Store Hardcoded JSON string to variable

Question

I'm having an issue storing this json string to a variable. It's gotta be something stupid I am missing here

private string someJson = @"{
    "ErrorMessage": "",
    "ErrorDetails": {
        "ErrorID": 111,
        "Description": {
            "Short": 0,
            "Verbose": 20
        },
        "ErrorDate": ""
    }
}";

I think you just drank too much coffee... we've all been there... — Kevin, Apr 10 '14 at 20:21
And here's the relevant part of the friendly manual for good measure: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/362314fe.aspx — Jon, Apr 10 '14 at 20:21
clark I was gonna do that but yea I should have just done that :) — PositiveGuy, Apr 10 '14 at 20:26
If @ escaped a quote how would the compiler know where the string ends? It would be impossible to parse. — evanmcdonnal, Apr 10 '14 at 20:27
@CoffeeAddict the @ symbol escapes everything with the exception of the quote escape sequence: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa691090(v=vs.71).aspx — Robert H, Apr 10 '14 at 20:27
@Clark, I was thinking what verdesrobert was, that it's not JS but you know what? I'm storing it as JSON so it's fine to have single quotes I think. I'm not sure if the JavascriptSerializer cares when it attempts to deserialize it with single quotes, haven't tried, maybe it doesn't matter — PositiveGuy, Apr 10 '14 at 20:28
I guess I'll just delete my correct answer since some idiot decided to downvote. This question is pretty bad anyway. You can have single quotes as I suggested in my answer and then you don't need to have a dozen escape characters in the string. — evanmcdonnal, Apr 10 '14 at 20:29

score 77 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 10 '14 at 20:27

77

You have to escape the "'s if you use the @ symbol it doesn't allow the \ to be used as an escape after the first ". So the two options are:

don't use the @ and use \ to escape the "

string someJson = "{\"ErrorMessage\": \"\",\"ErrorDetails\": {\"ErrorID\": 111,\"Description\":{\"Short\": 0,\"Verbose\": 20},\"ErrorDate\": \"\"}}";

or use double quotes

string someJson =@"{""ErrorMessage"": """",""ErrorDetails"": {""ErrorID"": 111,""Description"": {""Short"": 0,""Verbose"": 20},""ErrorDate"": """"}}";

answered Apr 10 '14 at 20:27

Emily

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best way is to use `Json.net` check [this](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/29168701/exception-creating-json-with-linq) – Shaiju T Mar 04 '17 at 16:29
2

yes, the simplest way just convert online https://tools.knowledgewalls.com/jsontostring – Yuliia Serhiienko Dec 25 '19 at 01:45
I Also wrote a converter that uses the double quotes syntax to escape JSON strings in c# https://json-to-c-sharp.ndolestudio.com/ – Arnold Ewin Dec 25 '21 at 19:53

score 21 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 21 '19 at 16:43

21

First things first, I'll throw this out there: It's for this reason in JSON blobs that I like to use single quotes.

But, much depends on how you're going to declare your string variable.

string jsonBlob = @"{ 'Foo': 'Bar' }";
string otherBlob = @"{ ""Foo"": ""Bar"" }";

...This is an ASCII-encoded string, and it should play nicely with single quotes. You can use the double-double-quote escape sequence to escape the doubles, but a single quote setup is cleaner. Note that \" won't work in this case.

string jsonBlob = "{ 'Foo': 'Bar' }";
string otherBlob = "{ \"Foo\": \"Bar\" }";

...This declaration uses C#'s default string encoding, Unicode. Note that you have to use the slash escape sequence with double quotes - double-doubles will not work - but that singles are unaffected.

From this, you can see that single-quote JSON literals are unaffected by the C# string encoding that is being used. This is why I say that single-quotes are better to use in a hardcoded JSON blob than doubles - they're less work, and more readable.

edited Oct 21 '19 at 16:43

Blairg23

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answered Apr 10 '14 at 20:35

Andrew Gray

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Using single quotes is okay and will most likely work but its not a good idea since it is not a part of the JSON standard. The standard calls for double quotes. – Timigen Apr 10 '14 at 20:41
1

Other platforms and linting tools won't accept single quotes. As an example, jQuery wouldn't parse json with single quotes last time I checked. – gerrard00 Aug 17 '16 at 19:24
2

@Timigen. The .NET ecosystem itself has come to roost now and the newer `System.Text.Json` library doesn't like single quotes, unlike the older `Newtonsoft.Json` library. – nelsonjchen Aug 13 '20 at 06:08
System.Text.Json.JsonReaderException: '''' is an invalid start of a property name. Expected a '"'. – malat Apr 27 '21 at 12:48

score 10 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 08 '19 at 11:01

10

Simple Approach is to copy the JSON to a .json file and read that file in the code

string jsonData = string.Empty;
jsonData = File.ReadAllText(@"\UISettings.json");

edited Feb 08 '19 at 11:01

Robert

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answered Feb 08 '19 at 10:40

Antony david

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score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 25 '21 at 19:56

5

I had this same problem I ended up writing an open source online converter that takes a JSON string and spits out the C# excaped string with the double quotes syntax. So

{ "foo":"bar"}

will be escaped into

var jsonString = @"{ ""foo"":""bar""}";

answered Dec 25 '21 at 19:56

Arnold Ewin

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This worked great for a good-sized set of test data - thanks for sharing – 333Matt Jun 28 '23 at 17:17

alastairtree · Answer 5 · 2018-04-16T10:32:57.810

Writing JSON inline with c# in strings is a bit clunky because of the double quotes required by the JSON standard which need escaping in c# as shown in the other answers. One elegant workaround is to use c# dynamic and JObject from JSON.Net.

dynamic message = new JObject();
message.ErrorMessage = "";
message.ErrorDetails = new JObject();
message.ErrorDetails.ErrorId = 111;
message.ErrorDetails.Description = new JObject();
message.ErrorDetails.Description.Short = 0;

Console.WriteLine(message.ToString());

// Ouputs:
// { 
//   "ErrorMessage": "",
//   "ErrorDetails": {
//     "ErrorID": 111,
//     "Description": {
//       "Short": 0
// .....

See https://www.newtonsoft.com/json/help/html/CreateJsonDynamic.htm.

score 4 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 26 '22 at 18:44

Starting from C# 11 supported on .NET 7, it's possible to embed a JSON string without any modification by enclosing it in triple quote characters, a feature called Raw string literal (learn.microsoft.com). Related useful language feature is StringSyntaxAttribute that allows Visual Studio to recognize the string variable is a JSON string and highlight any typos. A sample:

using System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis;
using System.Text.Json;

internal class Program
{
    [StringSyntax(StringSyntaxAttribute.Json)]
    private const string myCountry = """{"Name": "Slovakia", "CountryCode": 421}""";

    private static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var _ = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<Country>(myCountry);
    }

    class Country
    {
        public string Name { get; set; } = default!;
        public int CountryCode { get; set; }
    }
}

score 4 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 21 '23 at 15:31

A Put the cart before the horse solution would be to serialize a anonymous class into a string:

var someJson = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(
   new
    {
        ErrorMessage = "",
        ErrorDetails = new
        {
            ErrorID = 111,
            Description = new
            {
                Short = 0,
                Verbose = 20
            },
            ErrorDate = ""
        }
    });

Store Hardcoded JSON string to variable

7 Answers7

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