Intro:
Web application, ASP.NET MVC 3, a controller action that accepts an instance of POCO model class with (potentially) large field.
Model class:
public class View
{
[Required]
[RegularExpression(...)]
public object name { get; set; }
public object details { get; set; }
public object content { get; set; } // the problem field
}
Controller action:
[ActionName(...)]
[Authorize(...)]
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult CreateView(View view)
{
if (!ModelState.IsValid) { return /*some ActionResult here*/;}
... //do other stuff, create object in db etc. return valid result
}
Problem:
An action should be able to accept large JSON objects (at least up to hundred megabytes in a single request and that's no joke). By default I met with several restrictions like httpRuntime maxRequestLength
etc. - all solved except MaxJsonLengh - meaning that default ValueProviderFactory for JSON is not capable of handling such objects.
Tried:
Setting
<system.web.extensions>
<scripting>
<webServices>
<jsonSerialization maxJsonLength="2147483647"/>
</webServices>
</scripting>
</system.web.extensions>
Creating my own custom ValueProviderFactory as described in @Darin's answer here:
JsonValueProviderFactory throws "request too large"
- also failed because I have no possibility to use JSON.Net (due to non-technical reasons). I tried to implement correct deserialization here myself but apparently it's a bit above my knowledge (yet). I was able to deserialize my JSON string to
Dictionary<String,Object>
here, but that's not what I want - I want to deserialize it to my lovely POCO objects and use them as input parameters for actions.
So, the questions:
- Anyone knows better way to overcome the problem without implementing universal custom ValueProviderFactory?
- Is there a possibility to specify for what specific controller and action I want to use my custom ValueProviderFactory? If I know the action beforehand than I will be able to deserialize JSON to POCO without much coding in ValueProviderFactory...
- I'm also thinking about implementing a custom ActionFilter for that specific problem, but I think it's a bit ugly.
Anyone can suggest a good solution?
The built-in JsonValueProviderFactory ignores the <jsonSerialization maxJsonLength="50000000"/>
setting. So you could write a custom factory by using the built-in implementation:
public sealed class MyJsonValueProviderFactory : ValueProviderFactory
{
private static void AddToBackingStore(Dictionary<string, object> backingStore, string prefix, object value)
{
IDictionary<string, object> d = value as IDictionary<string, object>;
if (d != null)
{
foreach (KeyValuePair<string, object> entry in d)
{
AddToBackingStore(backingStore, MakePropertyKey(prefix, entry.Key), entry.Value);
}
return;
}
IList l = value as IList;
if (l != null)
{
for (int i = 0; i < l.Count; i++)
{
AddToBackingStore(backingStore, MakeArrayKey(prefix, i), l[i]);
}
return;
}
// primitive
backingStore[prefix] = value;
}
private static object GetDeserializedObject(ControllerContext controllerContext)
{
if (!controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.ContentType.StartsWith("application/json", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
{
// not JSON request
return null;
}
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.InputStream);
string bodyText = reader.ReadToEnd();
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(bodyText))
{
// no JSON data
return null;
}
JavaScriptSerializer serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
serializer.MaxJsonLength = 2147483647;
object jsonData = serializer.DeserializeObject(bodyText);
return jsonData;
}
public override IValueProvider GetValueProvider(ControllerContext controllerContext)
{
if (controllerContext == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("controllerContext");
}
object jsonData = GetDeserializedObject(controllerContext);
if (jsonData == null)
{
return null;
}
Dictionary<string, object> backingStore = new Dictionary<string, object>(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);
AddToBackingStore(backingStore, String.Empty, jsonData);
return new DictionaryValueProvider<object>(backingStore, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);
}
private static string MakeArrayKey(string prefix, int index)
{
return prefix + "[" + index.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) + "]";
}
private static string MakePropertyKey(string prefix, string propertyName)
{
return (String.IsNullOrEmpty(prefix)) ? propertyName : prefix + "." + propertyName;
}
}
The only modification I did compared to the default factory is adding the following line:
serializer.MaxJsonLength = 2147483647;
Unfortunately this factory is not extensible at all, sealed stuff so I had to recreate it.
and in your Application_Start
:
ValueProviderFactories.Factories.Remove(ValueProviderFactories.Factories.OfType<System.Web.Mvc.JsonValueProviderFactory>().FirstOrDefault());
ValueProviderFactories.Factories.Add(new MyJsonValueProviderFactory());
I found that the maxRequestLength did not solve the problem however.
I resolved my issue with the below setting. It is cleaner than having to implement a custom ValueProviderFactory
<appSettings>
<add key="aspnet:MaxJsonDeserializerMembers" value="150000" />
</appSettings>
Credit goes to the following questions:
JsonValueProviderFactory throws "request too large"
Getting "The JSON request was too large to be deserialized"
This setting obviously relates to a highly complex json model and not the actual size.
The solution of Darin Dimitrov works for me but i need reset the position of the stream of the request before read it, adding this line:
controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.InputStream.Position = 0;
So now, the method GetDeserializedObject looks like this:
private static object GetDeserializedObject(ControllerContext controllerContext)
{
if (!controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.ContentType.StartsWith("application/json", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
{
// not JSON request
return null;
}
controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.InputStream.Position = 0;
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(controllerContext.HttpContext.Request.InputStream);
string bodyText = reader.ReadToEnd();
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(bodyText))
{
// no JSON data
return null;
}
JavaScriptSerializer serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
serializer.MaxJsonLength = 2147483647;
object jsonData = serializer.DeserializeObject(bodyText);
return jsonData;
}