hi world",
"id": 2
}
]
I used the following code to serialize the datatable with Json.Net:
var json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(dataTable, settings);
When deserializing the json string to a DataTable, a datatable object is generated with acolumn f1 as string (not byte[]) with the same value of base64 string.
I think that is expected because the datatable is a generic structure without schema.
I know that deserializing using list<Dto> with a property of type byte[] can restore the byte[], but that is not an option because I use the datatable for bulk insert in sql database and deserialization is done at runtime without pre-definition of Dto(POCO) class.
I can create a Typed DataTable from the table definition in the database.
I tried to use ByteJsonConverter ,but it can't help.
You can check the complete c# program online to show the problem:
with a complete trace for json serialization/deserialization process.
Update:
I used TypeNameHandling =TypeNameHandling.Objects, to keep data type in json and get json like:
[
{
"f1": {
"$type": "System.Byte[], mscorlib",
"$value": "5hAAJEA="
},
"f2": "hi all",
"id": 1
},
{
"f1": {
"$type": "System.Byte[], mscorlib",
"$value": "5hrwJEA="
},
"f2": "hi world",
"id": 2
}
]
Now f1 is of type System.Byte[] and it's supposed that DataTableConverter create column of type byte[] not string.
When i try to deserialize, an exception error is fired:
Unexpected JSON token when reading DataTable: StartObject. Path '[0].f1', line 3, position 11
It seems that DataTableConverter can't handle $type/$value pair.
Check the source code
My question:
How to resolve that error for DataTableConverter.
How to deserialize a json string with Base-64 string to byte[] column in the DataTable.

Can I use .NET Newtonsoft JSON package (with or without Linq) to deserialize this oddly formatted JSON response?

I receive this JSON response (but I'm not even sure if this is valid JSON. is it?):
"{\"fields\":\"Name,ParentName,Description,StartDate,EndDate,StartMinute,EndMinute\",\"pos\":0,\"start\":0,\"totalRecords\":1001881,\"data\":[[null,\"AAEC 3400 76142\",null,\"2014-05-15T00:00:00\",\"2014-05-15T00:00:00\",840,1050],[null,\"AAEC 3400 76142\",null,\"2014-05-28T00:00:00\",\"2014-05-28T00:00:00\",840,1050],[null,\"ACCT 5400 25030\",null,\"2014-01-08T00:00:00\",\"2014-01-08T00:00:00\",1215,1290],[null,\"ACCT 5400 25030\",null,\"2014-02-19T00:00:00\",\"2014-02-19T00:00:00\",1215,1290]]}"
Is it possible to deserialize this response and access particular values using Newtonsoft JSON package, with or without the LINQ namespace? Can I access specific values from the "data" key?
Currently, my approach is to manipulate this JSON response into regular JSON, so instead of just having a "fields" key and a "data" key followed by lists of values, I end up deserializing normal JSON key/value pairs (like "Name":"null", "ParentName":"AAEC 3400 76142\", . . . ). Then I can access each object in the list's values by key.
But is it possible to access specific values keeping the response the way it came, without parsing/manipulating it, using Newtonsoft JSON package with/without methods in LINQ namespace?
This is how I'm deserializing the json string that I parse/manipulated manually into normal JSON:
var myList = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<MyClass>>(json);
Then I can access values by key off of specific objects in the response by index:
String name = myList[0].Name;
But can I access the value of myList[0].Name without reformatting the JSON response into typical key:value pairs? Does Newtonsoft provide a way to access the value I want from the response the way it came?

Looks like that JSON has been double-serialized. I.e. some class was serialized as a JSON string, then that string was serialized as JSON again, causing JSON control characters including {,} and " characters to be escaped.
This is almost certainly a bug on the server side, you should try to get it fixed there. But if you cannot (for political reasons, say), you can check for this and work around it on the client side:
var token = JToken.Parse(json);
if (token.Type == JTokenType.String)
token = JToken.Parse((string)token);
var myList = token.ToObject<List<MyClass>>();
Update: your root JSON container is an object, not an array, so ToObject<List<MyClass>> won't work. The unwrapped JSON looks like:
{
"fields": "Name,ParentName,Description,StartDate,EndDate,StartMinute,EndMinute",
"pos": 0,
"start": 0,
"totalRecords": 1001881,
"data": [
[
null,
"AAEC 3400 76142",
null,
"2014-05-15T00:00:00",
"2014-05-15T00:00:00",
840,
1050
],
// More of the same
]
}
If you wanted to reformat that into a more traditional array of JSON objects, you could restructure your root JToken like so:
var token = JToken.Parse(json);
if (token.Type == JTokenType.String)
token = JToken.Parse((string)token);
var fields = (string)token.SelectToken("fields");
var fieldList = fields.Split(',');
var root = new JArray();
root.Add(token.SelectTokens("data[*]").OfType<JArray>().Select(a => new JObject(a.Zip(fieldList, (t, s) => new JProperty(s, t)))));
Debug.WriteLine(root);
With the result:
[
{
"Name": null,
"ParentName": "AAEC 3400 76142",
"Description": null,
"StartDate": "2014-05-15T00:00:00",
"EndDate": "2014-05-15T00:00:00",
"StartMinute": 840,
"EndMinute": 1050
},
// More of the same
]

Yes. It is straightforward and simple to deserialize a JSON response formatted in this way using the Newtonsoft JSON package with LINQ namespace. You don't have to manipulate the response string by hand. Set the JSON response string to a string object named "response", use JObject.Parse() to create a dynamic object "jobject", then you can access the "data" JSON key and set it to a JArray object. Then you can loop through each JToken in "jArray". Finally, get the values by their index in the JArray:
dynamic jobject = JObject.Parse(response);
JArray jArray = jobject.data;
foreach (JToken appointment in jArray)
{
parentName = appointment[1];
startMinute = appointment[5];
. . .
}

C# - JObject.Parse - Invalid JSON

I'm working with an API that is returning JSON.
I have a method that calls the api, and parses the JSON response for the desired nodes.
Up to this point everything has been working fine, except the latest JSON response appears to be malformed.
Other responses come back like:
{
"Keyword":"\"marhope\"",
"TermKey":null,
"Customers":[
{
"Memberships":[ ],
"CompanyId":0,
"ObjectId":112974,
"ObjectType":"Customer",
}
]
}
I use JObject.Parse to bring back the appropriate nodes by name.
The latest JSON response comes back as:
{
[
{
"AnimalId":9079117,
"SpeciesCode":"XX",
}
]
}
As you can see, there is no "name", and the JSON is slightly invalid.
How can I parse this. For the first example I was using the code below, but now that the JSON has no "name", I don't know how to approach this, thoughts?
JObject results = JObject.Parse(csr.SearchCustomer(1, 1, 870, term));
foreach (var resp in results["Customers"])
{
string obj = (string)resp["CompanyId"];
}

Jon Skeet is correct, the second JSON is invalid: you cannot have an array directly inside an object with no property name. The best course of action is to get the API developers to fix the JSON. However, if you're just looking for a quick and dirty workaround, you could strip off the the first and last brace from the invalid JSON and then parse it as an array using JArray.Parse.
string json = #"{
[
{
""AnimalId"":9079117,
""SpeciesCode"":""XX"",
}
]
}";
json = json.Substring(1, json.Length - 2);
JArray array = JArray.Parse(json);
foreach (JObject item in array.Children<JObject>())
{
Console.WriteLine("AnimalId: " + item["AnimalId"]);
Console.WriteLine("SpeciesCode: " + item["SpeciesCode"]);
}

converting graph api for xml

I'm having trouble converting a string of json facebook graph api, I used the facebook C# and json.Net.
But at conversion time it returns this error: Name can not begin with the '0 'character, hexadecimal value 0x30.
This is the code:
dynamic result = await _fb.GetTaskAsync ("me / feed");
FBxml JsonConvert.DeserializeXNode string = (result.ToString ()). ToString ();

It looks like there is a problem with portion of the json string as mentioned below (taken from your link http://jsfiddle.net/btripoloni/PaLC2/)
"story_tags": {
"0": [{
"id": "100000866891334",
"name": "Bruno Tripoloni",
"offset": 0,
"length": 15,
"type": "user"}]
},
Json cannot create class that begins with a numeric value such as '0'. Try creating the classes using the link http://json2csharp.com/ you will get an idea.
To solve this problem you can create a dynamic object and go through each properties OR create a JsonConverter and write your code in the ReadJson to convert the "0" to a meaningful name. May be this can help you http://blog.maskalik.com/asp-net/json-net-implement-custom-serialization
If this is not your problem then update the question with more information like class structure of FBxml, call stack of the exception (from which line of the json code is throwing the exception), Json version etc.

As keyr says, the problem is with those JSON properties that have numeric names. In XML names can contain numeric characters but cannot begin with one: XML (see the Well-formedness and error-handling section).
My idea was to recursively parse the JSON with JSON.Net, replacing properties that had numeric names:
var jsonObject = JObject.Parse(json);
foreach (var obj in jsonObject)
{
Process(obj.Value);
}
XDocument document = JsonConvert.DeserializeXNode(jsonObject.ToString());
....
private static void Process(JToken jToken)
{
if (jToken.Type == JTokenType.Property)
{
JProperty property = jToken as JProperty;
int value;
if (int.TryParse(property.Name, out value))
{
JToken token = new JProperty("_" + property.Name, property.Value);
jToken.Replace(token);
}
}
if (jToken.HasValues)
{
//foreach won't work here as the call to jToken.Replace(token) above
//results in the collection modifed error.
for(int i = 0; i < jToken.Values().Count(); i++)
{
JToken obj = jToken.Values().ElementAt(i);
Process(obj);
}
}
}
This seemed to work well, prefixing numeric names with _. At this line:
XDocument document = JsonConvert.DeserializeXNode(jsonObject.ToString());
it crashed with an error saying that invalid/not well formed XML had been created. I don't have the actual error with me, but you can run the above code to replicate it.
I think from here you may need to revisit converting the JSON to XML in the first place. Is this a specific requirement?