Deserializing a JSON with variable name/value pairs into object in C#

Question

I am using C# .NET 4.0 to parse a JSON into a custom object. I am using JavaScriptSerializer.Deserialize to map it to a class that I wrote. Problem is, the JSON's name/value pairs are not static and vary depending on the argument isChain, as seen in this JSON fragment (better link at bottom):

{
   "STATE_WALK_LEFT":{
      "isChain":"1",
      "x":"1"
   },
   "STATE_WALK_LEFT_0":{
      "x":"0"
   },
   "STATE_WALK_LEFT_1":{
      "x":"40"
   },
   "STATE_WALK_LEFT_2":{
      "x":"80"
   },
   "STATE_WALK_RIGHT":{
      "isChain":"0"
   },
   "STATE_RUN_LEFT":{
      "isChain":"0"
   }
}

The chains can have anywhere from _STATE_0 to _STATE_25 entries in the chains. Is there some way to store this data so I don't have to write 12*26 empty classes like so:

public StateWalkLeft0 STATE_WALK_LEFT { get; set; }
public StateWalkLeft0 STATE_WALK_LEFT_0 { get; set; }
public StateWalkLeft1 STATE_WALK_LEFT_1 { get; set; }
public StateWalkLeft2 STATE_WALK_LEFT_2 { get; set; }
public StateWalkLeft3 STATE_WALK_LEFT_3 { get; set; }

Is there a library or some other way I could use to partially parse only the STATE_0, STATE_1, etc fields? Could you maybe suggest a way to add these recently added JSON pairs?

Edited to clarify: To get an idea of what I'm working with, here is the Class derived from the JSONs:

Check out my full Class to get an idea of what the JSONs contain

Basically, I just need a way to store these recently implemented chains in this class somehow for processing. All of those classes/properties are generated from these JSONs.

"I'd prefer to not use recursion, 3rd party libs, or deserialize into var/dynamic." good luck finding a solution within those boundaries — Robert Levy
– Robert Levy, Commented May 11, 2012 at 17:52
@casperOne +1, but I'd make a suggestion of using fastJSON over that. Json.NET is very slow & large and can be difficult to make modifications due to its complexity. — erodewald
– erodewald, Commented May 11, 2012 at 19:08
@Erode Interesting, I didn't know about this. And I see it's on NuGet. I'll have to try it. — casperOne
– casperOne, Commented May 11, 2012 at 19:49

Regfor · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-11 20:04:47Z

2

Use Newtonsoft Json.NET and as example following code

internal struct ChainX
{
  public int x { get; set; }
  public int isChain { get; set; }
}

    static string json = 
@"{
   ""STATE_WALK_LEFT"":{
      ""isChain"":""1"",
      ""x"":""1""
   },
   ""STATE_WALK_LEFT_0"":{
      ""x"":""0""
   }, 
   ""STATE_WALK_LEFT_1"":{
      ""x"":""40""
   },
   ""STATE_WALK_LEFT_2"":{
      ""x"":""80""
   },
   ""STATE_WALK_RIGHT"":{
      ""isChain"":""0""
   },
   ""STATE_RUN_LEFT"":{
      ""isChain"":""0""
   }
}";

and a line of code to deserialize to Dictionary:

var values = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string, ChainX>>(json);

after that you can simple access values by dictionary key:

ChainX valueWalkLeft1 = values["STATE_WALK_LEFT_1"];

answered May 11, 2012 at 20:04

Regfor

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3 Comments

Brad C Over a year ago

Problem is, my JSON contains all kinds of other multi-level entries - check out my edit to clarify. Does Json.NET support some kind of conditional or sub-deserializing? I would +1 you if I could since you did answer the question in the context I provided. My fault for not being clear enough.

Regfor Over a year ago

Json.NET solves your problem. You can deserialize not as a typed object as I've done in sample. There are a lot of methods and overloads there. Therefore you can use one of them to produce for example Dictionary<string, object> or <string, string> or internal Json.NET object, then you can deserialize tree node by node. If it will be problems with that, just left here comment

Brad C Over a year ago

Your solution along with TypeBuilder/Reflection have solved my problem. Many thanks.

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