Deserializing JSON with dynamic keys

Question

I'm quite new to JSON, and am currently learning about (de)serialization. I'm retrieving a JSON string from a webpage and trying to deserialize it into an object. Problem is, the root json key is static, but the underlying keys are dynamic and I cannot anticipate them to deserialize. Here is a mini example of the string :

{
    "daily": {
        "1337990400000": 443447,
        "1338076800000": 444693,
        "1338163200000": 452282,
        "1338249600000": 462189,
        "1338336000000": 466626
    }
}

For another JSON string in my application, I was using a JavascriptSerializer and anticipating the keys using class structure. What's the best way to go about deserializing this string into an object?

Answer 1

Seriously, no need to go down the dynamic route; use

var deser = new JavaScriptSerializer()
    .Deserialize<Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, int>>>(val);
var justDaily = deser["daily"];

to get a dictionary, and then you can e.g.

foreach (string key in justDaily.Keys)
    Console.WriteLine(key + ": " + justDaily[key]);

to get the keys present and the corresponding values.

Answer 2

You can use dynamic in .NET 4 or later. For example with JSON.NET I can do:

dynamic obj = JsonConvert.Deserialize<dynamic>("{x: 'hello'}");

You can then do:

var str = obj.x;

However, unsure how it will handle numeric keys. You can of course just use JObject directly itself, for example:

var obj = JObject.Parse("{'123456': 'help'}");
var str = obj["123456"];