You can introduce a custom generic JsonConverter for IDictionary<string, TValue> that filters out invalid dictionary values (i.e. those that cannot be deserialized successfully to the dictionary value type):
public class TolerantDictionaryItemConverter<TDictionary, TValue> : JsonConverter where TDictionary : IDictionary<string, TValue>
{
public override bool CanConvert(Type objectType)
{
return typeof(TDictionary).IsAssignableFrom(objectType);
}
public override object ReadJson(JsonReader reader, Type dictionaryType, object existingValue, JsonSerializer serializer)
{
// Get contract information
var contract = serializer.ContractResolver.ResolveContract(dictionaryType) as JsonDictionaryContract;
if (contract == null)
throw new JsonSerializationException(string.Format("Invalid JsonDictionaryContract for {0}", dictionaryType));
if (contract.DictionaryKeyType != typeof(string))
throw new JsonSerializationException(string.Format("Key type {0} not supported", dictionaryType));
var itemContract = serializer.ContractResolver.ResolveContract(contract.DictionaryValueType);
// Process the first token
var tokenType = reader.SkipComments().TokenType;
if (tokenType == JsonToken.Null)
return null;
if (reader.TokenType != JsonToken.StartObject)
throw new JsonSerializationException(string.Format("Expected {0}, encountered {1} at path {2}", JsonToken.StartArray, reader.TokenType, reader.Path));
// Allocate the dictionary
var dictionary = existingValue as IDictionary<string, TValue> ?? (IDictionary<string, TValue>) contract.DefaultCreator();
// Process the collection items
while (reader.Read())
{
if (reader.TokenType == JsonToken.EndObject)
{
return dictionary;
}
else if (reader.TokenType == JsonToken.PropertyName)
{
var key = (string)reader.Value;
reader.ReadSkipCommentsAndAssert();
// For performance, skip tokens we can easily determine cannot be deserialized to itemContract
if (itemContract.QuickRejectStartToken(reader.TokenType))
{
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("value for {0} skipped", key));
reader.Skip();
}
else
{
// What we want to do is to distinguish between JSON files that are not WELL-FORMED
// (e.g. truncated) and that are not VALID (cannot be deserialized to the current item type).
// An exception must still be thrown for an ill-formed file.
// Thus we first load into a JToken, then deserialize.
var token = JToken.Load(reader);
try
{
var value = serializer.Deserialize<TValue>(token.CreateReader());
dictionary.Add(key, value);
}
catch (Exception)
{
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("value for {0} skipped", key));
}
}
}
else if (reader.TokenType == JsonToken.Comment)
{
continue;
}
else
{
throw new JsonSerializationException(string.Format("Unexpected token type {0} object at path {1}.", reader.TokenType, reader.Path));
}
}
// Should not come here.
throw new JsonSerializationException("Unclosed object at path: " + reader.Path);
}
public override bool CanWrite { get { return false; } }
public override void WriteJson(JsonWriter writer, object value, JsonSerializer serializer)
{
throw new NotImplementedException();
}
}
public static partial class JsonExtensions
{
public static JsonReader SkipComments(this JsonReader reader)
{
while (reader.TokenType == JsonToken.Comment && reader.Read())
;
return reader;
}
public static void ReadSkipCommentsAndAssert(this JsonReader reader)
{
if (reader == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException();
while (reader.Read())
{
if (reader.TokenType != JsonToken.Comment)
return;
}
new JsonReaderException(string.Format("Unexpected end at path {0}", reader.Path));
}
internal static bool QuickRejectStartToken(this JsonContract contract, JsonToken token)
{
if (contract is JsonLinqContract)
return false;
switch (token)
{
case JsonToken.None:
return true;
case JsonToken.StartObject:
return !(contract is JsonContainerContract) || contract is JsonArrayContract; // reject if not dictionary or object
case JsonToken.StartArray:
return !(contract is JsonArrayContract); // reject if not array
case JsonToken.Null:
return contract.CreatedType.IsValueType && Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(contract.UnderlyingType) == null;
// Primitives
case JsonToken.Integer:
case JsonToken.Float:
case JsonToken.String:
case JsonToken.Boolean:
case JsonToken.Undefined:
case JsonToken.Date:
case JsonToken.Bytes:
return !(contract is JsonPrimitiveContract); // reject if not primitive.
default:
return false;
}
}
}
Then you can add it to settings as follows:
var settings = new JsonSerializerSettings
{
Converters = { new TolerantDictionaryItemConverter<IDictionary<string, TValue>, TValue>() },
};
var root = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<ResultView>(json, settings);
Or add it directly to ResultView with JsonConverterAttribute:
class ResultView
{
[JsonConverter(typeof(TolerantDictionaryItemConverter<IDictionary<string, string[][]>, string[][]>))]
public Dictionary<string, string[][]> Result { get; set; }
}
Notes:
I wrote the converter in a general way to handle any type of dictionary value including primitives such as int or DateTime as well as arrays or objects.
While a JSON file with invalid dictionary values (ones that cannot be deserialized to the dictionary value type) should be deserializable, an ill-formed JSON file (e.g. one that is truncated) should still result in an exception being thrown.
The converter handles this by first loading the value into a JToken then attempting to deserialize the token. If the file is ill-formed, JToken.Load(reader) will throw an exception, which is intentionally not caught.
Json.NET's exception handling is reported to be "very flaky" (see e.g. Issue #1580: Regression from Json.NET v6: cannot skip an invalid object value type in an array via exception handling) so I did not rely on it to skip invalid dictionary values.
I'm not 100% sure I got all cases of comment handling correct. So that may need additional testing.
Working sample .Net fiddle here.
