Dynamic loading of JSON file, and all of its contents with C#

Question

Recently I've gotten into JSON parsing, and I was wondering, is it at all possible to completely dynamically load all of the contents within a JSON file? And by dynamically load, I mean, load all values of a JSON file without knowing any keys, meaning I cannot do the following code:

string contents = File.ReadAllText("SomeJsonFile.txt");
JObject obj = JObject.Parse(contents);
var value = obj["SomeKey"];

The reason I cannot do the code above, is because that would require the application to know the key ahead of time.

My goal is to be able to load any JSON file, and retrieve all values from said JSON file. I want to be able to load nested values, along with root values, all without knowing the keys. Is there a way for me to do this? If you need any more information, please don't hesitate to ask.

The way I want to use this data is to first, bind a textbox to a string version of each key. Then I will dynamically add the TextBoxes to a FlowLayoutPanel, I also want the user to be able to change this data, and the JSON to change with it.

Please help.

It sounds like you intend to flatten the nested structure into a List. Is that true or do you intend to preserve the nested structure? — Sean Missingham, Sep 21 '21 at 22:24
You've already done it. You dynamically loaded json into an JObject without knowing the keys. — Alexander Petrov, Sep 21 '21 at 22:26
Agree with Alexander that you've already got an object with all of the data loaded dynamically. What it appears you're looking for is a way to recursively flatten the JObject. I'll update my answer — Sean Missingham, Sep 21 '21 at 22:31
@trinalbadger587 that would work if the structure is not nested and contains all values at root, which OP has said is not the case. — Sean Missingham, Sep 21 '21 at 22:56
@SeanMissingham but you can cast the child nodes to `JObject` and use the same thing. — trinalbadger587, Sep 21 '21 at 22:59

CorrieJanse · Answer 1 · 2021-09-21T21:35:42.813

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If you don't know what the keys you are going to have you can use JArray from Json.NET to dynamically access the class.

See example instantiation and usage in the answer here:

How to access elements of a JArray (or iterate over them)

edited Sep 21 '21 at 21:35

answered Sep 21 '21 at 21:31

CorrieJanse

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While I agree with using Newtonsoft, since they specifically said "without knowing the keys", then deserializing into instances of a well-known class is not the correct answer. – Lasse V. Karlsen Sep 21 '21 at 21:34
@LasseV.Karlsen, your right I didn't see that part. I've changed my answer to reflect that. Can you check if it is correct this time. – CorrieJanse Sep 21 '21 at 21:39
OP already shows a working example of something that parses a JSON file into a dynamic object. I think the missing piece is how they intend to use it. – Sean Missingham Sep 21 '21 at 21:56
@SeanMissingham I edited the question and added the way I intend to use the data. – Finite Sep 21 '21 at 22:12

Sean Missingham · Answer 2 · 2021-09-21T23:03:34.783

Assuming the JSON is an object and not an array, you could deserialize the json string to a IDictionary<string, object> using Json.NET

string myJsonString = File.ReadAllText("SomeJsonFile.txt");
var dataObj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<IDictionary<string, object>>(myJsonString);

var topLevelKeys = dataObj.Keys;

Your original question already shows you've successfully parsed a JSON string into a C# object, without knowing the keys.

It appears your actual question is on how to flatten the JObject into some kind of enumerable set of key/value pairs. For that, I refer you to the answers on this thread: Generically Flatten Json using c#

Answer 2 IMO looks a lot cleaner:

string contents = File.ReadAllText("SomeJsonFile.txt");
var schemaObject = JObject.Parse(contents);
var values = schemaObject
    .SelectTokens("$..*")
    .Where(t => !t.HasValues)
    .ToDictionary(t => t.Path, t => t.ToString());

Dynamic loading of JSON file, and all of its contents with C#

2 Answers2