How to deserialize a Json string that has an array of objects but is not using square brackets

Question

I'm trying to deserialize a Json string that has an array with no containing brackets.

{ "id": "983f90j30909j3f",
  "moreInfo": {
      "info193802": { ... },
      "info920938": { ... },
      "info849028": { ... }
  }
}

This "moreInfo" is an array of items with dynamic keys and does not have square brackets telling that it's an array.

I've tried to deserialize it with Newtonsoft.Json normally ( JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<rootObject>() ) but since this json array isn't really an array it throws an error. Here is my class:

public class RootObject
{
    public string Id { get; set; }
    public MoreInfo MoreInfo { get; set; }
}


public class MoreInfo
{   
    public List<Info> InfoList{ get; set; }
}

public class Info
{
    properties...
}

How do I go about deserializing this?

use IDictionary<string, Info> MoreInfo { get; set; } for the multiple keys. — Nkosi
– Nkosi, Commented Dec 14, 2017 at 0:27
You're misunderstanding something important: moreInfo is not an array. It is an object, just like the root object. Thinking it is an array is where you're getting in trouble. Because it's an object and not an array, you need to represent it as a dictionary instead of a list, as explained in some of the answers. — Michael Geary
– Michael Geary, Commented Dec 14, 2017 at 0:34

Nkosi · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-14 00:36:06Z

2

Update the root object to use IDictionary<string, Info>

public class RootObject {
    public string Id { get; set; }
    public IDictionary<string, Info> MoreInfo { get; set; }
}

the dynamic keys will be the key in the dictionary.

Once parsed you access the info via the dictionary's keys

Info info = rootObject.MoreInfo["info193802"];

edited Dec 14, 2017 at 0:36

answered Dec 14, 2017 at 0:32

Nkosi

249k38 gold badges472 silver badges506 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

Greg Over a year ago

Clever approach, completely overlooked that solution.

Greg · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-14 00:32:52Z

1

Newtonsoft can correctly parse the data. The data represents objects, they happen to be nested fairly deep. You can accomplish it a couple of ways, for instance:

dynamic json = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(response);
var info = json["moreinfo:info913802:example"].Value;

Your other option would be to use Visual Studio, let it create an object you can deserialize to.

Edit
Paste Special
As JSON

Output would be:

public class Rootobject
{
    public string id { get; set; }
    public Moreinfo moreInfo { get; set; }
}

public class Moreinfo
{
    public Info193802 info193802 { get; set; }
    public Info920938 info920938 { get; set; }
    public Info849028 info849028 { get; set; }
}

public class Info193802
{
    public string Example { get; set; }
}

public class Info920938
{
    public string Example { get; set; }
}

public class Info849028
{
    public string Example { get; set; }
}

The source JSON I used was yours, with one exception:

{ "id": "983f90j30909j3f",
  "moreInfo": {
      "info193802": { "Example" : "Blah" },
      "info920938": { "Example" : "Blah" },
      "info849028": {"Example" : "Blah" }
  }
}

answered Dec 14, 2017 at 0:32

Greg

11.5k2 gold badges51 silver badges82 bronze badges

4 Comments

Michael Geary Over a year ago

That generated code would work for the exact JSON that is listed in the question, but doesn't it stand to reason that it was just an example, and a real dataset may not use those three specific infoNNNNNN property names but may have any other similar names, and more or fewer of them? I don't think hard coding classes with these property names will work in the long run.

Greg Over a year ago

@MichaelGeary That is possible, but why would the JSON be returned so irregular and inconsistent? If you're consuming an API it should be consistent, I think the OP needs to provide more information.

aweyeahdawg Over a year ago

The 'info93739' keys are just placeholders, but they do change everytime, and have varying numbers of them in each 'moreInfo'

Michael Geary Over a year ago

Those infoNNNNNN keys look very regular and consistent to me, and I could imagine a structure just like this in any number of scenarios. Examples would be the list of related questions on the right of this SO page, or an FAQ that has many entries with links at the bottom of each entry to other related topics. In both those cases you would expect random-looking numbers like this, but a different set of numbers for each query.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to deserialize a Json string that has an array of objects but is not using square brackets

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

4 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

1 Comment

4 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related