Creating a JSON array in C#

Question

Ok, so I am trying to send POST commands over an http connection, and using JSON formatting to do so. I am writing the program to do this in C#, and was wondering how I would format an array of values to be passed as JSON to the server.

Currently I have this:

new {name = "command" , index = "X", optional = "0"}

Which translates to this in JSON:

"name": "command", "index": "X", "optional": "0" 

And I want to make an array, called items, where each element contains these three values. So it would essentially be an array of objects, in which the object contains a name, an index, and an optional field.

My guess was that it would be something along the lines of this:

new {items = [(name = "command" , index = "X", optional = "0"),                (name = "status" , index = "X", optional = "0")]} 

Which, if it were correct syntax, would translate to this in JSON:

"items":  [     {         "name": "command",         "index": "X",         "optional": "0"     },     {         "name": "status",         "index": "X",         "optional": "0"     } ] 

But, evidently I'm doing it wrong. Ideas? Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

You're close. This should do the trick:

new {items = new [] {     new {name = "command" , index = "X", optional = "0"},      new {name = "command" , index = "X", optional = "0"} }} 

If your source was an enumerable of some sort, you might want to do this:

new {items = source.Select(item => new  {     name = item.Name, index = item.Index, options = item.Optional })}; 

Answer 2

You'd better create some class for each item instead of using anonymous objects. And in object you're serializing you should have array of those items. E.g.:

public class Item {     public string name { get; set; }     public string index { get; set; }     public string optional { get; set; } }  public class RootObject {     public List<Item> items { get; set; } } 

Usage:

var objectToSerialize = new RootObject(); objectToSerialize.items = new List<Item>                            {                              new Item { name = "test1", index = "index1" },                              new Item { name = "test2", index = "index2" }                           }; 

And in the result you won't have to change things several times if you need to change data-structure.

p.s. Here's very nice tool for complex jsons