Create JSON object instead of an Array using LINQ/JavaScriptSerializer

Question

Hey folks, hope you've all had a good break over the holidays.

I've created a WebService which returns a list of cities and companies within those cities as a JSON string using LINQ/JavaScriptSerializer.

My code is roughly

var data = from c in db.Companies
           group c by c.City into cities
           select new
           {
               city = cities.Key,
               companies = from company in cities
                     select company.Name
           };

JavaScriptSerializer jss = new JavaScriptSerializer();
return jss.Serialize(data);

That produces the following JSON string

[
  {"city":"Auckland","companies":["Company1","Company2"]},
  {"city":"Wellington","companies":["Company3","Company4","Company5"]}
]

However I want to make the city the key so I can easily search by it

For example

[
  "Auckland" : {"companies":["Company1","Company2"]},
  "Wellington" : {"companies":["Company3","Company4","Company5"]}
]

Any ideas?

I don't think that's even valid JSON. Are you sur you don't mean curly brackets instead of square brackets? — Mark Byers
– Mark Byers, Commented Jan 23, 2011 at 9:39
Hey @Mark, are you referring to the 2nd one? I manually typed that so apologies for the error. — Marko
– Marko, Commented Jan 23, 2011 at 9:48

Jon Skeet · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-23 09:51:43Z

8

Just an idea... try

var data = db.Companies
             .GroupBy(c => c.City)
             .ToDictionary(g => g.Key,
                           g => new { companies = g.Select(c => c.Name) });

So this will build a Dictionary<string, xxx> where xxx is an anonymous type with a single property, "companies" which is a sequence of company names.

edited Jan 23, 2011 at 9:51

answered Jan 23, 2011 at 9:39

Jon Skeet

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4 Comments

Marko Over a year ago

Thanks Jon, I'm getting an exception though

Error    2    Argument 3: cannot convert from 'AnonymousType#1' to 'System.Collections.Generic.IEqualityComparer<string>'

Marc Gravell Over a year ago

@Marko I think I see the issue there - try the update? (Jon- hope you don't mind me hacking away ;p)

Jon Skeet Over a year ago

@Marc: Thanks for that :) Will edit again just to try to get rid of the scrollbar...

Marko Over a year ago

P.S. I'm not sure the title makes too much sense so edit away if you have a better one.

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