How can I deserialize a JSON object that uses unspecified and variable property names

Question

I have a JSON response (which I have no control over) similar to this:

{"response":{
  "a" : "value of a",
  "b" : "value of b",
  "c" : "value of c",
  ...
}}

Where:

"a", "b", "c" are unknown names upfront.
The number of items can vary.

All I need at the end is an array of strings for all the values. Keeping the names is a bonus (Dictionary?) but I need to browse values by the order in which they appear.

How would you achieve this using JSON.NET?

Why can't you just use the `JavaScriptSerializer`? No need for third party tools in this case :) — Mathew Thompson, May 15 '12 at 20:17
See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4535840/deserialize-json-object-into-dynamic-object-using-json-net — Zachary, May 15 '12 at 20:20

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered May 15 '12 at 20:21

You can use the JObject class from the Newtonsoft.Json.Linq namespace to deserialize the object into a DOM-like structure:

public class StackOverflow_10608188
{
    public static void Test()
    {
        string json = @"{""response"":{
          ""a"" : ""value of a"",
          ""b"" : ""value of b"",
          ""c"" : ""value of c""
        }}";
        JObject jo = JObject.Parse(json);
        foreach (JProperty property in jo["response"].Children())
        {
            Console.WriteLine(property.Value);
        }
    }
}

Ray Cheng · Answer 2 · 2012-05-15T21:26:02.943

1

This works but not very pretty. I believe you can exchange to json.net with JavaScriptSerializer.

var json = "{\"response\":{\"a\":\"value of a\",\"b\":\"value of b\",\"c\":\"value of c\"}}";
var x = new System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer();
var res = x.Deserialize<IDictionary<string, IDictionary<string, string>>>(json);

foreach (var key in res.Keys)
{
    foreach (var subkey in res[key].Keys)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(res[key][subkey]);
    }
}

or

Console.WriteLine(res["response"]["a"]);
Console.WriteLine(res["response"]["b"]);
Console.WriteLine(res["response"]["c"]);

output:

value of a
value of b
value of c

edited May 15 '12 at 21:26

answered May 15 '12 at 20:55

Ray Cheng

12,230
14
74
137

Either don't define the `Blah` class, or use it for the deserialization. – configurator May 15 '12 at 21:14
oops, Blah class is not needed. i'll del it. – Ray Cheng May 15 '12 at 21:25

How can I deserialize a JSON object that uses unspecified and variable property names

2 Answers2

Linked