Deserializing an anonymous object

Question

I'm currently trying to deserialize a Json-feed that I'm receiving from an external process. The problem is that the JSON is relying heavily on anonymous classes which I don't know how to properly deserialize.

I'm hoping anyone here could help me.

Below is a piece of the JSON:

[ 14, { "a": [ "5877.40000", 0, "0.89672653" ], "b": [ "5877.30000", 6, "6.20000000" ], "c": [ "5877.40000", "0.02216247" ] }, "name", "description" ]

So my class currently looks like this, but this is not correct:

 public class TestClass { public int ChannelID { get; set; } // 14 in the sample public TestSubClass test { get; set; } // THIS IS THE ANONYMOUS ONE public string ChannelName { get; set; } // "name" in the sample public string ChannelDescription { get; set; } // "description in the sample" } public class TestSubClass { public TestOption1Class a { get; set; } public TestOption1Class b { get; set; } public TestOption2Class c { get; set; } } public class TestOption1Class { public float price { get; set; } public int amount { get; set; } public float unitWeight { get; set; } } public class TestOption2Class { public float price { get; set; } public float unitWeight { get; set; } }

Now these classes are wrong. I am assuming I need to use some sort of key/value pair or something, but I'm not sure on how to achieve that. If somebody know how I could deserialize this properly, that would be great.

In order to be complete, the code to deserialize is below:

var test = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<TestClass>>(jsonTest);

Why TestSubClass is an anonymous, if you know its structure? Is it always a 3 tokens inside it? Does it make sense to declare it as an array? — Pavel Anikhouski
– Pavel Anikhouski, Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 20:15
Yes,it's an array but it doesn't have a name, so I don't know how to deserialize it — Cainnech
– Cainnech, Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 20:17
Can you talk to author of the JSON to see if it can be set to makes a bit more sense (array of strings and numbers is very strange, especially since you trying to read those strings as float). — Alexei Levenkov
– Alexei Levenkov, Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 20:34
I agree that it's really strange, but no I can't ask to change the JSON since this being extracted from a piece of hardware. — Cainnech
– Cainnech, Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 20:39
How is it being "extracted" from a "piece of hardware"? What does that mean? Who is extracting it? How is being extracted? — Jonathan Alfaro
– Jonathan Alfaro, Commented Mar 23, 2020 at 20:42

RobJarvis · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-24 13:04:58Z

Since the anonymous type you're struggling with has keys and values, I think I would do away with the TestSubClass class altogether and try this instead:

public class TestClass { public int ChannelID { get; set; } // 14 in the sample public Dictionary<string, Array<object>> test { get; set; } // THIS IS THE ANONYMOUS ONE public string ChannelName { get; set; } // "name" in the sample public string ChannelDescription { get; set; } // "description in the sample" }

Deserialized, you would wind up with a Dictionary of Arrays containing Objects that you can then operate on with Double.TryParse() or Int32.TryParse() to get the proper values.

I get your point Rob, but actually the whole json is an array, I just didn't know that you could put different types in a array. So I will continue on this approach. Thank you!
Sajid: That type (actually combination of types) is available via the System.Collections.Generic namespace. It is a Dictionary<object>, and the object is of type Array<object>.
@RobJarvis the Dictionary<TKey, TValue> must have two type arguments - for keys and for values

Impworks · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-24 10:40:30Z

You can use a combination of strongly-typed classes for parts of the response structure you know and JToken for parts that can change and need to be inspected at runtime. Something like this:

public class TestClass { public int ChannelID { get; set; } // 14 in the sample [JsonProperty("test")] public JToken Test { get; set; } // THIS IS THE ANONYMOUS ONE public string ChannelName { get; set; } // "name" in the sample public string ChannelDescription { get; set; } // "description in the sample" }

Then you can use it like this:

var data = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<TestClass>("..."); var test = data.Test; if(test.Type == JTokenType.Array) { // process as array foreach (JToken elem in test) { // ... } } else if(test.Type == JTokenType.Object) { // process as object foreach (JProperty kvp in test) { // ... } }

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