Converting a JToken or string to a given Type

Question

TL DR Version  I have a object of type JToken  but can also be a string  and I need to convert it into a Type contained in the type variable   Type type   typeof DateTime      can be any other Type like string  ulong etc    var obj   jsonObject  date joined       contains 2012-08-13T06 01 23Z 05 00    var result   Some Way To Convert type  obj     The above result should be a DateTime object with the value given in date joined   Full Story  I m using both RestSharp and Json NET in a Windows Phone project and I m stuck while trying to deserialize JSON responses from a REST API   What I m actually trying to accomplish is to write a generic method that can easily map my JSON response into my CLR entities  much like you can do with RestSharp already  The only problem is that the default RestSharp implementation isn t working for me and it fails to successfully parse the JSON since the response doesn t always return all the properties  I don t return fields which are null from the REST server    That s why I decided to use Newtonsoft s Json NET since it has a much more powerful Json deserializing engine  Unfortunately  it doesn t support fuzzy property field names like RestSharp  or I haven t found any   so it also doesn t map correctly to my CLR entities when I use something like say JsonConvert DeserializeObject lt User gt  response Content     Here s what my Json looks like  an example actually           id    77239923       username     UzEE        email     uzee email net        name     Uzair Sajid        twitter screen name     UzEE        join date     2012-08-13T05 30 23Z05 00        timezone    5 5       access token               token     nkjanIUI8983nkSj     kjb K            scope       read    write    bake pies              expires    57723             friends                id    2347484            name     Bruce Wayne                        id    996236           name     Clark Kent             And here s an example of my CLR entities   class AccessToken        public string Token   get  set        public int Expires   get  set        public string   Scope   get  set        public string Secret   get  set       may not always be returned       class User       public ulong Id   get  set        public string UserName   get  set        public string Email   get  set        public string Name   get  set        public string TwitterScreenName   get  set        public DateTime JoinDate   get  set        public float Timezone   get  set        public bool IsOnline   get  set       another field that might be blank e g          public AccessToken AccessToken   get  set         public List lt User gt  Friends   get  set        What I want is a simple way to parse the above JSON into the given CLR objects  I ve looked around the RestSharp source code and have seen the JsonDeserializer code and I ve been able to write a generic extension method DeserializeResponse lt T gt  on JObject that should return a an object of type T  The intended use is something like this   var user   JObject Parse response Content  DeserializeResponse lt User gt       The above method should parse the given Json Response to a User entity object  Here s an actual code snippet of what I m doing in the DeserializeResponse lt User gt  extension method  its based on RestSharp code    public static T DeserializeResponse lt T gt  this JObject obj  where T   new         T result   new T        var props   typeof T  GetProperties   Where p   gt  p CanWrite  ToList        var objectDictionary   obj as IDictionary lt string  JToken gt        foreach  var prop in props                var name   prop Name GetNameVariants CultureInfo CurrentCulture  FirstOrDefault n   gt  objectDictionary ContainsKey n            var value   name    null   obj name    null           if  value    null  continue           var type   prop PropertyType           if  type IsGenericType  amp  amp  type GetGenericTypeDefinition      typeof Nullable lt  gt                          type   type GetGenericArguments   0                         This is a problem  I need a way to convert JToken value into an object of Type type         prop SetValue result  ConvertValue type  value   null               return result      I m guessing that the conversion should be a really straightforward thing to do since its a trivial task  But I ve been searching for a quite a while now and still haven t found a way to do it via Json NET  and lets be honest  the documentation is kinda though to understand and lacks some examples    Any help would really be appreciated

User · Answer

System Convert ChangeType jtoken ToString    targetType     or  JsonConvert DeserializeObject jtoken ToString    targetType     --EDIT--  Uzair  Here is a complete example just to show you they work  string json                 id     77239923            username       UzEE              email       uzee email net              name       Uzair Sajid              twitter screen name       UzEE              join date       2012-08-13T05 30 23Z05 00              timezone     5 5            access token                     token       nkjanIUI8983nkSj     kjb K                  scope         read      write      bake pies                    expires     57723                      friends                      id     2347484                name       Bruce Wayne                                      id     996236                name       Clark Kent                       var obj    JObject JsonConvert DeserializeObject json   Type type   typeof int   var i1   System Convert ChangeType obj  id   ToString    type   var i2   JsonConvert DeserializeObject obj  id   ToString    type

User · Answer

var i2   JsonConvert DeserializeObject obj  id   ToString    type     throws a parsing exception due to missing quotes around the first argument  I think   I got it to work by adding the quotes   var i2   JsonConvert DeserializeObject        obj  id   ToString           type

User · Answer

There is a ToObject method now   var obj   jsonObject  date joined    var result   obj ToObject lt DateTime gt       It also works with any complex type  and obey to JsonPropertyAttribute rules  var result   obj ToObject lt MyClass gt      public class MyClass          JsonProperty  date field        public DateTime MyDate  get set

User · Answer

I was able to convert using below method for my WebAPI    HttpPost  public HttpResponseMessage Post dynamic item     Passing parameter as dynamic   JArray itemArray   item  Region       You need to add JSON NET library JObject obj   itemArray 0  as JObject      Converting from JArray to JObject Region objRegion   obj ToObject lt Region gt        Converting to Region object

[c#] Converting a JToken (or string) to a given Type

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