How to: Deserialization of nested JSON

I am receiving the JSON formatted string from a web service over the Internet.
It is roughly formatted like so:

{   "version" : 2,
    "query" : "Companies, CA",
    "begin" : 1,
    "end" : 3,
    "totalResults" : 718,
    "pageNumber" : 0,

    "results" : [
          { "company" : "ABC Company Inc.", "city" : "Sacramento", "state" : "CA" } ,
          { "company" : "XYZ Company Inc.", "city" : "San Francisco", "state" : "CA" } ,
          { "company" : "KLM Company Inc.", "city" : "Los Angeles", "state" : "CA" }
]
}

I need to get the array of companies out of this results element and add these to a list of companies, something like List<Company>, where Company is a simple class with Name, City, and State properties.

Finally, I am not able to use any third party JSON parsers. What is the best way to get this done?

Thanks,

Leo Benson, Mar 24, 2011

Reply 1

public class Result
{
    public string company { get; set; }
    public string city { get; set; }
    public string state { get; set; }
}

public class Company
{
    public int version { get; set; }
    public string query { get; set; }
    public int begin { get; set; }
    public int end { get; set; }
    public int totalResults { get; set; }
    public int pageNumber { get; set; }
    public List<Result> results { get; set; }
}


public static async Task<Company> GetCompanyInfo()
        {
            using (var client = new HttpClient())
            {
              
                var url = string.Format("");
                client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Clear();
         client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Add(new MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue("application/json"));

                var response = await client.GetAsync(url);

                if (!response.IsSuccessStatusCode) return null;
                var result = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();

                //De-Serialize
                var list = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Company>(result);

                /*  var js = new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(Company));
                  var ms = new MemoryStream(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(result));
                  var list = (Company)js.ReadObject(ms);*/

                return list;
            }
        }

Mateen Kadwaikar, Apr 11, 2016

Reply 2

So the result set is returned as a named object "Results" as shown above. If I were to call the web service from jQuery AJAX it would be:

var url = "/Companies.svc/GetCompanies";


        $(document).ready(function () {
            $.ajax({
                type: "POST",
                url: url,
                contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
                data: "{}",
                datatype: 'json',
                timeout: 10000,
                success: function (data) {
                    alert(data.Results[0].Company);
                }
            });
        });
//which should return the company name of the first object
//you can obviously iterate through the company objects
//and pass them to a .NET function in the web service that
//takes the properties as parameters and spits out a new
//Company object an then add that to a List<Company>
//it's an extra step but a solution none the less

Kevon Hayes, Sep 09, 2011

Reply 3

public class results
    {
        public string company
        {
            get;
            set;
        }
        public string City
        {
            get;
            set;
        }
        public string State
        {
            get;
            set;
        }
    }
    public class JsonTest
    {
        public JsonTest()
        {
            results = new List<results>();
        }
        public string version
        {
            get;
            set;
        }
        public string query
        {
            get;
            set;
        }
        public string begin
        {
            get;
            set;
        }
        public string end
        {
            get;
            set;
        }
        public string totalResults
        {
            get;
            set;
        }
        public string pageNumber
        {
            get;
            set;
        }
        public List<results> results
        {
            get;
            set;
        }

JavaScriptSerializer _Serialize = new JavaScriptSerializer();
            JsonTest _JsonTest = new JsonTest();
            _JsonTest = (JsonTest)_Serialize.Deserialize(jsoN, typeof(JsonTest));

John Prasad, Sep 07, 2011

Reply 4

I have very little experience with JSON, but have you taken a look at JavaScriptSerializer, I think it is found in System.Web.Extensions.dll. It might be what you need.

UPDATE:
There are some examples here, that you can take a look at:
http://blah.winsmarts.com/2009-12-How_to_parse_JSON_from_C-.aspx
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/401756/parsing-json-using-json-net

Good Luck!

Robert Blixt, Mar 25, 2011