I'm using System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer() to serialize dictionary object into JSON string. I need to send this JSON string to API sitting in the cloud. However, when we serialize it, serializer replaces all the double quotes with \"
For example -
Ideal json_string = {"k":"json", "data":"yeehaw"}
Serializer messed up json_string = {\"k\":\"json\",\"data\":\"yeehaw\" }
Any idea why it is doing so? And I also used external packages like json.net but it still doesn't fix the issues.
Code -
Dictionary<string, string> json_value = new Dictionary<string, string>();
json_value.Add("k", "json");
json_value.Add("data", "yeehaw");
var jsonSerializer = new System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer();
string json_string = jsonSerializer.Serialize(json_value);
I'm going to hazard the guess that you're looking in the IDE at a breakpoint. In which case, there is no problem here. What you are seeing is perfectly valid JSON; simply the IDE is using the escaped string notation to display it to you. The contents of the string, however, are your "ideal" string. It uses the escaped version for various reasons:
so that you can correctly see and identify non-text characters like tab, carriage-return, new-line, etc
so that strings with lots of newlines can be displayed in a horizontal-based view
so that it can be clear that it is a string, i.e. "foo with \" a quote in" (the outer-quotes tell you it is a string; if the inner quote wasn't escaped it would be confusing)
so that you can copy/paste the value into the editor or immediate-window (etc) without having to add escaping yourself
Make sure you're not double serializating the object. It happened to me some days ago.
What you're seeing is a escape character
Your JSON is a String and when you want to have " in a string you must use one of the following:
string alias = #"My alias is ""Tx3""";
or
string alias = "My alias is \"Tx3\"";
Update
Just to clarify. What I wanted say here is that your JSON is perfectly valid. You're seeing the special characters in the IDE and that is perfectly normal like Jon & Marc are pointing in their answers and comments. Problem lies somewhere else than those \ characters.
Related
I'm getting some JSON for an outside source that can't be changed and apparently they don't understand the rules about escaping characters correctly in JSON string values. So they have a string value that might have tabs in it, for example, that should have been escaped and other invalid escape sequences like \$. I'm trying to parse this with JSON.Net but it keeps falling over on these sequences.
For example, the source might look something like this:
{
"someRegularProp": 10,
"aNormalString": "foo bar etc",
"anInvalidString": "foo <tab \$100"
}
and it's parsed with
var obj = JObject.Parse(json);
So I can fix this specific case with something like:
json = json.Replace("\t", "").Replace("\\$", "$"); // note: in this case I'm fine with just stripping the tabs out
But is there a general way to fix these problems to remove invalid escape sequences before parsing? Because I don't know what other invalid sequences they might put in there?
I don't see general way. Obviously they are using bugged library or no library at all to generate this output and unless you explore more, all you can do is try as much output from them as possible to find all problems.
Perhaps make a script to generate as much output as possible and validate all of that, then you can be at least a bit more sure.
I have a string where I need to use as the body of a JSON object. I know its possible that the data could have quotes in it, so I parse through to add an escape character to those instance of quotes.. like so:
string NewComment = comment.Replace("\"", "\\\"");
However, somehow on some edgecases, a quote still makes it through. I don't know if this is something with UTF or some other issue, But I am trying to find a function that would safely create a json compatible string, I figured there has to be something like this out there, or a regex way of doing so.
Basically a TLDR is how to create a json syntax safe string from a c# string
The simple answer is don't do it this way. What if you have escaped quotes in your string? "Hello \"World\"" would become invalid with such a simple approach: "Hello \\"World\\"". JSON.Net or Newtonsoft are going to save you so many headaches in the long run.
JsonSerializer serializer = new JsonSerializer();
var query = (from item in UserDevices
select new Device
{
Device_SN= item.Device_SN,
Device_ID= item.Device_ID
}).ToList();
The response I get
"{"GetUserDevicesResult":"[{\"Device_ID\":1,\"Device_SN\":\"1504111\",\"User_Devices\":[]}"}"
Is there is a way to remove the \ and not doing manipulations of replace?
Take a look at this question:
How to remove escape characters from a JSON String
I think you have serialization issue similar to the problem described above.
Please note that JSON inherits JS notation when representing special characters and punctuations, thus the escape sequence rule also applies on .json file.
If you want to deserialize JSON data without "\" escape sequence character in C#, call JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>(jsonstringdata).
CMIIW.
Here is my prob, I wanted String.Format() function should take 4 objects and format string. But it throws "Input string not in a correct format error".
Here is my code,
string jsonData = string.Format("{{\"sectionTitle\":\"{0}\",\"strPushMsg\":\"{1}\",\"Language\":\"{2}\",}\",\"articleid\":\"{3}\"}}", urlsectiontitle, formatHeadline, Language, articleid);
\"{2}\",}\"
Looks like you need to escape that closing brace by doubling it:
string.Format("{{\"sectionTitle\":\"{0}\",\"strPushMsg\":\"{1}\",\"Language\":\"{2}\",}}\",\"articleid\":\"{3}\"}}", urlsectiontitle, formatHeadline, Language, articleid);
It appears you are creating JSON. This can use single quotes (which would avoid all the escaping), but even better use a tool like JSON.Net designed to create JSON. While your (partial) structure here is quite small (the unmatched } shows this is only partial), and the JSON gets bigger it is much easier to use a tool to get it right.
I've got a bit of a weird one here (well I think that it's weird!).
I'm using a web service to return a string and I'm trying to put quotes inside the string so say for instance I want to return the string Craig says, "hello" I would normally do something like:
zString = "Craig says, \"Hello\"";
but what I'm actually getting back from the webservice is the string including the \'s. So I actually get back:
Craig says, \"Hello\"
This is driving me loopy! Any ideas anyone? Could this declaration at the start be causing the problem?
[WebMethod]
[ScriptMethod(ResponseFormat = ResponseFormat.Json)]
Thanks,
Craig
That a json string inside an json output, so you need to parse it twice.
RFC 4627:
All Unicode characters may be placed within the
quotation marks except for the characters that must be escaped:
quotation mark, reverse solidus, and the control characters (U+0000
through U+001F).
This simply means that nothing is wrong. The character is being escaped according to the json standard.
Yes. Being in JSON format, it also escapes the " characters by using \ when returned.
It's the same as:
{
"zString": "Craig says, \"Hello\""
}