Deserializing a JSON string formatted as a dictionary

Question

Using C# (.Net 4.6) and JSON.NET

I'm currently trying to deserialize a large JSON string that has been presented in a format with multiple levels - I'm aiming to store some of this data in a flat DB table, going via a C# class to build the data in the required format that will be written back to each row.

Here's an example of the string format (made up data with line breaks added to increase readability):

{
    "Microsoft":
    {
        "name" : "Microsoft",
        "products" : ["Word", "Excel", ["TestThis","TestOrThis"]],
        "employees" : 
        [
            {"John" :{"name" :  "John","skills" : ["Support", "Programming"]}}, 
            {"Dave":{"name" :  "Dave", "skills" : ["Tester"]}}
        ]
    }
}

What I really want to end up with is a database row that has just some of this information, reading something like:

"Company Name", "Employee Name"

e.g.

"Microsoft", "John"
"Microsoft", "Dave"
"IBM", "Ted"

Reading a basic JSON string is easy enough, however I'm new to using JSON which has left me stumped on how to break this down.

Your Json is not valid, your missing the double quote after the "products: — Wattcey
– Wattcey, Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 10:57

Brian Rogers · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-30 17:50:31Z

We can deserialize your JSON by first defining a couple of classes like this:

class Company
{
    [JsonProperty("name")]
    public string Name { get; set; }
    [JsonProperty("employees")]
    public List<Dictionary<string, Employee>> Employees { get; set; }
}

class Employee
{
    [JsonProperty("name")]
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

Then we can deserialize into a Dictionary<string, Company> like this:

var companies = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string, Company>>(json);

You'll notice that wherever the keys can vary in the JSON (e.g. the company and employee names), we need to use a Dictionary in place of a static class. Also, we can omit defining properties for the items we are not interested in, like products and skills.

Once we have the deserialized companies, we can loop through the results to arrive at the desired output like this:

foreach(KeyValuePair<string, Company> kvp in companies)
{
    foreach (Dictionary<string, Employee> employees in kvp.Value.Employees)
    {
        foreach (KeyValuePair<string, Employee> kvp2 in employees)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(kvp.Value.Name + ", " + kvp2.Value.Name);
        }
    }
}

Output:

Microsoft, John
Microsoft, Dave

Fiddle: https://dotnetfiddle.net/FpK7AN

BWA · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-30 10:45:10Z

0

On site json2csharp.com generete classes from your JSON, your example isn't valid JSON. And deserialize your JSON into generated classes. Sometimes tool generates bad classes, so be carefull.

answered Mar 30, 2016 at 10:45

BWA

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1 Comment

Bizmark Over a year ago

Thanks for the link - yea the inclusion of ".." indicates other possible data items. That string shouldn't parse as-is. The string I'm using is 16MB in size, neither that site you linked nor the tool it's based on can handle that amount of info - i'll try and strip some of the date down a little and try again.

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