Deserializing Json to list of objects in C# with Newtonsoft

Question

So I am struggeling to parse the following JSON string. Even after researching many questions here on StackOverflow.

Json

[
  {
    "text": {
      "0": "Element 1"
    },
    "cascade": [],
    "val": "1"
  },
  {
    "text": {
      "0": "Element 2"
    },
    "cascade": [],
    "val": "2"
  },
  {
    "text": {
      "0": "Element 3"
    },
    "cascade": [],
    "val": "3"
  },
  {
    "text": {
      "0": "Unknown"
    },
    "cascade": [],
    "val": "0"
  }
]

The class I created for this looks like this:

Options.cs

using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace App.Models
{
  public class Options
  {
    public ICollection<IDictionary<string, string>> text { get; set; }
    public List<string> cascade { get; set; }
    public string val { get; set; }
  }
}

For running the deserialization I've written the following line:

List<Options> optionList = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<Options>>(inputString);

I'm getting the following exceptions when I try to run the code:

Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializationException: Timeout exceeded getting exception details

if you paste your JSON into json2csharp.com it will suggest a data structure for you. It may not be the only way to do it, but it will suggest something which is likely to work. N.B. List<string> in your code seems inappropriate for "cascade", since it's an array in the JSON. — ADyson
– ADyson, Commented Aug 15, 2019 at 10:08

EylM · Accepted Answer · 2019-08-15 10:38:25Z

6

You problem is reading the "text" object. From you sample, it contains key/value pairs of string type both. There is no reason to use ICollection there, but only Dictionary<string, string>

public class Options
{
    public Dictionary<string, string> text { get; set; }
    public List<string> cascade { get; set; }
    public string val { get; set; }
}

Update: Since your sample JSON does not include data about the cascade member (only an empty array), it might be safe declaring it as a list of objects List<object>.

edited Aug 15, 2019 at 10:38

answered Aug 15, 2019 at 10:17

EylM

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1 Comment

ADyson Over a year ago

List<string> cascade seems inadvisble, since it's just an empty array in the JSON - we don't know what it could contain. List<object> might be safer

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