How to parse JSON without JSON.NET library?

Question

I'm trying to build a Metro application for Windows 8 on Visual Studio 2011. and while I'm trying to do that, I'm having some issues on how to parse JSON without JSON.NET library (It doesn't support the metro applications yet).

Anyway, I want to parse this:

{
   "name":"Prince Charming",
   "artist":"Metallica",
   "genre":"Rock and Metal",
   "album":"Reload",
   "album_image":"http:\/\/up203.siz.co.il\/up2\/u2zzzw4mjayz.png",
   "link":"http:\/\/f2h.co.il\/7779182246886"
}

Answer 1

I use this...but have never done any metro app development, so I don't know of any restrictions on libraries available to you. (note, you'll need to mark your classes as with DataContract and DataMember attributes)

public static class JSONSerializer<TType> where TType : class
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Serializes an object to JSON
    /// </summary>
    public static string Serialize(TType instance)
    {
        var serializer = new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(TType));
        using (var stream = new MemoryStream())
        {
            serializer.WriteObject(stream, instance);
            return Encoding.Default.GetString(stream.ToArray());
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// DeSerializes an object from JSON
    /// </summary>
    public static TType DeSerialize(string json)
    {
        using (var stream = new MemoryStream(Encoding.Default.GetBytes(json)))
        {
            var serializer = new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(TType));
            return serializer.ReadObject(stream) as TType;
        }
    }
}

So, if you had a class like this...

[DataContract]
public class MusicInfo
{
    [DataMember]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public string Artist { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public string Genre { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public string Album { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public string AlbumImage { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public string Link { get; set; }

}

Then you would use it like this...

var musicInfo = new MusicInfo
{
     Name = "Prince Charming",
     Artist = "Metallica",
     Genre = "Rock and Metal",
     Album = "Reload",
     AlbumImage = "http://up203.siz.co.il/up2/u2zzzw4mjayz.png",
     Link = "http://f2h.co.il/7779182246886"
};

// This will produce a JSON String
var serialized = JSONSerializer<MusicInfo>.Serialize(musicInfo);

// This will produce a copy of the instance you created earlier
var deserialized = JSONSerializer<MusicInfo>.DeSerialize(serialized);

Answer 2

For those who do not have 4.5, Here is my library function that reads json. It requires a project reference to System.Web.Extensions.

using System.Web.Script.Serialization;

public object DeserializeJson<T>(string Json)
{
    JavaScriptSerializer JavaScriptSerializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
    return JavaScriptSerializer.Deserialize<T>(Json);
}

Usually, json is written out based on a contract. That contract can and usually will be codified in a class (T). Sometimes you can take a word from the json and search the object browser to find that type.

Example usage:

Given the json

{"logEntries":[],"value":"My Code","text":"My Text","enabled":true,"checkedIndices":[],"checkedItemsTextOverflows":false}

You could parse it into a RadComboBoxClientState object like this:

string ClientStateJson = Page.Request.Form("ReportGrid1_cboReportType_ClientState");
RadComboBoxClientState RadComboBoxClientState = DeserializeJson<RadComboBoxClientState>(ClientStateJson);
return RadComboBoxClientState.Value;

Answer 3

Have you tried using JavaScriptSerializer ? There's also DataContractJsonSerializer

Answer 4

You can use the classes found in the System.Json Namespace which were added in .NET 4.5. You need to add a reference to the System.Runtime.Serialization assembly

The JsonValue.Parse() Method parses JSON text and returns a JsonValue:

JsonValue value = JsonValue.Parse(@"{ ""name"":""Prince Charming"", ...");

If you pass a string with a JSON object, you should be able to cast the value to a JsonObject:

using System.Json;


JsonObject result = value as JsonObject;

Console.WriteLine("Name .... {0}", (string)result["name"]);
Console.WriteLine("Artist .. {0}", (string)result["artist"]);
Console.WriteLine("Genre ... {0}", (string)result["genre"]);
Console.WriteLine("Album ... {0}", (string)result["album"]);

The classes are quite similar to those found in the System.Xml.Linq Namespace.

Answer 5

You can use DataContractJsonSerializer. See this link for more details.