Change XML opener(reader) to JSON

Question

I have followed a good tutorial that shows how to make an Automation Framework in C# Selenium. The config file is in XML at the moment, but I wanted some more practice and change it to a .json file.

At the moment we are using the namespace System.Xml.XPath; and my question is, are there a similar for JSON? Lets say "System.Json;" that works the same as my XML reader. So I don't need to refactor to much code, or is it unavoidably?

This is how it works at the moment.

//Initialize
ConfigReader.SetFrameworkSettings();

public class ConfigReader
{

        public static void SetFrameworkSettings()
        {
            XPathItem aut;

            string strFilename = Environment.CurrentDirectory.ToString() + "\\Config\\GlobalConfig.xml";
            FileStream stream = new FileStream(strFilename, FileMode.Open);
            XPathDocument document = new XPathDocument(stream);
            XPathNavigator navigator = document.CreateNavigator();

            //Get XML Details and pass it in XPathItem type variables
            aut = navigator.SelectSingleNode("AutoFramework/RunSettings/AUT");
            Settings.AUT = aut.Value.ToString();
        }
    }

public class Settings
{
    public static string AUT { get; set; }
}

Would be awesome if you could just change this two lines

XPathDocument document = new XPathDocument(stream);
XPathNavigator navigator = document.CreateNavigator()

And the XpathItem

Cheers

I think the following answer about JSON.NET can point you to the correct solution: http://stackoverflow.com/a/17788118/3531995 You can pass a stream to the JSON.NET library but you will also need to update the line ```aut = navigator.SelectSingleNode("AutoFramework/RunSettings/AUT");``` because this is XML specific. — thomasvdb, Jan 11 '17 at 13:18

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 11 '17 at 13:25

I would recommend using Newtonsoft.Json which is available from Nuget. To "reuse" your current code you would have to make some basic SettingsConverter first:

public static class SettingsConverter
{
    public static string FromXmlToJson(string xml)
    {
        Settings settings = null;
        // read your xml file and assign values to the settings object
        // now you can "serialize" settings object into Json
        return JsonSerialization.Serialize(settings);
    }

    public static string FromJsonToXml(string json)
    {
        Settings settings = JsonSerialization.Deserialize<MeSettings>(json);
        // save settings using your "xml" serialization
        return xmlString; // return xml string
    }
}

To use these methods I'm using this JsonSerialization helper class :

public static class JsonSerialiation
{
    public static string Serialize<T>(T obj)
    {
        using (MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream())
        {
            using (JsonTextWriter writer = new JsonTextWriter(new StreamWriter(stream))
            {
                JsonSerializer serializer = new JsonSerializer();
                serializer.Serializer(writer, obj);
                writer.Flush();
                stream.Position = 0;
                using (StreamReader reader = new StreamREader(stream))
                {
                    return reader.ReadToEnd();
                }
            }
        }
    }

    public static T Deserialize<T>(string jsonString)
    {
        using (JsonTextReader reader = new JsonTextReader(new StringReader(str)))
        {
            JsonSerializer serializer = new JsonSerializer();
            return serializer.Deserialize<T>(reader)
        }
    }
}

Above example requires from you to change your Settings class from static :

public class Settings
{
    public static string AUT { get; set; }
}

To instance :

public class Settings
{
    public string AUT { get; set; }
}

If you prefer to keep it as static. You should use JObject from Newtonsoft.Json library :

JObject obj = JObject.Parse(jsonString);
Settings.AUT = obj.SelectToken("AUT").Value<string>();

You can always use JsonConvert.Serialize<T>() and JsonConvert.Deserialize<T>() methods instead of the JsonSerialization helper class that I've made but in my opinion the less control you have over your code the bigger the problems will be.

Thank you! and thanks for the good explanation. I will test this directly — Dymond, Jan 11 '17 at 13:30

Change XML opener(reader) to JSON

1 Answers1