Deserialize json object into dynamic object using Json.net
Is it possible to return a dynamic object from a json deserialization using json.net? I would like to do something like this:
dynamic jsonResponse = JsonConvert.Deserialize(json);
Console.WriteLine(jsonResponse.message);
latest json.net version allow do this:
dynamic d = JObject.Parse("{number:1000, str:'string', array: [1,2,3,4,5,6]}");
Console.WriteLine(d.number);
Console.WriteLine(d.str);
Console.WriteLine(d.array.Count);
output:
1000
string
6
Documentation here: LINQ to JSON with Json.NET
As of Json.NET 4.0 Release 1, there is native dynamic support:
[Test]
public void DynamicDeserialization()
{
dynamic jsonResponse = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject("{"message":"Hi"}");
jsonResponse.Works = true;
Console.WriteLine(jsonResponse.message); // Hi
Console.WriteLine(jsonResponse.Works); // True
Console.WriteLine(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(jsonResponse)); // {"message":"Hi","Works":true}
Assert.That(jsonResponse, Is.InstanceOf<dynamic>());
Assert.That(jsonResponse, Is.TypeOf<JObject>());
}
And, of course, the best way to get the current version is via NuGet.
Updated (11/12/2014) to address comments:
This works perfectly fine. If you inspect the type in the debugger you will see that the value is, in fact, dynamic. The underlying type is a JObject . If you want to control the type (like specifying ExpandoObject , then do so.
If you just deserialize to dynamic you will get a JObject back. You can get what you want by using an ExpandoObject.
var converter = new ExpandoObjectConverter();
dynamic message = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<ExpandoObject>(jsonString, converter);