Convert Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JArray to a list of specific object type

Question

Just call array.ToObject<List<SelectableEnumItem>>() method. It will return what you need.

Documentation: Convert JSON to a Type

The example in the question is a simpler case where the property names matched exactly in json and in code. If the property names do not exactly match, e.g. property in json is "first_name": "Mark" and the property in code is FirstName then use the Select method as follows

List<SelectableEnumItem> items = ((JArray)array).Select(x => new SelectableEnumItem
{
    FirstName = (string)x["first_name"],
    Selected = (bool)x["selected"]
}).ToList();

The API return value in my case as shown here:

{
  "pageIndex": 1,
  "pageSize": 10,
  "totalCount": 1,
  "totalPageCount": 1,
  "items": [
    {
      "firstName": "Stephen",
      "otherNames": "Ebichondo",
      "phoneNumber": "+254721250736",
      "gender": 0,
      "clientStatus": 0,
      "dateOfBirth": "1979-08-16T00:00:00",
      "nationalID": "21734397",
      "emailAddress": "[email protected]",
      "id": 1,
      "addedDate": "2018-02-02T00:00:00",
      "modifiedDate": "2018-02-02T00:00:00"
    }
  ],
  "hasPreviousPage": false,
  "hasNextPage": false
}

The conversion of the items array to list of clients was handled as shown here:

 if (responseMessage.IsSuccessStatusCode)
        {
            var responseData = responseMessage.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result;
            JObject result = JObject.Parse(responseData);

            var clientarray = result["items"].Value<JArray>();
            List<Client> clients = clientarray.ToObject<List<Client>>();
            return View(clients);
        }

I can think of different method to achieve the same

IList<SelectableEnumItem> result= array;

or (i had some situation that this one didn't work well)

var result = (List<SelectableEnumItem>) array;

or use linq extension

var result = array.CastTo<List<SelectableEnumItem>>();

or

var result= array.Select(x=> x).ToArray<SelectableEnumItem>();

or more explictly

var result= array.Select(x=> new SelectableEnumItem{FirstName= x.Name, Selected = bool.Parse(x.selected) });

please pay attention in above solution I used dynamic Object

I can think of some more solutions that are combinations of above solutions. but I think it covers almost all available methods out there.

Myself I use the first one

using Newtonsoft.Json.Linq;
using System.Linq;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections.Generic;

public List<string> GetJsonValues(string filePath, string propertyName)
{
  List<string> values = new List<string>();
  string read = string.Empty;
  using (StreamReader r = new StreamReader(filePath))
  {
    var json = r.ReadToEnd();
    var jObj = JObject.Parse(json);
    foreach (var j in jObj.Properties())
    {
      if (j.Name.Equals(propertyName))
      {
        var value = jObj[j.Name] as JArray;
        return values = value.ToObject<List<string>>();
      }
    }
    return values;
  }
}

Use IList to get the JArray Count and Use Loop to Convert into List

       var array = result["items"].Value<JArray>();

        IList collection = (IList)array;

        var list = new List<string>();

        for (int i = 0; i < collection.Count; j++)
            {
              list.Add(collection[i].ToString());             
            }