What is the JSON.NET equivilant of XML's XPath, SelectNodes, SelectSingleNode?

Question

At present the structure of my code uses XmlDocument to load Xml and then SelectNodes to iterate through a list of repeating items. For each elements Im using XmlNode.SelectSingleNode to pick out field elements.

I now want to use JSON.NET to achieve the same results with documents delivered to me as Json. The answer can be something other than Json.net, as long as it's C# intergratable.

Answer 1

Do you have an object hierarchy that you can map the the JSON? You could create an object tree (i.e. deserialize the JSON), and use LINQ's Where, SelectMany, etc.

Answer 2

It hasn't been released yet but the latest version of the Json.NET source code has SelectToken. It uses a syntax similar to DataBinder.Eval to get JSON via a string expression:

JObject o = JObject.Parse("{'People':[{'Name':'Jeff'},{'Name':'Joe'}]}");

// get name token of first person and convert to a string
string name = (string)o.SelectToken("People[0].Name");

Or if you wanted to select multiple values:

JObject o = JObject.Parse("{'People':[{'Name':'Jeff','Roles':['Manager', 'Admin']}]}");

// get role array token of first person and convert to a list of strings
IList<string> names = (string)o.SelectToken("People[0].Roles").Select(t => (string)t).ToList();

You can get the latest source code here.