How do I turn a C# object into a JSON string in .NET?

Question

I have classes like these:

class MyDate {     int year, month, day; }  class Lad {     string firstName;     string lastName;     MyDate dateOfBirth; } 

And I would like to turn a Lad object into a JSON string like this:

{     "firstName":"Markoff",     "lastName":"Chaney",     "dateOfBirth":     {         "year":"1901",         "month":"4",         "day":"30"     } } 

(Without the formatting). I found this link, but it uses a namespace that's not in .NET 4. I also heard about JSON.NET, but their site seems to be down at the moment, and I'm not keen on using external DLL files.

Are there other options besides manually creating a JSON string writer?

Answer 1

Since we all love one-liners

... this one depends on the Newtonsoft NuGet package, which is popular and better than the default serializer.

Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(new {foo = "bar"}) 

Documentation: Serializing and Deserializing JSON

Answer 2

Please Note

Microsoft recommends that you DO NOT USE JavaScriptSerializer

See the header of the documentation page:

For .NET Framework 4.7.2 and later versions, use the APIs in the System.Text.Json namespace for serialization and deserialization. For earlier versions of .NET Framework, use Newtonsoft.Json.

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Original answer:

You could use the JavaScriptSerializer class (add reference to System.Web.Extensions):

using System.Web.Script.Serialization; 

var json = new JavaScriptSerializer().Serialize(obj); 

A full example:

using System; using System.Web.Script.Serialization;  public class MyDate {     public int year;     public int month;     public int day; }  public class Lad {     public string firstName;     public string lastName;     public MyDate dateOfBirth; }  class Program {     static void Main()     {         var obj = new Lad         {             firstName = "Markoff",             lastName = "Chaney",             dateOfBirth = new MyDate             {                 year = 1901,                 month = 4,                 day = 30             }         };         var json = new JavaScriptSerializer().Serialize(obj);         Console.WriteLine(json);     } }