Deserializing with a json file with inner classes with JSON.NET C# - c#-4.0

Question

I have the following structure in my json file
"missionName": "missionname",
"thumb_image": "pics/mission-info.png",
"uplinkPage": [
{
"RPC": {
"name": "RPC",
"rpc": "",
"args": ""
},
"EXE": {
"name": "app1",
"prog": "",
"args": ""
},
"VM": {
"name": "VM",
"name": "",
"args": ""
},
"JAR": {
"name": "JAR",
"prog": "",
"args": ""
},
"link": {
"name": "somelink",
"url": ""
}
}
],
for this I have the following class
public class EXE
{
public string name { get; set; }
public string prog { get; set; }
public string args { get; set; }
}
public class RPC
{
public string name { get; set; }
public string rpc { get; set; }
public string args { get; set; }
}
public class VM
{
public string name { get; set; }
public string args { get; set; }
}
public class JAR
{
public string name { get; set; }
public string prog { get; set; }
public string args { get; set; }
}
public class Link
{
public string name { get; set; }
public string url { get; set; }
}
public class UplinkPage
{
public VM[] vmList { get; set; }
public EXE[] exeList { get; set; }
public RPC[] rpcList { get; set; }
public JAR[] jarList { get; set; }
public Link[] linkList { get; set; }
}
public class Rootobject
{
public string missionName { get; set; }
public string thumb_image { get; set; }
public Uplinkpage[] uplinkPage { get; set; }
}
the uplinkPage section can have one or many of each of the EXE, RPC, VM .. sections. I have tried to add multiply sections like this
"EXE": {
"1": {
"name": "app1",
"data-prog": "",
"data-args": ""
},
"2": {
"name": "app2",
"data-prog": "",
"data-args": ""
}
}
when I do the deserialization as so
Rootobject page = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Rootobject>(File.ReadAllText("mission1.json"));
I get an object and I can read everything except if I have multiply values of the same type, I will only get one of them. If I declare sections as array
public EXE[] exeList { get; set; }
I will get the last one and if as
Dictionary<string,EXE> exeList {get; set;}
I will get the first one. I have noticed that when I use the dictionary the type of the EXE changes to EXE1.
So I was wondering what am I doing wrong? am I mission some thing here?
cheers,
es

Answer 1

Whenever you have a JSON property that might be duplicated, it will be easiest to represent the value of that property as JSON array, rather than multiple properties with duplicated names. I.e. instead of
{
"EXE" : {"id":1},
"RPC" : {"name":"a"},
"EXE" : {"id":2},
}
You want to do:
{
"EXE" : [{"id":1}, {"id":2}],
"RPC" : [{"name":"a"}]
}
Similarly, in the VM class, name appears multiple times, so name should be an array as well:
public class VM
{
public string [] name { get; set; }
public string args { get; set; }
}
(It's not impossible to deserialize duplicated property names, just difficult, and requires a custom converter. See How to deserialize JSON with duplicate property names in the same object. Since you control your JSON format, I'd recommend avoiding this. Using a nested object with indexed properties as you propose in your question is also an option; it is less difficult but still requires custom conversion. See How to parse this JSON using Newton Soft for nested object. But using a JSON array is easiest.)
Next, you need to tell Json.NET how to map c# property names to JSON property names when they are inconsistent. For instance, in your JSON you have a property "EXE" but in c# the property name is public EXE[] exeList { get; set; }. You can either rename the JSON properties, rename the c# properties, or make the mapping using [JsonProperty]:
public class UplinkPage
{
[JsonProperty("VM")]
public VM[] vmList { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("EXE")]
public EXE[] exeList { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("RPC")]
public RPC[] rpcList { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("JAR")]
public JAR[] jarList { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("link")]
public Link[] linkList { get; set; }
}
I notice also that your EXE object sometimes has a "data-prog" property, and sometimes just a "prog". You should standardize on one.
Thus your JSON should look like:
{
"missionName": "missionname",
"thumb_image": "pics/mission-info.png",
"uplinkPage": [
{
"RPC": [
{
"name": "RPC",
"rpc": "",
"args": ""
}
],
"EXE": [
{
"name": "app1",
"prog": "prog1",
"args": "args1"
},
{
"name": "app2",
"prog": "prog2",
"args": "args2"
}
],
"VM": [
{
"name": [
"VM",
""
],
"args": ""
}
],
"JAR": [
{
"name": "JAR",
"prog": "",
"args": ""
}
],
"link": [
{
"name": "somelink",
"url": ""
}
]
}
]
}
And your classes should look like:
public class EXE
{
public string name { get; set; }
public string prog { get; set; }
public string args { get; set; }
}
public class RPC
{
public string name { get; set; }
public string rpc { get; set; }
public string args { get; set; }
}
public class VM
{
public string [] name { get; set; }
public string args { get; set; }
}
public class JAR
{
public string name { get; set; }
public string prog { get; set; }
public string args { get; set; }
}
public class Link
{
public string name { get; set; }
public string url { get; set; }
}
public class UplinkPage
{
[JsonProperty("VM")]
public VM[] vmList { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("EXE")]
public EXE[] exeList { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("RPC")]
public RPC[] rpcList { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("JAR")]
public JAR[] jarList { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("link")]
public Link[] linkList { get; set; }
}
public class Rootobject
{
public string missionName { get; set; }
public string thumb_image { get; set; }
public UplinkPage[] uplinkPage { get; set; }
}
prototype fiddle.