How to consume api that return json data as string using RestSharp RestClient in dot NET

Question

I am consuming an API that returns json data as string. That is its return type is Task<string>. Generally API returns an object of Response class which is then serialized by dot NET. But in this case the API returns serialized version of Response class.

I am trying to consume this API using RestSharp->RestClient. In the RestClient method ExecutePostAsync<T>(request), the response is deserialized by the method into the object of class specified in place of T. I have class named Response class in which I want the response to be deserialized. So, I make the request as,

_restClient.ExecutePostAsync<Response>(request)

Now the problem I am facing is the json string returned in response by API is in form "{<json-fields>}", but when received to RestClient it is in form \"{<json-fields>}\". That is escape characters are added to it. So, NewtonSoftJSON which is used by RestClient to serialize and deserialize gives error, Error converting \"{<json-fields>}\" to Response class.

Also I need original RestResponse from RestClient as I am performing Validation on RestResponse. So, cannot do like, get response as string and deserialize it. That is I dont't want to do like,

var restResponse = _restClient.ExecutePostAsync<string>(request);
var data = Deserialize(restResponse.Data);

As this will only give me object of Response class but I need object of RestResponse<Response> class to perform validations.

What can I do in this situation?

The problem here is that ExecutePostAsync itself deserializes the data in Content field of RestResponse and populates it in Data field of RestResponse and the string in Content field is escaped string so it is unable to deserialize it. I want this operation to work fine. I don't want to manually deserialize the data from response for the reasons I mentioned in the question. — Hem Bhagat
– Hem Bhagat, Commented Feb 9, 2022 at 6:06

Hem Bhagat · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-15 07:10:18Z

Through some research on internet, I found following solution,

We will initialize the RestClient and RestRequest as,

RestClient restClient = new RestClient();
RestRequest request = new RestRequest(<url>);

Now as the response from api is json data in from of simple string, we can instruct request to accept text response as follows,

restRequest.AddHeader("Accept", "text/plain");

Now, RestClient by default doesn't use NewtonSoftJson deserialization for response type text/plain. So, we need to add a handler to tell RestClient to use NewtonSoftJson deserialization as follows,

restClient.AddHandler("text/plain", () => new RestSharp.Serializers.NewtonsoftJson.JsonNetSerializer());

Now we can make request as follows and it will work fine,

restRequest.AddJsonBody(<body>);
restClient.ExceutePostAsync<T>(restRequest);

where we can replace T with class in which we want our response to be deserialized.

References:

https://github.com/restsharp/RestSharp/issues/276

Deserialize JSON with RestSharp

Davidr · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-09 06:23:26Z

0

In case that you can't fix the api to response in json format the only way I see is clean your string response:

var data = Deserialize(restResponse.Data.ToString.Replace('\"',(char)0));

Also you should check the RestSharp's documentation, you can make a request passing the [Type] to auto-deserialize the response:

var request = new CreateOrder("123", "foo", 10100);
// Will post the request object as JSON to "orders" and returns a 
// JSON response deserialized to OrderCreated  
var result = client.PostJsonAsync<CreateOrder, **OrderCreated**>("orders", request, cancellationToken);

I hope this helps! 🙂

edited Feb 9, 2022 at 6:23

answered Feb 9, 2022 at 6:15

Davidr

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1 Comment

Hem Bhagat Over a year ago

Thank you for the answer.The ExecutePostAsync method of RestSharp also auto deserializes the response but it is giving error as the response from API has escape characters. As I mentioned in question I don't want to deserialize data from response as I want the whole response to be intact for validation. So want this auto deserialization to work correctly.

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