Deserialize nested JSON into C# objects

Question

I am getting JSON back from an API that looks like this:

{   "Items": {     "Item322A": [{       "prop1": "string",       "prop2": "string",       "prop3": 1,       "prop4": false     },{       "prop1": "string",       "prop2": "string",       "prop3": 0,       "prop4": false     }],        "Item2B": [{       "prop1": "string",       "prop2": "string",       "prop3": 14,       "prop4": true     }]   },   "Errors": ["String"] } 

I have tried a few approaches to represent this JSON in c# objects (too many to list here). I've tried with lists and dictionaries, here is a recent example of how I've tried to represent it:

    private class Response     {         public Item Items { get; set; }         public string[] Errors { get; set; }     }      private class Item     {         public List<SubItem> SubItems { get; set; }     }      private class SubItem     {         public List<Info> Infos { get; set; }     }      private class Info     {         public string Prop1 { get; set; }         public string Prop2 { get; set; }         public int Prop3 { get; set; }         public bool Prop4 { get; set; }     } 

And here is the method I am using to deserialize the JSON:

    using (var sr = new StringReader(responseJSON))     using (var jr = new JsonTextReader(sr))     {         var serial = new JsonSerializer();         serial.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;         var obj = serial.Deserialize<Response>(jr);     } 

obj contains Items and Errors. And Items contains SubItems, but SubItems is null. So nothing except for Errors is actually getting deserialized.

It should be simple, but for some reason I can't figure out the correct object representation

Answer 1

Use this this site for representation:

https://quicktype.io/csharp/

something like this may help you

public class Item322A {     public string prop1 { get; set; }     public string prop2 { get; set; }     public int prop3 { get; set; }     public bool prop4 { get; set; } }  public class Item2B {     public string prop1 { get; set; }     public string prop2 { get; set; }     public int prop3 { get; set; }     public bool prop4 { get; set; } }  public class Items {     public List<Item322A> Item322A { get; set; }     public List<Item2B> Item2B { get; set; } }  public class jsonObject {     public Items Items { get; set; }     public List<string> Errors { get; set; } } 

Here is how to deserialize (use JsonConvert class):

jsonObject ourlisting = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<jsonObject>(strJSON); 

Answer 2

For "Items" use a Dictionary<string, List<Info>>, i.e.:

class Response {     public Dictionary<string, List<Info>> Items { get; set; }     public string[] Errors { get; set; } }  class Info {     public string Prop1 { get; set; }     public string Prop2 { get; set; }     public int Prop3 { get; set; }     public bool Prop4 { get; set; } } 

This assumes that the item names "Item322A" and "Item2B" will vary from response to response, and reads these names in as the dictionary keys.

Sample fiddle.