Json.Net serializes derived class instead of base class in ApiController

Question

I am using the MVC ApiController to create an API for my website.

I have a base class ThinDevice that contains a subset of information for a Device. In my API I only want to serialize the properties belonging to ThinDevice but, despite me casting, and using ThinDevice as the return type when I serialize a Device it always serializes the entire object

[HttpGet]
public ThinDevice Get(string id)
{
    // This returns Device
    var device = this.dataService.GetDevice(id);

    if (device != null)
    {
        // I only want to serialize properties in ThinDevice
        return device as ThinDevice;
    }
}

I would expect that it would serialize based on my return type. Even if my expectation is wrong I'd like to know how to do it :) — Chris
– Chris, Commented Jun 8, 2015 at 10:55
may be you change the return type of dataService.GetDevice(id). because derived types might contain values for some base class properties, may be to make the object graph complete , the serialization is considering the derived type. — Amit Kumar Ghosh
– Amit Kumar Ghosh, Commented Jun 8, 2015 at 11:01

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:45:43Z

2

This behaviour is expected. You can check this question for details.

Option 1: I would suggest to create an instance of ThinDevice manually, or if this class is abstract, then itroduce some separate model for the response.

Sample:

public class ThinDevice
{
    public string A { get; set; }
}

public class Device1 : ThinDevice
{
    public string B { get; set; }
}

[HttpGet]
public ThinDevice Get()
{
    return GetDeviceResponse(new Device1 { A = "A", B = "B" });
}

private ThinDevice GetDeviceResponse<T>(T device) where T : ThinDevice
{
    return new ThinDevice
    {
        A = device.A
    };
}

This code is not very nice (especially if you have complex object structure).

Option 2: You can implement custom JSON and XML serialization that will include only data that you want, but this can be difficult.

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:45

CommunityBot

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answered Jun 9, 2015 at 14:54

Aleksandr Ivanov

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