How to bind a JSON string to a real object definition?

Question

I've found it really handy that in MVC3 ASP.NET will map the incoming JSON request body to a simple specified object in the form of an argument...

Is there any way to utilize this functionality outside that specific use case?

To take it even further, in standard .NET programming take a json string and map(bind) it to a real object... ( not a dictionary ) ?

Answer 1

Sure, you could use a JSON serializer such as the JavaScriptSerializer class which is what ASP.NET MVC uses or a third party library such as Json.NET. For example:

using System;
using System.Web.Script.Serialization;

public class Customer
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int Age { get; set; }
}

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        var serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
        var json = "{name: 'John', age: 15}";
        var customer = serializer.Deserialize<Customer>(json);
        Console.WriteLine("name: {0}, age: {1}", customer.Name, customer.Age);
    }
}

or with Json.NET if you prefer:

using System;
using Newtonsoft.Json;

public class Customer
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int Age { get; set; }
}

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        var json = "{name: 'John', age: 15}";
        var customer = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Customer>(json);
        Console.WriteLine("name: {0}, age: {1}", customer.Name, customer.Age);
    }
}