MVC 4 Web API - JSON serialization for custom objects

Question

I have several objects as followed:

public class Person
{
    string FirstName;
    string LastName;
    public Person(string fn, string ln)
    {
        FirstName = fn;
        LastName = ln;
    }
}

public class Team
{
    string TeamName;
    Person TeamLeader;
    List<Person> TeamMembers;

    public Team(string name, Person lead, List<Person> members)
    {
        TeamName = name;
        TeamLeader = lead;
        TeamMembers = members;
    }
}

public class Response
{
    int ResponseCode;
    string ResponseMessage;
    object ResponsePayload;
    public Response(int code, string message, object payload)
    {
        ResponseCode = code;
        ResponseMessage = message;
        ResponsePayload = payload;
    }
}

(1) This is the Person controller with Get method:

public class PersonController : ApiController
{
    public Response Get()
    {
        Person tom = new Person("Tom", "Cruise");
        Response response = new Response(1, "It works!", tom);
        return response;
    }
}

(2) This is the Team controller with Get method:

public class TeamController : ApiController
{
    public Response Get()
    {
        Person tom = new Person("Tom", "Cruise");
        Person cindy = new Person("Cindy", "Cullen");
        Person jason = new Person("Jason","Lien");
        Team awesome = new Team("Awesome", jason, new List<Person>(){tom,cindy});
        Response response = new Response(1, "It works!", awesome);
        return response;
    }
}

What I want is after user calling http://www.app123.com/api/person

I receive JSON result like this:

{
   "ResponseCode":1,
   "ResponseMessage":"It works!",
   "ResponsePayload":
   {
     "FirstName":"Tom",
     "LastName":"Cruise"
   } 
}

and calling http://www.app123.com/api/team

I receive JSON result like this:

{
   "ResponseCode":1,
   "ResponseMessage":"It works!",
   "ResponsePayload":
   {
     "TeamLeader":
      {
          "FirstName":"Jason",
          "LastName":"Lien"
      }
      "TeamMember":
      [
         {
            "FirstName":"Tom",
            "LastName":"Cruise"
         },
         {
             "FirstName":"Cindy",
             "LastName":"Cullen"
         }
      ]
   } 
}

But they never work for me, do you know how to produce the JSON result like above with ASP.NET MVC 4?

Answer 1

First, make sure you are using JSON formatter, e.g. adding following code to Application_Start

var json = config.Formatters.JsonFormatter;
json.SerializerSettings.Formatting = Newtonsoft.Json.Formatting.Indented;

Second, just returning your custom object, JSON formatter will do the rest and you'll get nice JSON data on the client side.

[HttpGet]
public HttpResponseMessage GetPeopleList()
{
    var people = // create a list of person here...
    return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, people);
}

Answer 2

This one works for me:

public object Get()
{
    Person tom = new Person("Tom", "Cruise");
    Person cindy = new Person("Cindy", "Cullen");
    Person jason = new Person("Jason", "Lien");
    Team awesome = new Team("Awesome", jason, new List<Person>() { tom, cindy });
    Response response = new Response(1, "It works!", awesome);
    JsonResult jsonResult = new JsonResult { 
        Data= response,
        JsonRequestBehavior = JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet
    };
    return jsonResult.Data;
}

We also need to anotate [Serializable] for Response, Person and Team classes.