Deserializing a C# class with NetwonSoft.Json leaves a partial Json string as response

Question

I have the following class and enum:

public class Email   
{
    string Address;
    EEmailType Type;
}

public enum EEmailType 
{
    Primary,
    Alternative
}

The problem I'm seeing is that I have a handler where I return a collection of these objects as a json response.

The response is coming fine and includes the email address for all the emails I can fetch, but the email type is not returned.

When I get the response I instead get :

[
  {
    address : "Joe@gmail.com"
  }
]

So the type of email is nowhere to be seen. Also, in the mapper where I'm building this collection I call a function that converts a string we receive from the backend to an enum:

public EEmailType convertToEnum(string input) 
{
  switch(input) 
  {
      case "Primary" :
           return EEmailType.Primary;
     ......... *and so on*
  }
}

But if instead of using my function I directly hardcode a value then it does show up in the json string which is returned:

emails.Add(
new Email {
    Address : response.address,
    Type : convertToEnum(response.type) <----- THIS DOES NOT WORK
});

emails.Add(
new Email {
    Address : response.address,
    Type : EEmailType.Primary <----- THIS WORKS FINE
});

What am I doing wrong here?

Hmm interesting, could it be that the `convertToEnum` path is returning null for those properties in those cases? — IronMan, Sep 17 '19 at 17:59
FYI you can use `[EnumMember(Value = "Primary")]` attributes on the enum, along with a `StringEnumConverter` for automatic de/serialization using enums when using newtonsoft — Kritner, Sep 17 '19 at 18:05
Decorat your email type property with ""JsonConverter(typeof(StringEnumConverter))" attribute in Email class. — Nauty, Sep 17 '19 at 18:07
@Nauty when I add that the application ceashes with an invalid cast exception — Matias Barrios, Sep 17 '19 at 18:20
[It seems to work fine when I try it](https://dotnetfiddle.net/0z4Jtq). Can you put together a [mcve] which demonstrates the problem? — Brian Rogers, Sep 17 '19 at 20:45
In your real code, did you remember to declare the member `EEmailType Type` as public? If not you will need to mark it with `[JsonProperty]`, see [Json.net serialize specific private field](https://stackoverflow.com/q/32008869) or [JSON Serializer object with internal properties](https://stackoverflow.com/q/26873755). — dbc, Sep 17 '19 at 21:59
@dbc yes. Everything's is public. Also when I hardcode the value then it shows up normally. Only when I call my function then is missing. I debug the app and the object im deserializing contains all the right properties just a line before actually getting transformed into the response — Matias Barrios, Sep 18 '19 at 11:47
@MatiasBarrios - then you might want to [edit] your question to include a [mcve]. At the moment your code does not compile, because e.g. all the members shown in `Email` are private: https://dotnetfiddle.net/oHEb9Q — dbc, Sep 18 '19 at 15:56

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 18 '19 at 19:54

Well, I fixed this issue. Believe or not I started an issue in Carter framework repo for something which I thought might be unrelated but as I implemented it it also corrected the issues I was seeing with vanishing fields.

This is the issue in question : https://github.com/CarterCommunity/Carter/issues/204

I created that class with that exact name in the root of my project and Carter automagically picked it up.

Now all problems are gone.

Thanks everyone for your answers!

Deserializing a C# class with NetwonSoft.Json leaves a partial Json string as response

1 Answers1