Parsing JSON from Typescript restores data members but not type: cannot call methods on result

Question

When I parse the JSON-stringified result of an object p1 back into another object p2, the second object gets the data associated with the first object, but I cannot call any nethods on it. Using http://www.typescriptlang.org/Playground/ I tried the following:

class Person
{
    constructor(public name: string, public age: number) {
    }
    Age() { return this.age; }
}

// Create a person
var p: Person = new Person("One", 1);

// Create a second person from the JSON representation
// of the first (NOTE: assert it is of type Person!)
var p2: Person = <Person>JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(p));

document.writeln("Start");

document.writeln(p.name);  // OK: One
document.writeln(p.Age()); // OK: 1

document.writeln(p2.name); // OK: One
document.writeln(p2.age;   // OK: 1
document.writeln(p2.Age()); // ERROR: no method Age() on Object

document.writeln("End");

How do I parse the JSON data and get a proper Person object?

Answer 1

JSON is a representation of the data only, not any behaviour.

You could create a method on the object that accepts the JSON object and hydrates the data from it, but a JSON object cannot transfer the behaviour (methods etc) only the plain data.

class Person
{
    constructor(public name: string, public age: number) {
    }

    Age() { return this.age; }

    static fromJson(json: string) {
        var data = JSON.parse(json);
        return new Person(data.name, data.age);
    }
}

var p: Person = new Person("One", 53);
var jsonPerson = JSON.stringify(p);

var p2: Person = Person.fromJson(jsonPerson);

alert(p2.Age().toString());

Answer 2

try this:

// Create a person
var p: Person  = new Person("One", 1);

// JSON roundtrip
var p_fromjson = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(p))

// Hydrate it
var p2: Person = Object.create(Person.prototype);
Object.assign(p2, p_fromjson);

document.writeln(p2.Age()); // OK