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C# getting MongoDB BsonDocument to return as JSON

I asked a question a couple of days ago to collect data from MongoDB as a tree.
MongoDB create an array within an array
I am a newbie to MongoDB, but have used JSON quite substantially. I thought using a MongoDB to store my JSON would be a great benefit, but I am just experiencing immense frustration.
I am using .NET 4.5.2
I have tried a number of ways to return the output from my aggregate query to my page.
public JsonResult GetFolders()
{
IMongoCollection<BsonDocument> collection = database.GetCollection<BsonDocument>("DataStore");
PipelineDefinition<BsonDocument, BsonDocument> treeDocs = new BsonDocument[]
{
// my query, which is a series of new BsonDocument
}
var documentGroup = collection.Aggregate(treeDocs).ToList();
// Here, I have tried to add it to a JsonResult Data,
// as both documentGroup alone and documentGroup.ToJson()
// Also, loop through and add it to a List and return as a JsonResult
// Also, attempted to serialise, and even change the JsonWriterSettings.
}
When I look in the Immediate Window at documentGroup, it looks exactly like Json, but when I send to browser, it is an escaped string, with \" surrounding all my keys and values.
I have attempted to create a model...
public class FolderTree
{
public string id { get; set; }
public string text { get; set; }
public List<FolderTree> children { get; set; }
}
then loop through the documentGroup
foreach(var docItem in documentGroup)
{
myDocs.Add(BsonSerializer.Deserialize<FolderTree>(docItem));
}
but Bson complains that it cannot convert int to string. (I have to have text and id as a string, as some of the items are strings)
How do I get my MongoDB data output as Json, and delivered to my browser as Json?
Thanks for your assistance.
========= EDIT ===========
I have attempted to follow this answer as suggested by Yong Shun below, https://stackoverflow.com/a/43220477/4541217 but this failed.
I had issues, that the "id" was not all the way through the tree, so I changed the folder tree to be...
public class FolderTree
{
//[BsonSerializer(typeof(FolderTreeObjectTypeSerializer))]
//public string id { get; set; }
[BsonSerializer(typeof(FolderTreeObjectTypeSerializer))]
public string text { get; set; }
public List<FolderTreeChildren> children { get; set; }
}
public class FolderTreeChildren
{
[BsonSerializer(typeof(FolderTreeObjectTypeSerializer))]
public string text { get; set; }
public List<FolderTreeChildren> children { get; set; }
}
Now, when I look at documentGroup, I see...
[0]: {Plugins.Models.FolderTree}
[1]: {Plugins.Models.FolderTree}
To be fair to sbc in the comments, I have made so many changes to get this to work, that I can't remember the code I had that generated it.
Because I could not send direct, my json result was handled as...
JsonResult json = new JsonResult();
json.Data = documentGroup;
//json.Data = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(documentGroup);
json.JsonRequestBehavior = JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet;
return json;
Note, that I also tried to send it as...
json.Data = documentGroup.ToJson();
json.Data = documentGroup.ToList();
json.Data = documentGroup.ToString();
all with varying failures.
If I leave as documentGroup, I get {Current: null, WasFirstBatchEmpty: false, PostBatchResumeToken: null}
If I do .ToJson(), I get "{ \"_t\" : \"AsyncCursor`1\" }"
If I do .ToList(), I get what looks like Json in json.Data, but get an error of Unable to cast object of type 'MongoDB.Bson.BsonInt32' to type 'MongoDB.Bson.BsonBoolean'.
If I do .ToString(), I get "MongoDB.Driver.Core.Operations.AsyncCursor`1[MongoDB.Bson.BsonDocument]"
=========== EDIT 2 =================
As this way of extracting the data from MongoDB doesn't want to work, how else can I make it work?
I am using C# MVC4. (.NET 4.5.2)
I need to deliver json to the browser, hence why I am using a JsonResult return type.
I need to use an aggregate to collect from MongoDB in the format I need it.
My Newtonsoft.Json version is 11.0.2
My MongoDB.Driver is version 2.11.1
My method is the simplest it can be.
What am I missing?

Using a REST Api, how to include "any kind of json" in my typed request model?

I am using .NET Framework and ASP.NET Core to create a REST web Api.
This web api has a call that gets a request model to save data and some call that later retrieves the data.
Most of the data is structured information I need in the backend and it is saved into different fields and tables in the database. On retrieval it is loaded from those tables and returned.
This all works.
However, I now have a requirement where the caller wants to save and later retrieve arbitrary data (lets just say a random json) as one of those fields. I can save and load json from the database that is not a problem, my problem is to build the web api model for my request.
[HttpPost]
public IActionResult Save([FromBody] ApiCallRequestModel request)
{
// ...
}
public sealed class ApiCallRequestModel
{
// structured, well known information
public int? MaybeSomeNumber { get; set; }
[Required]
public string SomeText { get; set; }
[Required]
public SubModel SomeData { get; set; }
// one field of unknown json data
public ??? CustomData { get; set; }
}
I could think of dynamic or maybe even ExpandoObject or JObject to try and I might, but I would like a solution that works because it's best practice, not just because I tried and it didn't fail today with my simple tests.
If everything else fails, I could just make the field a string and tell the client to put serialized json into it. But that's a workaround I would see as a last resort if this question yields no answers.
It has proven to be extremly hard to google this topic, since all words I would use lead me to pages explaining Json serialization of my request model itself. I know how that works and it's not a problem. The mix of structured data and free json is what I cannot find out from a somewhat authorative source.
So what type would you use here, what is the best practice for receiving arbitrary json in one property of your model?

So to sum this up, as suggested I used a JToken from the Json.NET nuget package, since I already had that package in my project.
[HttpPost]
public IActionResult Save([FromBody] ApiCallRequestModel request)
{
// ...
}
public sealed class ApiCallRequestModel
{
// structured, well known information
public int? MaybeSomeNumber { get; set; }
[Required]
public string SomeText { get; set; }
[Required]
public SubModel SomeData { get; set; }
// one field of unknown json data
public JToken CustomData { get; set; }
}
Works like a charm.

consume JSON from webhook in C#

Hi I'm looking to create a simple webhook receiver and dump the data into a table.
This is for receiving SMS using Zipwhip. Zipwhip will send a post with JSON.
Need to receive the JSON and process.
What is a simple way to accomplish this.
Thanks in advance.

In ServiceStack your callback would just need to match the shape of your Response DTO, e.g:
[Route("/path/to/callback")]
public class CorpNotes
{
public int Departments { get; set; }
public string Note { get; set; }
public DateTime WeekEnding { get; set; }
}
// Example of OrmLite POCO Data Model
public class MyTable {}
public class MyServices : Service
{
public object Any(CorpNotes request)
{
//...
Db.Insert(request.ConvertTo<MyTable>());
}
}
Example uses Auto Mapping Utils to populate your OrmLite POCO datamodel, you may want to do additional processing before saving the data model.
If the callback can send arbitrary JSON Responses in the payload you can use an object property to accept arbitrary JSON however we'd recommend using Typed DTOs wherever possible.

This can be what the receiving method in your controller can look like on the receiving side. Make sure that your receiving and sending json object match.
[HttpPost]
[Route("Edit")]
public JsonResult Edit([FromBody] CorpNotes newMessage)
{return Json(TotalWeekNoteSearch);}
public class CorpNotes
{
public int Departments { get; set; }
public string Note { get; set; }
public DateTime WeekEnding { get; set; }
}
I am actually working on a .net project receiving Json from a Angular front end, so this should be the same concept. Also make sure that what you are receiving is truly a workable object such as.
{Departments: 4, Note: "This is notes 2020Q1W13", WeekEnding: "2020-01-25T00:00:00"}
Also try looking into this example which would be helpful in regards to webhooks.
public class MyWebHookHandler : WebHookHandler
{
public MyWebHookHandler()
{
this.Receiver = "custom";
}
public override Task ExecuteAsync(string generator, WebHookHandlerContext context)
{
CustomNotifications notifications = context.GetDataOrDefault<CustomNotifications>();
foreach (var notification in notifications.Notifications)
{
...
}
return Task.FromResult(true);
}
}
The type of the data is typically JSON or HTML form data, but it is possible to cast to a more specific type if desired.

Backendless c# desktop application saving data but by empty or null values

I have a desktop app written in c# and I added app id and key id
and used this code to add data to database but the data is always empty or null.
var film = new Film();
film.setName(“soooft”);
film.setGenre(“aaa”);
film.setPlot(“fdgveqw”);
film.setUrl(“gdfwrw”);
var f = Backendless.Data.Of<Film>().Save(film);

I googled Backendless and it's a third-party solution. (See https://github.com/Backendless/.NET-SDK)
Usage gets explained at https://backendless.com/docs/dotnet/data_data_object.html
But I'm suspicious about why you use setName(), setGenre(), setPlot and setUrl in your code. Seems your Film class is missing properties. I would expect you'd be writing this instead:
var film = new Film();
film.Name = “soooft”;
film.Genre = “aaa”;
film.Plot = “fdgveqw”;
film.Url = “gdfwrw”;
But that would mean those fields are declared as public properties in your class like this:
public class Film
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Genre { get; set; }
public string Plot { get; set; }
public string Url { get; set; }
}
So I don't know why you have those setName and other methods. The Backendless API specifies that these fields need to be public properties so it can read them through reflection. Your code seems to suggests that they're not proper properties as indicated by their example and my code of the Film() class.

Make sure to use public get/set properties instead of private fields and the data will be saved properly.

Windows Console Applications VS2105 C# - Using JSON Data

I have at times made it my life's work to avoid API's at all costs (that's a debate for another day) but the time is arriving for this to change, a few months ago I got started on creating an API for my applications, and thanks to this very website, it's worked a charm.
So now I'm creating a simple Windows Console Application, it should do nothing more than get API Data then submit to a database for the primary application to use at a later date.
So far so good or so I thought.
This is what I came up with:
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string pair = "xxx/xxx";
string apiUrl = "http://someURL" + pair;
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(apiUrl);
HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
Stream responseStream = response.GetResponseStream();
StreamReader readerStream = new StreamReader(responseStream, System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding("utf-8"));
string json = readerStream.ReadToEnd();
readerStream.Close();
var jo = JObject.Parse(json);
Console.WriteLine("Pair : " + (string)jo["pair"]);
Console.WriteLine("Open : " + (string)jo["openPrice"]);
Console.WriteLine("Close : " + (string)jo["closePrice"]);
Console.WriteLine("Vol : " + (string)jo["vol"]);
Console.ReadKey();
}
Now this works FANTASTIC for the primary source, but when I change the source (eventually it will be multi source) it fails to work.
After some investigation, it seems the slightly different responses are the culprit.
API Return looks like this
{
"ip":"1.1.1.1","country_code":"AU","country_name":"Australia",
"region_code":"VIC","region_name":"Victoria","city":"Research",
"zip_code":"3095","time_zone":"Australia/Melbourne","latitude":-37.7,
"longitude":145.1833,"metro_code":0
}
The return for an alternative source looks like this
{
"success":true,"message":"",
"result":[
{"MarketName":"BITCNY-BTC","High":8000.00000001,"Low":7000.00000000,
"Volume":0.02672075, "Last":7000.00000000,"BaseVolume":213.34995000,
"TimeStamp":"2017-02-09T08:38:22.62","Bid":7000.00000001,"Ask":9999.99999999,
"OpenBuyOrders":14,
"OpenSellOrders":20,"PrevDay":8000.00000001,"Created":"2015-12-11T06:31:40.653"
}
]
}
As we can see the second return is structured differently, and for this feed I've been unable to work this out, clearly my code works, kind of, and clearly it doesn't.
I've looked about on the net and am still no closer to a solution, partly I don't know what I'm really asking and secondly google only wants to talk webAPI.
If there is someone who can point me in the right direction, I don't want the work done for me per say that solves nothing, I have got to learn to do this one way or another.

As mentioned in the comments, your strings are unrelated. You won't be able to perform the same actions on both JSON strings because they're different.
Your best bet is to work with Deserialization to objects, which is converting a JSON string into an object and working with properties instead of JObject literals.
Putting your first JSON string into Json2Csharp.com, this class structure was produced:
public class RootObject
{
public string ip { get; set; }
public string country_code { get; set; }
public string country_name { get; set; }
public string region_code { get; set; }
public string region_name { get; set; }
public string city { get; set; }
public string zip_code { get; set; }
public string time_zone { get; set; }
public double latitude { get; set; }
public double longitude { get; set; }
public int metro_code { get; set; }
}
You could then make some adjustments to your code to extract the HTTP request functionality, assuming that you'll only be working with JSON strings in this instance, and then simply deserialized the JSON to an object.
An example of a WebRequest() method would be:
private static string WebRequest(string UrlToQuery)
{
using(WebClient client = new WebClient)
{
return client.DownloadString(UrlToQuery);
}
}
(Make sure you catch any errors and deal with unexpected responses, I'll leave that up to you!)
You can then call this method like so:
string JsonResponse = WebRequest(apiUrl);
and deserialize to an object of type RootObject like so:
RootObject deserializedString = JsonConvert.Deserialize<RootObject>(JsonResponse);
You'll then be able to perform something like:
Console.WriteLine($"Country name: {deserializedString.country_name}");
Which will print the value of the country_name property of your deserializedString object.