Deserializing JSON array into strongly typed NET object

Question

When I can call the 3rd party api and get back a single class worth of data everything deserialises fine using this code   TheUser me   jsonSerializer Deserialize response  typeof TheUser   as TheUser   The problem comes when I try and deserialise JSON response content that is an array  such as         data                       name    A Jones             id    500015763                             name    B Smith             id    504986213                             name    C Brown             id    509034361                   I can only get the serialization to work if I use a custom wrapping class around the  data  member and that member needs to be of type List lt object gt   If it have them as type List lt TheUser gt  I get ArgumentException from the JsonParser DesializeType method   I originally tried to serialise without a wrapping type like this  List lt TheUser gt  freinds   jsonSerializer Deserialize response  typeof List lt TheUser gt    as List lt TheUser gt     but that just returns me an empty collection  Surely I must be able to have the array deserialize to a strongly typed list

User · Accepted Answer

Afer looking at the source  for WP7 Hammock doesn t actually use Json Net for JSON parsing  Instead it uses it s own parser which doesn t cope with custom types very well   If using Json Net directly it is possible to deserialize to a strongly typed collection inside a wrapper object   var response                      data                                      name      A Jones                      id      500015763                                                  name      B Smith                      id      504986213                                                  name      C Brown                      id      509034361                                     var des    MyClass Newtonsoft Json JsonConvert DeserializeObject response  typeof MyClass     return des data Count ToString      and with   public class MyClass       public List lt User gt  data   get  set       public class User       public string name   get  set        public string id   get  set        Having to create the extra object with the data property is annoying but that s a consequence of the way the JSON formatted object is constructed   Documentation  Serializing and Deserializing JSON

User · Answer

Json NET - Documentation  http   james newtonking com json help index html topic html SelectToken htm  Interpretation for the author  var o   JObject Parse response   var a   o SelectToken  data   Select jt   gt  jt ToObject lt TheUser gt     ToList

User · Answer

I like this approach  it is visual for me   using  var webClient   new WebClient                    var response   webClient DownloadString url             JObject result   JObject Parse response             var users   result SelectToken  data                 List lt User gt  userList   JsonConvert DeserializeObject lt List lt User gt  gt  users ToString

User · Answer

try  List lt TheUser gt  friends   jsonSerializer Deserialize lt List lt TheUser gt  gt  response

User · Answer

This worked for me for deserializing JSON into an array of objects   List lt TheUser gt  friends   JsonConvert DeserializeObject lt List lt TheUser gt  gt  response

User · Answer

This solution seems to work for me and gets around having to code a bunch of classes with  Data  in them   public interface IDataResponse lt T gt  where T   class       List lt T gt  Data   get  set       public class DataResponse lt T gt    IDataResponse lt T gt  where T   class       JsonProperty  data       public List lt T gt  Data   get  set        I should have included this to begin with  here is an example method using the above   public List lt TheUser gt  GetUser         var results   GetUserJson        var userList   JsonConvert DeserializeObject lt DataResponse lt TheUser gt  gt  results ToString          return userList Data ToList

User · Answer

Pat  the json structure looks very familiar to a problem i described here - The answer for me was to treat the json representation as a Dictionary lt TKey  TValue gt   even though there was only 1 entry   If I am correct your key is of type string and the value of a List lt T gt  where T represents the class  TheUser   HTH  PS - if you want better serialisation perf check out using Silverlight Serializer  you ll need to build a WP7 version  Shameless plug - I wrote a blog post about this

User · Answer

I suspect the problem is because the json represents an object with the list of users as a property  Try deserializing to something like   public class UsersResponse       public List lt User gt  Data   get  set

[c#] Deserializing JSON array into strongly typed .NET object

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