Deserializing JSON with a property in a nested object

Question

How can I easily deserialize this JSON to the OrderDto C# class? Is there a way to do this with attributes somehow?

JSON:

{
    "ExternalId": "123",
    "Customer": {
        "Name": "John Smith"
    }
    ...
}

C#:

public class OrderDto
{
    public string ExternalId { get; set; }
    public string CustomerName { get; set; }
    ...
}

I tried playing around with the JsonProperty attribute, but wasn't able to get it work. My ideas were to write an annotation like:

[JsonProperty("Customer/Name")]
public string CustomerName { get; set; }

But it just doesn't seem to work. Any ideas? Thx! :)

score 9 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 05 '15 at 14:52

9

Your classes should look like this:

public class OrderDto
{
    public string ExternalId { get; set; }
    public Customer Customer { get; set;}
}

public class Customer
{
    public string CustomerName { get; set; }
}

A good idea in future would be to take some existing JSON and use http://json2csharp.com/

answered Nov 05 '15 at 14:52

Ric

12,855
3
30
36

4

that link to json2csharp is very useful. Thank you!!! – Phil Jun 13 '17 at 13:04
5

This does not answer the question. The question meant deserializing nested objects without creating a new class. – r.mirzojonov Jun 19 '19 at 17:00
Very useful comment, thanks. The question already had an answer and was therefore closed as a duplicate. This answer is to provide another possible solution. – Ric Jun 19 '19 at 17:22

James Moore · Answer 2 · 2015-11-05T14:58:02.853

0

You can create another class that nests the rest of the properties like follows:

public class OrderDto
{
    public string ExternalId { get; set; }

    public Customer Customer { get; set; }
}

public class Customer
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

The reason for this is because Name is a nested property of the Customer object in the JSON data.

The [JsonProperty("")] code is generally used if the JSON name is different than the name you wish to give it in code i.e.

[JsonProperty("randomJsonName")]
public string ThisIsntTheSameAsTheJson { get; set; }

edited Nov 05 '15 at 14:58

answered Nov 05 '15 at 14:52

James Moore

127
6

14

So, apart from introducing new classes, there is no other way? I was hoping that I didn't need to introduce new ones... – bojank Nov 05 '15 at 15:02
@bojank Not as far as I know. The C# side has to replicate how the data is represented in JSON. It might be possible to convert it to a key-value pair of strings or something but that is probably not preferred. – James Moore Nov 05 '15 at 15:11
2

`"Customer": {"Name": "John Smith"}` is another object, there is no other way around than creating a new object for this. – Ric Nov 06 '15 at 09:19

Deserializing JSON with a property in a nested object

2 Answers2