DeSerializing JSON to C#

Question

I see a lot of simple examples of JSON DeSerialization, but when it comes to anything slightly more complex, there is a lacking of samples.

I'm looking at deserializing Responses from GetResponse's API:

Simple e.g.

{
    "result" : {
        "updated" : "1"
    },
    "error" : null
}

Another:

{
    "result" : null,
    "error"  : "Missing campaign"
}

Here's another more complex potential response:

{
    "result" : {
        "CAMPAIGN_ID" : { // <-- This value will be different for each Campaign
            "name"              : "my_campaign_1",
            "from_name"         : "My From Name",
            "from_email"        : "[email protected]",
            "reply_to_email"    : "[email protected]",
            "created_on"        : "2010-01-01 00:00:00"
        }
    },
    "error" : null
}

For that last one, what should my object look like?

I initially toyed with just doing something like this...

 private struct GenericResult {
     public string error;
     public Dictionary<string, object> result;
 }

This will work for all my reponses, but then to access the object's properties I'll have to cast it, if I'm not mistaken.

I want to use it like this:

JavaScriptSerializer jss = new JavaScriptSerializer();
var r = jss.Deserialize<GenericResult>(response_string);

// or... if I'm going to use a non-Generic object
var r = jss.Deserialize<GetCampaignResult>(response_string);

EDIT

After getting the data back, the actual structure has one hitch. Here's an actual sample:

The value

{
    "error":null,
    "result":
        {"ABQz": { // <-- As you can see, this is NOT a class name.
           "from_email" : "[email protected]",
           "created_on" : "2010-10-15 12:40:00",
           "name"       : "test_new_subscribers",
           "from_name"  : "John Smith",
           "reply_to_email": "[email protected]"
        }
    }
}

Now that I don't know what that value is going to be, I'm stumped. I'd like to include that value as an ID for the Campaign object.

Answer 1

I see three objects from your example.

Class CampaignId {

    String name ;
    String from_Name ;
    String from_Email ;
    \\ etc
}

Class Result {
   CampaignId campaignId  ;
}


Class RpcResponse {
   String error ;
   Result result ;
}

Do you need DataMember attributes?

a good article in F# that I used when learning JSON serialization: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jomo_fisher/archive/2010/03/06/neat-sample-f-and-freebase.aspx

Developing on the response below, you may want to introduce some generics:

Class CampaignId {

    String name ;
    String from_Name ;
    String from_Email ;
    \\ etc
}

Class Result<T> {
   <T> data ;
}


Class RpcResponse<T> {
   String error ;
   Result<T> result ;
}

And intialize the serializer with

JavaScriptSerializer jss = new JavaScriptSerializer(); 
var r = jss.Deserialize<RpcResponse<CampaignId>>(response_string); 

another decent tutorial:

http://publicityson.blogspot.com/2010/06/datacontractjsonserializer-versus.html

Answer 2

{
    "result" : {
        "CAMPAIGN_ID" : {
            "name"              : "my_campaign_1",
            "from_name"         : "My From Name",
            "from_email"        : "[email protected]",
            "reply_to_email"    : "[email protected]",
            "created_on"        : "2010-01-01 00:00:00"
        }
    },
    "error" : null
}

I would have one that looked like this: [attempting without a safetynet .. where's my compiler!?!? ;) ]

public class TheResponse {
  public RESULT result { get; set; }
  public object error { get; set; }
}

public class RESULT {
  public CAMPAIGN_ID campaign_ID { get; set; }
}

public class CAMPAIGN_ID {
  public string name { get; set; }
  public string from_name { get; set; }
  public string from_email { get; set; }
  public string reply_to_email { get; set; }
  public string created_on { get; set; }
}

But yes, you'll have to cast it somewhere, somehow, sometime.

But I think that code right there translates between the two.

---

I'm not using nested objects like you have, but I'm doing something similar (I have a List so that works sorta)

http://pastebin.com/7Tzr2RBz -> http://pastebin.com/NQwu3hZK (updated)

http://pastebin.com/a0aMzcE4

Those two work together (one from the client (JS), one from the server (C#)) so you can see how I'm doing mine (not that it's likely to help, but I try)

Happy JSONing