Json.Net - Serialize property name without quotes

Question

I'm trying to get Json.Net to serialise a property name without quote marks, and finding it difficult to locate documentation on Google. How can I do this?

It's in a very small part of a large Json render, so I'd prefer to either add a property attribute, or override the serialising method on the class.

Currently, the it renders like this:

"event_modal": {     "href":"file.html",     "type":"full" } 

And I'm hoping to get it to render like: (href and type are without quotes)

"event_modal": {     href:"file.html",     type:"full" } 

From the class:

public class ModalOptions {     public object href { get; set; }     public object type { get; set; } } 

Answer 1

It's possible, but I advise against it as it would produce invalid JSON as Marcelo and Marc have pointed out in their comments.

Using the Json.NET library you can achieve this as follows:

[JsonObject(MemberSerialization.OptIn)] public class ModalOptions {     [JsonProperty]     public object href { get; set; }      [JsonProperty]     public object type { get; set; } } 

When serializing the object use the JsonSerializer type instead of the static JsonConvert type.

For example:

var options = new ModalOptions { href = "file.html", type = "full" }; var serializer = new JsonSerializer(); var stringWriter = new StringWriter(); using (var writer = new JsonTextWriter(stringWriter)) {     writer.QuoteName = false;     serializer.Serialize(writer, options);             } var json = stringWriter.ToString(); 

This will produce:

{href:"file.html",type:"full"} 

If you set the QuoteName property of the JsonTextWriter instance to false the object names will no longer be quoted.

Answer 2

You can also try a regex replace, with a substitution, which could handle any serialized object, and replace the quotes for you.

For Example:

var options = new ModalOptions { href = "file.html", type = "full" }; string jsonText = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(options); string regexPattern = "\"([^\"]+)\":"; // the "propertyName": pattern Console.WriteLine(Regex.Replace(jsonText, regexPattern, "$1:")); 

This would produce:

{href:"file.html",type:"full"} 

I built a working web example here. Explanation of regex substitutions are here.