A Mutable Log

A blog by Devendra Tewari

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Manipulating JSON using Json.NET

Json.NET makes it convenient to manipulate JSON in C# using dynamic programming. Let’s start with a JSON representation we want to create

{
    "menu": {
        "id": "file",
        "value": "File",
        "popup": {
            "menuitem": [
                {
                    "value": "New",
                    "onclick": "CreateNewDoc()"
                },
                {
                    "value": "Open",
                    "onclick": "OpenDoc()"
                },
                {
                    "value": "Close",
                    "onclick": "CloseDoc()"
                }
            ]
        }
    }
}

Here’s how the Json.NET object representation can be created in C# using dynamic programming

dynamic jobj = JObject.FromObject(new 
{
    menu = new
    {
        id = "file",
        value = "File",
        popup = new
        {
            menuitem = new []
            {
                new
                {
                    value = "New",
                    onclick = "CreateNewDoc()"
                },
                new
                {
                    value = "Open",
                    onclick = "OpenDoc()"
                },
                new
                {
                    value = "Close",
                    onclick = "CloseDoc()"
                }
            }
        }
    }
});

To serialize it

var json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(jobj);
Console.WriteLine(json);

To deserialize JSON string representation to dynamic object

dynamic jobj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(json);
Console.WriteLine(jobj.menu.id);

It is fairly easy to extend the object representation and add new items

jobj.foo = new JArray()
{
    new JObject() {
        new JProperty("bar", 10)
    },
    new JObject() {
        new JProperty("bar", 20)
    }
};

That adds a new property to jobj called foo that references a new array containing two objects.