Deserializing JSON to NET object using Newtonsoft or LINQ to JSON maybe

Question

I know there are a few posts about Newtonsoft so hopefully this isn t exactly a repeat   I m trying to convert JSON data returned by Kazaa s API into a nice object of some kind  WebClient client   new WebClient    Stream stream   client OpenRead  http   api kazaa com api v1 search json q muse amp type Album    StreamReader reader   new StreamReader stream    List lt string gt  list   Newtonsoft Json JsonConvert DeserializeObject lt List lt string gt  gt  reader Read   ToString      foreach  string item in list        Console WriteLine item        Console WriteLine reader ReadLine     stream Close      That JsonConvert line is just the most recent one I was trying   I m not quite getting it and was hoping to eliminate some footwork by asking you guys  I was originally trying to convert it into a Dictionary or something   and actually  I just need to snag a couple of values in there so judging by the documentation  maybe Newtonsoft s LINQ to JSON might be a better choice  Thoughts Links   Here is an example of the JSON return data        page   1     total pages   8     total entries   74     q    muse      albums                  name    Muse          permalink    Muse          cover image url    http   image kazaa com images 69 01672812 1569 Yaron Herman Trio Muse Yaron Herman Trio-Muse 1 jpg          id   93098         artist name    Yaron Herman Trio                      name    Muse          permalink    Muse          cover image url    htt p   image kazaa com images 54 888880301154 Candy Lo Muse Candy Lo-Muse 1 jpg          i d   102702         artist name     u76e7 u5de7 u97f3                      name    Absolution          permalink     Absolution          cover image url    http   image kazaa com images 65 093624873365 Mus e Absolution Muse-Absolution 1 jpg          id   48896         artist name    Muse                      name    Ab solution          permalink    Absolution-2          cover image url    http   image kazaa com i mages 20 825646911820 Muse Absolution Muse-Absolution 1 jpg          id   118573         artist  name    Muse                      name    Black Holes And Revelations          permalink    Black-Holes-An d-Revelations          cover image url    http   image kazaa com images 66 093624428466  Muse Black Holes And Revelations Muse-Black Holes And Revelations 1 jpg          id   48813         artist name    Muse                      name    Black Holes And Revelations          permalink    Bla ck-Holes-And-Revelations-2          cover image url    http   image kazaa com images 86  825646911486 Muse Black Holes And Revelations Muse-Black Holes And Revelations 1  jpg          id   118543         artist name    Muse                      name    Origin Of Symmetry          permalink    Origin-Of-Symmetry          cover image url    http   image kazaa com images 29 825646 912629 Muse Origin Of Symmetry Muse-Origin Of Symmetry 1 jpg          id   120491         artis t name    Muse                      name    Showbiz          permalink    Showbiz          cover image url    http    image kazaa com images 68 825646182268 Muse Showbiz Muse-Showbiz 1 jpg          id   60444         artist name    Muse                      name    Showbiz          permalink    Showbiz-2          cover imag e url    http   image kazaa com images 50 825646912650 Muse Showbiz Muse-Showbiz  1 jpg          id   118545         artist name    Muse                      name    The Resistance          permalink    T he-Resistance          cover image url    http   image kazaa com images 36 825646864836  Muse The Resistance Muse-The Resistance 1 jpg          id   121171         artist name    Muse                per page   10       I did some more reading and found Newtonsoft s LINQ to JSON is exactly what I wanted   using WebClient  Stream  StreamReader  and Newtonsoft   I can hit Kazaa for JSON data  extract a URL  download the file  and do it all in like seven lines of code  I love it   WebClient client   new WebClient    Stream stream   client OpenRead  http   api kazaa com api v1 search json q muse amp type Album    StreamReader reader   new StreamReader stream    Newtonsoft Json Linq JObject jObject   Newtonsoft Json Linq JObject Parse reader ReadLine         Instead of WriteLine  2 or 3 lines of code here using WebClient to download the file Console WriteLine  string jObject  albums   0   cover image url     stream Close        This post gets so many hits I thought it might be helpful to include the  using  bits that are discussed in the comments   using var client   new WebClient    using var stream   client OpenRead  http   api kazaa com api v1 search json q muse amp type Album    using  var reader   new StreamReader stream         var jObject   Newtonsoft Json Linq JObject Parse reader ReadLine         Console WriteLine  string  jObject  albums   0   cover image url

User · Answer

You can use the C  dynamic type to make things easier  This technique also makes re-factoring simpler as it does not rely on magic-strings   JSON  The JSON string below is a simple response from an HTTP API call  and it defines two properties  Id and Name     Id   1   Name    biofractal     C   Use JsonConvert DeserializeObject lt dynamic gt    to deserialize this string into a dynamic type then simply access its properties in the usual way   dynamic results   JsonConvert DeserializeObject lt dynamic gt  json   var id   results Id  var name  results Name    If you specify the type of the results variable as dynamic  instead of using the var keyword  then the property values will correctly deserialize  e g  Id to an int and not a JValue  thanks to GFoley83 for the comment below    Note  The NuGet link for the Newtonsoft assembly is http   nuget org packages newtonsoft json   Package  You can also add the package with nuget live installer  with your project opened just do browse package and then just install it install  unistall  update  it will just be added to your project under Dependencies NuGet

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Deserializing using  JsonConvert DeserializeObject   function public class ApiValues                JsonProperty  quot Address quot            public string Address   get  set              JsonProperty  quot BaseUrl quot            public string BaseUrl  get  set           var json            quot Address quot   quot some-address quot        quot BaseUrl quot   quot some-url-value quot      var values   JsonConvert DeserializeObject lt ApiValues gt  json

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Fairly late to this party  but I came across this issue myself today at work  Here is how I solved the issue   I was accessing a 3rd party API to retrieve a list of books  The object returned a massive JSON object containing roughly 20  fields  of which I only needed the ID as a List string object  I used linq on the dynamic object to retrieve the specific field I needed and then inserted it into my List string  object   dynamic content   JsonConvert DeserializeObject requestContent   var contentCodes     IEnumerable lt dynamic gt  content  Where p   gt  p  id    null  Select p  gt p  id  ToList     List lt string gt  codes   new List lt string gt      foreach  var code in contentCodes        codes Add code  ToString

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If you just need to get a few items from the JSON object  I would use Json NET s LINQ to JSON JObject class  For example   JToken token   JObject Parse stringFullOfJson    int page    int token SelectToken  page    int totalPages    int token SelectToken  total pages      I like this approach because you don t need to fully deserialize the JSON object  This comes in handy with APIs that can sometimes surprise you with missing object properties  like Twitter   Documentation  Serializing and Deserializing JSON with Json NET and LINQ to JSON with Json NET

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Correct me if I m mistaken  but the previous example  I believe  is just slightly out of sync with the latest version of James Newton s Json NET library   var o   JObject Parse stringFullOfJson   var page    int o  page    var totalPages    int o  total pages

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If  like me  you prefer to deal with strongly typed objects   go with   MyObj obj    JsonConvert DeserializeObject lt MyObj gt  jsonString     This way you get to use intellisense and compile time type error checking   You can easily create the required objects by copying your JSON into memory and pasting it as JSON objects  Visual Studio -  Edit -  Paste Special -  Paste JSON as Classes    See here if you don t have that option in Visual Studio   You will also need to make sure your JSON is valid  Add your own object at the start if it is just an array of objects  i e    obj                  I know that dynamic makes things easier sometimes but I m a bit ol skool with this

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I like this method   using Newtonsoft Json Linq     jsonString is your JSON-formatted string JObject jsonObj   JObject Parse jsonString   Dictionary lt string  object gt  dictObj   jsonObj ToObject lt Dictionary lt string  object gt  gt       You can now access anything you want using the dictObj as a dictionary  You can also use Dictionary lt string  string gt  if you prefer to get the values as strings   You can use this same method to cast as any kind of  NET object

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i craeted an Extionclass for json     public static class JsonExtentions               public static string SerializeToJson this object SourceObject    return Newtonsoft Json JsonConvert SerializeObject SourceObject               public static T JsonToObject lt T gt  this string JsonString    return  T Newtonsoft Json JsonConvert DeserializeObject lt T gt  JsonString         Design-Pattern    public class Myobject               public Myobject             public string prop1   get  set             public static Myobject  GetObject string JsonString  return  JsonExtentions JsonToObject lt Myobject gt  JsonString            public  string ToJson string JsonString  return JsonExtentions SerializeToJson this            Usage      Myobject dd  Myobject GetObject jsonstring                     Console WriteLine dd prop1

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Dynamic List Loosely Typed - Deserialize and read the values     First serializing dynamic collection   new   stud   stud datatable       The stud datable is the list or data table string jsonString   JsonConvert SerializeObject collection        Second Deserializing dynamic StudList   JsonConvert DeserializeObject jsonString    var stud   StudList stud  foreach  var detail in stud        var Address   detail  stud address       Access Address data

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Finally Get State Name From JSON  Thankyou   Imports System Imports System Text Imports System IO Imports System Net Imports Newtonsoft Json Imports Newtonsoft Json Linq Imports System collections generic  Public Module Module1     Public Sub Main             Dim url As String    http   maps google com maps api geocode json amp address attur salem amp sensor false              Dim request As WebRequest   WebRequest Create url          dim response As WebResponse   DirectCast request GetResponse    HttpWebResponse          dim reader As New StreamReader response GetResponseStream    Encoding UTF8            Dim dataString As String   reader ReadToEnd            Dim getResponse As JObject   JObject Parse dataString           Dim dictObj As Dictionary Of String  Object    getResponse ToObject Of Dictionary Of String  Object              Get State Name         Console WriteLine CStr dictObj  results   0   address components   2   long name         End Sub End Module

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With the dynamic keyword  it becomes really easy to parse any object of this kind   dynamic x   Newtonsoft Json JsonConvert DeserializeObject jsonString   var page   x page  var total pages   x total pages var albums   x albums  foreach var album in albums        var albumName   album name          Access album data

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Also  if you re just looking for a specific value nested within the JSON content you can do something like so   yourJObject GetValue  jsonObjectName   Value lt string gt   jsonPropertyName      And so on from there   This could help if you don t want to bear the cost of converting the entire JSON into a C  object

[c#] Deserializing JSON to .NET object using Newtonsoft (or LINQ to JSON maybe?)

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