I have a generic class, whose children I want to serialize with the value of only one of its attributes.
To this end, I wrote a custom JsonConverter and attached it to the base class with the JsonConverter(Type) Attribute - however, it does not ever seem to be called. For reference, as shown in the example below, I am serializing a List<> of the object using the System.Web.Mvc.Controller.Json() method.
If there is an altogether better way of achieving the same result, I'm absolutely open to suggestions.
Example
View function
public JsonResult SomeView()
{
List<Foo> foos = GetAListOfFoos();
return Json(foos);
}
Custom JsonConverter
class FooConverter : JsonConverter
{
public override void WriteJson(JsonWriter writer, object value, JsonSerializer serializer)
{
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("This never seems to be run");
// This probably won't work - I have been unable to test it due to mentioned issues.
serializer.Serialize(writer, (value as FooBase<dynamic, dynamic>).attribute);
}
public override void ReadJson(JsonReader reader, Type objectType, object existingValue, JsonSerializer serializer)
{
throw new NotImplementedException();
}
public override bool CanConvert(Type objectType)
{
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("This never seems to be run either");
return objectType.IsGenericType
&& objectType.GetGenericTypeDefinition() == typeof(FooBase<,>);
}
}
Foo base class
[JsonConverter(typeof(FooConverter))]
public abstract class FooBase<TBar, TBaz>
where TBar : class
where TBaz : class
{
public TBar attribute;
}
Foo implementation
public class Foo : FooBase<Bar, Baz>
{
// ...
}
Current output
[
{"attribute": { ... } },
{"attribute": { ... } },
{"attribute": { ... } },
...
]
Desired output
[
{ ... },
{ ... },
{ ... },
...
]
