Many recently days, I thought about Json.net library that implemented by James. It is really a good library that I have ever used. I really impressed about many Converters that this library expose for user. I can list some converter of json.net at here:
+ BinaryConverter
+ BsonObjectIdConverter
+ DataSetConverter
+ DataTableConverter
+ EntityKeyMemberConverter
+ HtmlColorConverter
+ IsoDateTimeConverter
+ JavaScriptDateTimeConverter
+ KeyValuePairConverter
+ RegexConverter
+ StringEnumConverter
+ XmlNodeConverter
As you see, json.net have many converters, but still not enough for our necessary. So in this post, I try to explorer about 2 converters that I thought it is very useful for us. That are ArrayConverter and Object Converter (it is named by me). In 2 converter, I mainly implement it for return the object's interface, so it can be re-use and extension better. Now this is my code for implement it:
+ CustomObjectCreationConverter
internal class CustomObjectCreationConverter<TInterface, T> : CustomCreationConverter<TInterface>
where T : TInterface, new()
{
public override TInterface Create(Type objectType)
{
return new T();
}
}
+ CustomArrayCreationConverter
internal class CustomArrayCreationConverter<TInterface, T> : JsonConverter
where T : TInterface
{
public override bool CanConvert(Type objectType)
{
return typeof(TInterface[]).IsAssignableFrom(objectType);
}
public override object ReadJson(JsonReader reader, Type objectType, object existingValue, JsonSerializer serializer)
{
var list = new List<T>();
serializer.Populate(reader, list);
return list.ConvertAll(item => (TInterface)item).ToArray();
}
public override void WriteJson(JsonWriter writer, object value, JsonSerializer serializer)
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}
And I also wrapped the Serialize of Json.net as:
public static class JsonHelper
{
public static T DeserializeObject<T>(string inputString)
{
return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>(inputString);
}
public static string SerializeObject<T>(T inputObject)
{
return JsonConvert.SerializeObject(inputObject);
}
}
Now I have a simple example for using it
I assume that we have a JSON data is:
{ "categories" : [{
"detailInformation" : {
"name" : "category 1",
"shortName" : "cat 1",
"description" : "description for category 1"
},
"listOfNews" : [{
"title" : "news1's title",
"mainContent" : "this is a main content of news 1",
"createdDate" : "",
"description" : "description for news 1"
},
{
"title" : "news2's title",
"mainContent" : "this is a main content of news 2",
"createdDate" : "",
"description" : "description for news 2"
}
]},{
"detailInformation" : {
"name" : "category 2",
"shortName" : "cat 2",
"description" : "description for category 2"
},
"listOfNews" : [{
"title" : "news1's title",
"mainContent" : "this is a main content of news 1",
"createdDate" : "",
"description" : "description for news 1"
},
{
"title" : "news2's title",
"mainContent" : "this is a main content of news 2",
"createdDate" : "",
"description" : "description for news 2"
}
]}
]}
and the entities is
public interface IDetailInformation
{
string Name { get; set; }
string ShortName { get; set; }
string Description { get; set; }
}
public interface ICategory
{
IDetailInformation DetailInformation { get; set; }
INews[] News { get; set; }
}
public interface INews
{
string Tile { get; set; }
string MainContent { get; set; }
DateTime CreatedDate { get; set; }
string Description { get; set; }
}
public class ListOfCategory
{
[JsonProperty("categories")]
[JsonConverter(typeof(CustomArrayCreationConverter<ICategory, Category>))]
public ICategory[] Categories { get; set; }
}
[JsonObject]
public class DetailInformation : IDetailInformation
{
[JsonProperty("name")]
public string Name { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("shortName")]
public string ShortName { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("description")]
public string Description { get; set; }
}
[JsonObject]
public class Category : ICategory
{
[JsonProperty("detailInformation")]
[JsonConverter(typeof(CustomObjectCreationConverter<IDetailInformation, DetailInformation>))]
public IDetailInformation DetailInformation { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("listOfNews")]
[JsonConverter(typeof(CustomArrayCreationConverter<INews, News>))]
public INews[] News { get; set; }
}
[JsonObject]
public class News : INews
{
[JsonProperty("title")]
public string Tile { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("mainContent")]
public string MainContent { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("createdDate")]
[JsonConverter(typeof(JavaScriptDateTimeConverter))]
public DateTime CreatedDate { get; set; }
[JsonProperty("description")]
public string Description { get; set; }
}
Finally, I used it as
var categories = JsonHelper.DeserializeObject<Category>(Result);
Certainly, you must download the piece of JSON Data and store it to Result variable above. Happy your code!