Deserialize JSON into C# dynamic object?

Question

Is there a way to deserialize JSON content into a C# 4 dynamic type? It would be nice to skip creating a bunch of classes in order to use the DataContractJsonSerializer.

Answer 1

try this -

  var units = new { Name = "Phone", Color= "White" };
    var jsonResponse = JsonConvert.DeserializeAnonymousType(json, units );

Answer 2

With Cinchoo ETL - an open source library available to parse json into dynamic object

string json = @"{
    ""key1"": [
        {
            ""action"": ""open"",
            ""timestamp"": ""2018-09-05 20:46:00"",
            ""url"": null,
            ""ip"": ""66.102.6.98""
        }
    ]
}";
using (var p = ChoJSONReader.LoadText(json)
    .WithJSONPath("$.*")
    )
{
    foreach (var rec in p)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("action: " + rec.action);
        Console.WriteLine("timestamp: " + rec.timestamp);
        Console.WriteLine("url: " + rec.url);
        Console.WriteLine("ip: " + rec.ip);
    }
}

Output:

action: open
timestamp: 2018-09-05 20:46:00
url: http://www.google.com
ip: 66.102.6.98

Disclaimer: I'm the author of this library.

Answer 3

You can extend the JavaScriptSerializer to recursively copy the dictionary it created to expando object(s) and then use them dynamically:

static class JavaScriptSerializerExtensions
{
    public static dynamic DeserializeDynamic(this JavaScriptSerializer serializer, string value)
    {
        var dictionary = serializer.Deserialize<IDictionary<string, object>>(value);
        return GetExpando(dictionary);
    }

    private static ExpandoObject GetExpando(IDictionary<string, object> dictionary)
    {
        var expando = (IDictionary<string, object>)new ExpandoObject();

        foreach (var item in dictionary)
        {
            var innerDictionary = item.Value as IDictionary<string, object>;
            if (innerDictionary != null)
            {
                expando.Add(item.Key, GetExpando(innerDictionary));
            }
            else
            {
                expando.Add(item.Key, item.Value);
            }
        }

        return (ExpandoObject)expando;
    }
}

Then you just need to having a using statement for the namespace you defined the extension in (consider just defining them in System.Web.Script.Serialization... another trick is to not use a namespace, then you don't need the using statement at all) and you can consume them like so:

var serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
var value = serializer.DeserializeDynamic("{ 'Name': 'Jon Smith', 'Address': { 'City': 'New York', 'State': 'NY' }, 'Age': 42 }");

var name = (string)value.Name; // Jon Smith
var age = (int)value.Age;      // 42

var address = value.Address;
var city = (string)address.City;   // New York
var state = (string)address.State; // NY

Answer 4

I am using like this in my code and it's working fine

using System.Web.Script.Serialization;
JavaScriptSerializer oJS = new JavaScriptSerializer();
RootObject oRootObject = new RootObject();
oRootObject = oJS.Deserialize<RootObject>(Your JSon String);

Answer 5

You can do this using System.Web.Helpers.Json - its Decode method returns a dynamic object which you can traverse as you like.

It's included in the System.Web.Helpers assembly (.NET 4.0).

var dynamicObject = Json.Decode(jsonString);

Answer 6

JsonFx can deserialize json into dynamic objects.

https://github.com/jsonfx/jsonfx

Serialize to/from dynamic types (default for .NET 4.0):

var reader = new JsonReader(); var writer = new JsonWriter();

string input = @"{ ""foo"": true, ""array"": [ 42, false, ""Hello!"", null ] }";
dynamic output = reader.Read(input);
Console.WriteLine(output.array[0]); // 42
string json = writer.Write(output);
Console.WriteLine(json); // {"foo":true,"array":[42,false,"Hello!",null]}