Check if a response string is a JSON Object or an XML?

Question

C# code to check if a response string is a JSON Object or an XML?

I am trying this :

string responseString = jQuery.parseJSON(response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result);

But this will throw an exception if the result is not a valid JSON object. ( This is returning XML content for me, in some cases) I want to avoid exception handling. Is there any method which returns bool to check if this is valid json or not?

As Kalten has said, look at the content-type of the response e.g. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11945201/how-to-get-content-type-of-a-web-address — Dijkgraaf, Feb 01 '17 at 22:28
Possible duplicate of [How to get content type of a web address?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11945201/how-to-get-content-type-of-a-web-address) — Dijkgraaf, Feb 01 '17 at 22:29
probably you have to parse it, even the mediatype is json/xml, it could be malformat, I think. — urlreader, Feb 01 '17 at 23:18

score 17 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 01 '17 at 22:30

Check the content type of the response message.

if (response.Content.Headers.ContentType.MediaType == "application/json")
{
    // parse json
}
else
{
    // parse xml
}

You can also read the first character from the response. If it's a XML content, you should find a <. Even if the XML declaration is present or not.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 18 '19 at 17:59

on string level:


using Newtonsoft.Json.Linq;
using Newtonsoft.Json;

public static class Extentions
{

    public static bool IsValidJson(this string value)
    {
        try
        {
            var json = JContainer.Parse(value);
            return true;
        }
        catch
        {
            return false;
        }
    }

}

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 10 '23 at 05:56

Swift code to check if a response string is a JSON or XML

if response.mimeType == "application/xml" {
   //XML
} else if response.mimeType == "application/json" {
   //JSON
} else {
   //Other
}

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/urlresponse/1411613-mimetype

Check if a response string is a JSON Object or an XML?

3 Answers3