How To Parse JsonObject in C#

Question

I am trying to Parse json Object below but i dont know how to do this Because Of "lecturer" in json Object ?? i dont know how i can manage "lecturer" their is another Object in Json But in data[0] its a object and at data[1] it is a flag or Boolean . this thing made me confused . Any Idea how i can achieve this ???

{
    "result": "Success",
    "data": [
        {
            "student_course_id": "82",
            "student_id": "30",
            "term_course_id": "18",
            "section_id": "3",
            "term_id": "12",
            "course_id": "15",
            "credit_hours": "26",
            "is_elective": "Elective",
            "is_practical": "0",
            "teacher_id": "10",
            "program_id": "5",
            "course_code": "E2",
            "course_title": "English 2",
            "lecturer": {
                "fname": "Ali",
                "lname": "farooq",
                "phone": "1234567890",
                "email": "[email protected]",
                "thumb": "../photos/thumb/1391515491.png"
            }
        },
        {
            "student_course_id": "83",
            "student_id": "30",
            "term_course_id": "19",
            "section_id": "3",
            "term_id": "12",
            "course_id": "16",
            "credit_hours": "26",
            "is_elective": "Elective",
            "is_practical": "0",
            "teacher_id": "8",
            "program_id": "5",
            "course_code": "C2",
            "course_title": "Culture 2",
            "lecturer": false
        }
        ]
}

C# Code

public async static Task<StudentSubjectsClassWithError> StudentSubjectsList()
{
    HttpClient client = new HttpClient();

    string baseUrl = getBaseUrl();

    try
    {
        string flickrResult = await client.GetStringAsync(baseUrl);
        StudentSubjectsClassWithError studentSubjectsResult = new StudentSubjectsClassWithError();
        try
        {

            StudentSubjectsJson apiData =
                JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<StudentSubjectsJson>(flickrResult);

            List<StudentSubjectsClass> mStudentSubjectsList = new List<StudentSubjectsClass>();

            if (apiData.data != null && apiData.result == "Success")
            {
                studentSubjectsResult.message = "";
                studentSubjectsResult.result = apiData.result;

                foreach (StudentSubjectsJsonItem data in apiData.data)
                {
                    StudentSubjectsClass studentSubjects = new StudentSubjectsClass();

                    studentSubjects.student_course_id = data.student_course_id;
                    studentSubjects.student_id = data.student_id;
                    studentSubjects.term_course_id = data.term_course_id;
                    studentSubjects.section_id = data.section_id;
                    studentSubjects.term_id = data.term_id;
                    studentSubjects.course_id = data.course_id;
                    studentSubjects.credit_hours = data.credit_hours;
                    studentSubjects.is_elective = data.is_elective;
                    studentSubjects.is_practical = data.is_practical;
                    studentSubjects.program_id = data.program_id;
                    studentSubjects.course_code = data.course_code;
                    studentSubjects.course_title = data.course_title;

                   //// studentSubjects.lecturer ?????

                    mStudentSubjectsList.Add(studentSubjects);
                }
            }
            else
            {
                studentSubjectsResult.result = apiData.result;
                studentSubjectsResult.message = "No records found.";

            }
            studentSubjectsResult.studentSubjectsList = mStudentSubjectsList;
            return studentSubjectsResult;
        }
        catch (JsonSerializationException)
        {

            try
            {

                StudentSubjectsErrorJson apiData =
                   JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<StudentSubjectsErrorJson>(flickrResult);
                studentSubjectsResult.result = apiData.result;
                studentSubjectsResult.message = apiData.data;
                studentSubjectsResult.studentSubjectsList = null;
                return studentSubjectsResult;
            }

            catch (JsonSerializationException)
            {
            }


        }
        return null;
    }
    catch (Exception)
    {
        return null;
     //   MessageBox.Show("Internet Connection Problem");
    }
}

Answer 1

I am using Visual Studio 2012 and when I want to turn a Json string into a C# class object, I copy the Json string and

-> Click Edit
-> Click Paste Special
-> Click Paste JSON as Classes

or you can use the great online tool by Jonathan Keith http://json2csharp.com/

using json2csharp i got this class from your json

public class Datum
{
    public string student_course_id { get; set; }
    public string student_id { get; set; }
    public string term_course_id { get; set; }
    public string section_id { get; set; }
    public string term_id { get; set; }
    public string course_id { get; set; }
    public string credit_hours { get; set; }
    public string is_elective { get; set; }
    public string is_practical { get; set; }
    public string teacher_id { get; set; }
    public string program_id { get; set; }
    public string course_code { get; set; }
    public string course_title { get; set; }
    public object lecturer { get; set; }
}

public class RootObject
{
    public string result { get; set; }
    public List<Datum> data { get; set; }
}

Edit

I also noticed that your data array has the lecturer as an object, the second data has lecturer as a bool. You can fix this by simply not including lecturer if it doesn't exist. That would change the classes to this:

public class Lecturer
{
    public string fname { get; set; }
    public string lname { get; set; }
    public string phone { get; set; }
    public string email { get; set; }
    public string thumb { get; set; }
}

public class Datum
{
    public string student_course_id { get; set; }
    public string student_id { get; set; }
    public string term_course_id { get; set; }
    public string section_id { get; set; }
    public string term_id { get; set; }
    public string course_id { get; set; }
    public string credit_hours { get; set; }
    public string is_elective { get; set; }
    public string is_practical { get; set; }
    public string teacher_id { get; set; }
    public string program_id { get; set; }
    public string course_code { get; set; }
    public string course_title { get; set; }
    public Lecturer lecturer { get; set; }
}

public class RootObject
{
    public string result { get; set; }
    public List<Datum> data { get; set; }
}

Answer 2

You've got StudentSubjectsJson for the top level, and StudentSubjectsJsonItem for each isntance in the data array.

For the lecturer you need to define StudentSubjectsJsonLecturer and set is as a property of StudentSubjectsJsonItem called lecturer.

eg:

public class StudentSubjectsJsonItem {
    //Existing properties
    public StudentSubjectsJsonLecturer lecturer {get;set;}
}

public class StudentSubjectsJsonLecturer {
    public string fname {get;set;}
    public string lname {get;set;}
    //And so on...
}

Answer 3

Since you're already copying properties (you shouldn't have to, this is what deserialization is for) you can deserialize your data into a dynamic object (Newtonsoft Json v4+):

dynamic apiData = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<StudentSubjectsJson>(flickrResult);

and proceed with the rest of the code as you have it, then when you have to deal with `lecturer' check if it's "false" as you normally would:

if (apiData.data[x].lecturer != false){
...
}

disclaimer: I haven't compiled this to try it, it's a suggestion what to try

Answer 4

I recommend you to use a third party json library instead of writing one yourself. Especially this one: click to download

It's a single-file json library.