Ignoring class members that throw exceptions when serializing to JSON

Question

I'm using the Newtonsoft JSON serializer and it works for most objects.

Unfortunately I get a JsonSerializationException when I try to serialize a large object, one of whose members throws a NullReferenceException.

Is there anyway to ignore the offending member and serialize the rest of the object?

I'm thinking perhaps in the JsonSerializerSettings?

Here's a simplified version of what I want to do:

private class TestExceptionThrowingClass
{
    public string Name { get { return "The Name"; } }
    public string Address { get { throw new NullReferenceException(); } }
    public int Age { get { return 30; } }
}

[Test]
public void CanSerializeAClassWithAnExceptionThrowingMember()
{ 
    // Arrange
    var toSerialize = new TestExceptionThrowingClass();

    // Act

    var serializerSettings = new Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializerSettings();
    serializerSettings.MaxDepth = 5;
    serializerSettings.ReferenceLoopHandling = Newtonsoft.Json.ReferenceLoopHandling.Ignore;
    serializerSettings.MissingMemberHandling = Newtonsoft.Json.MissingMemberHandling.Ignore;
    serializerSettings.NullValueHandling = Newtonsoft.Json.NullValueHandling.Ignore;
    serializerSettings.ObjectCreationHandling = Newtonsoft.Json.ObjectCreationHandling.Reuse;
    serializerSettings.DefaultValueHandling = Newtonsoft.Json.DefaultValueHandling.Ignore;

    var result = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(toSerialize);

    // Assert
    Assert.That(result, Is.EqualTo(@"{""Name"":""The Name"",""Age"":30}"));
}

And here's the stack trace:

at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.DynamicValueProvider.GetValue(Object target) 
at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalWriter.CalculatePropertyValues(JsonWriter writer, Object value, JsonContainerContract contract, JsonProperty member, JsonProperty property, JsonContract& memberContract, Object& memberValue) 
at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalWriter.SerializeObject(JsonWriter writer, Object value, JsonObjectContract contract, JsonProperty member, JsonContainerContract collectionContract, JsonProperty containerProperty) 
at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalWriter.SerializeValue(JsonWriter writer, Object value, JsonContract valueContract, JsonProperty member, JsonContainerContract containerContract, JsonProperty containerProperty) 
at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.JsonSerializerInternalWriter.Serialize(JsonWriter jsonWriter, Object value, Type objectType) 
at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializer.SerializeInternal(JsonWriter jsonWriter, Object value, Type objectType) 
at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(Object value, Type type, Formatting formatting, JsonSerializerSettings settings) 
at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(Object value) 
at AspectsProject.Aspects.CachingPolicy.CachingPolicyCacheKeyCreatorTests.CanSerializeAClassWithAnExceptionThrowingMember() in D:\Dev\test.cs:line 169
    --NullReferenceException 
at AspectsProject.Aspects.CachingPolicy.CachingPolicyCacheKeyCreatorTests.TestExceptionThrowingClass.get_Address() in D:\Dev\test.cs:line 149 
at GetAddress(Object ) 
at Newtonsoft.Json.Serialization.DynamicValueProvider.GetValue(Object target)

I'm happy to use a different JSON serializer if someone knows one that will do this.

Answer 1

A simpler way to ignore errors:

JsonSerializerSettings settings = new JsonSerializerSettings();
settings.Error = (serializer,err) => {
    err.ErrorContext.Handled = true;
}

or

settings.Error = (serializer,err) => err.ErrorContext.Handled = true;

Answer 2

If you don't control the source code, you can use a custom ContractResolver to inject a "ShouldSerialize" method for the problematic property during serialization. You can have that method always return false, or optionally, implement some logic which will detect the situations where the property will throw and return false only in that case.

For example, let's say that your class looks like this:

class Problematic
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public object Offender 
    {
        get { throw new NullReferenceException(); }
    }
}

Clearly, if we try to serialize the above, it will not work because the Offender property will always throw an exception when the serializer tries to access it. Since we know the class and property name that causes the problem, we can write a custom ContractResolver (derived from the DefaultContractResolver) to suppress the serialization of that specific member.

class CustomResolver : DefaultContractResolver
{
    protected override JsonProperty CreateProperty(MemberInfo member, 
                                        MemberSerialization memberSerialization)
    {
        JsonProperty property = base.CreateProperty(member, memberSerialization);

        if (property.DeclaringType == typeof(Problematic) && 
            property.PropertyName == "Offender")
        {
            property.ShouldSerialize = instanceOfProblematic => false;
        }

        return property;
    }
}

Here's a demo showing how to use it:

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Problematic obj = new Problematic
        {
            Id = 1,
            Name = "Foo"
        };

        JsonSerializerSettings settings = new JsonSerializerSettings();
        settings.ContractResolver = new CustomResolver();

        string json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(obj, settings);
        Console.WriteLine(json);
    }
}

Output:

{"Id":1,"Name":"Foo"}

A more generic solution

In your comments you indicated that you have many kinds of objects that might throw an exception when any of the properties are accessed. To that end, we need something more generic. Here is a resolver that might work for that case, but you'll need to test it extensively in your own environment. It does not depend on any particular class or property name, but creates a ShouldSerialize predicate for every property that comes its way. In that predicate it uses reflection to get the value of the property inside a try/catch; if successful it returns true, otherwise false.

class CustomResolver : DefaultContractResolver
{
    protected override JsonProperty CreateProperty(MemberInfo member, MemberSerialization memberSerialization)
    {
        JsonProperty property = base.CreateProperty(member, memberSerialization);

        property.ShouldSerialize = instance =>
        {
            try
            {
                PropertyInfo prop = (PropertyInfo)member;
                if (prop.CanRead)
                {
                    prop.GetValue(instance, null);
                    return true;
                }
            }
            catch
            {
            }
            return false;
        };

        return property;
    }
}

Here is a demo:

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        List<MightThrow> list = new List<MightThrow>
        {
            new MightThrow { Flags = ThrowFlags.None, Name = "none throw" },
            new MightThrow { Flags = ThrowFlags.A, Name = "A throws" },
            new MightThrow { Flags = ThrowFlags.B, Name = "B throws" },
            new MightThrow { Flags = ThrowFlags.Both, Name = "both throw" },
        };

        JsonSerializerSettings settings = new JsonSerializerSettings();
        settings.ContractResolver = new CustomResolver();
        settings.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;

        string json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(list, settings);
        Console.WriteLine(json);
    }
}

[Flags]
enum ThrowFlags
{
    None = 0,
    A = 1,
    B = 2,
    Both = 3
}

class MightThrow
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public ThrowFlags Flags { get; set; }

    public string A
    {
        get
        {
            if ((Flags & ThrowFlags.A) == ThrowFlags.A)
                throw new Exception();
            return "a";
        }
    }

    public string B
    {
        get
        {
            if ((Flags & ThrowFlags.B) == ThrowFlags.B)
                throw new Exception();
            return "b";
        }
    }
}

Output:

[
  {
    "Name": "none throw",
    "Flags": 0,
    "A": "a",
    "B": "b"
  },
  {
    "Name": "A throws",
    "Flags": 1,
    "B": "b"
  },
  {
    "Name": "B throws",
    "Flags": 2,
    "A": "a"
  },
  {
    "Name": "both throw",
    "Flags": 3
  }
]