Parsing complex JSON text with Json.NET

Question

I am writing a program to access Mediafire's web API and it's all going well, the only issue remaining is the response text in JSON format that I have difficulty parsing.

With API calls like creating a folder, I get a simple response which can be deserialized into a Dictionary<string,Dictionary<string,string>> and searched for values:

{"response":
    {
    "action":"folder\/create.php",
    "name":"blargh",
    "folder_key":"mmttuu769djo0",
    "result":"Success",
    "current_api_version":"2.14"
    }
}

I would use it like this:

Dictionary<string,string> json = DeserializeJSON(text)["response"];
//DeserializeJSON is a method to shorten:
//JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string,Dictionary<string,string>>(text)

I can then query for json["result"] and whatnot. With other API calls I get complex structures that I'm not sure how to handle. It's basically a bunch of key:value pairs, but some of the values are key:value pairs as well, which can't be put into a dictionary like I'm currently doing. I'm fairly new to C# so I'm not sure what to do here, is there some other data type like a Dictionary which doesn't have static types?

Here's the response:

{"response":
    {
    "action":"upload\/upload.php",
    "doupload":
        {
        "result":"0",
        "key":"89lh7760x4l"
        },
    "server":"live",
    "result":"Success",
    "current_api_version":"2.14"
    }
}

My question would be: What is a good way to get this kind of data into a list that I can query for values?

Write your own answer not in the question so those who read may find the "right answer" — csharpwinphonexaml
– csharpwinphonexaml, Commented Apr 14, 2014 at 10:50
I tried at the time but some warning said I have to wait 8 hours to answer my own question, I'll see if I can do it now though. Yep, but now I have to wait 24 hours to accept it! — sawch
– sawch, Commented Apr 14, 2014 at 14:37

CinnamonBun · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-13 18:28:08Z

2

What about creating a new class(s) to deal with the json? You can generate classes by using json2csharp using the example json.

public class Doupload
{
    public string result { get; set; }
    public string key { get; set; }
}

public class Response
{
    public string action { get; set; }
    public Doupload doupload { get; set; }
    public string server { get; set; }
    public string result { get; set; }
    public string current_api_version { get; set; }
}

public class RootObject
{
    public Response response { get; set; }
}

Then you can deserialise the json using:

JavaScriptSerializer serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer(); 
var something = serializer.Deserialize<RootObject>(jsonString);

answered Apr 13, 2014 at 18:28

CinnamonBun

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3 Comments

sawch Over a year ago

Hmm... That seems like a pretty good approach but most API calls have unique keys that it returns so I would have to make a class for every API function.

Alan Over a year ago

this sounds like a good idea to me, I'd prefer the strongly typed version. How many classes would you really have to create?

sawch Over a year ago

There's around 50-60 different API functions to access, you can see what some of them respond with here: mediafire.com/developers I think I'd need a class for each one but I'm not sure.

sawch · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-14 14:41:58Z

1

I ended up finding out about the dynamic type - Deserializing the text into a Dictionary<string,dynamic> allows it to have multiple types where some can be dictionaries as well. I can query it as I would expect but I just need to be sure what values are returned with each API call, and I need to cast it to a string.

string upload_key = (string)json["response"]["doupload"]["key"] //89lh7760x4l

answered Apr 14, 2014 at 14:41

sawch

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