Creating JSON without array indentation

Question

I usually get very big JSON with a lot of lists and a lot of elements inside the lists. My goal is to get the left structure instead of the right one. The right structure is what I get from Newtonsoft. Is there another library that gives me the control to print it like this?

Optimal case is:

And if you will get it ever more compact than the left one, is that what you're looking for ? — Orel Eraki, Nov 09 '18 at 10:01
When you serialise an object don't format it `SerializeObject(product, Formatting.Indented)` would become `SerializeObject(product)` or `SerializeObject(product, Formatting.None)` E: This will make it all on one line, why do you want your JSON to look like the optimal case? — , Nov 09 '18 at 10:04
@Matt then I get a big block which is very unreadable. I still want to be able to see some of the elements properly. Basically a balance between unformatted and formatted. (Often I have to check manually for specific elements) — Dakson, Nov 09 '18 at 10:06
@Dakson Code? You know that you can use the JsonWriter directly for example? — kͩeͣmͮpͥ ͩ, Nov 09 '18 at 10:10
^ The good news is you wont need to write code to deserialise it! — , Nov 09 '18 at 10:27
Related or duplicate: [How to apply indenting serialization only to some properties?](https://stackoverflow.com/q/28655996/3744182), [Newtonsoft inline formatting for subelement while serializing](https://stackoverflow.com/q/30831895/3744182). Agree? — dbc, Nov 10 '18 at 18:37

Brian Rogers · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-11T17:11:16.833

You can get the indenting you want with Json.Net (a.k.a. Newtonsoft Json) if you subclass the JsonTextWriter class and override the WriteIndent method like this:

public class CustomJsonTextWriter : JsonTextWriter
{
    public CustomJsonTextWriter(TextWriter writer) : base(writer)
    {
    }

    protected override void WriteIndent()
    {
        if (WriteState != WriteState.Array)
            base.WriteIndent();
        else
            WriteIndentSpace();
    }
}

Then create a small helper method to make it easy to use the custom writer:

public static class JsonHelper
{
    public static string SerializeWithCustomIndenting(object obj)
    {
        using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter())
        using (JsonWriter jw = new CustomJsonTextWriter(sw))
        {
            jw.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;
            JsonSerializer ser = new JsonSerializer();
            ser.Serialize(jw, obj);
            return sw.ToString();
        }
    }
}

Here is a working demo: https://dotnetfiddle.net/RusBGI

Amazing, exactly what I was searching for and always found out big monstrous Writers. This one is just simple and perfect. Thanks a lot. — Martin, Apr 19 '23 at 08:58

Creating JSON without array indentation

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