Serializing dictionaries with JavaScriptSerializer

Question

Apparently, IDictionary is serialized as an array of KeyValuePair objects (e.g., [{Key:\"foo\", Value:\"bar\"}, ...]

Answer 1

Here's an I believe improved version from Tomas answer. Works like a charm. We could also add a check for the ScriptIgnore attribute but well, knock yourself out.

BTW, I chose JavaScriptSerializer because in my opinion third party solutions are most of the time: less known, long to install, often forgotten pre-requities and have blur copy-right states that make them risky to distribute in business.

P-S: I didn`t understood why we were trying to deserialize both to the instance and to the instance as a dictionary, so I stripped that part.

public class KeyValuePairJsonConverter : JavaScriptConverter
{
    public override object Deserialize(IDictionary deserializedJSObjectDictionary, Type targetType, JavaScriptSerializer javaScriptSerializer)
    {
        Object targetTypeInstance = Activator.CreateInstance(targetType);

        FieldInfo[] targetTypeFields = targetType.GetFields(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance);

        foreach (FieldInfo fieldInfo in targetTypeFields)
            fieldInfo.SetValue(targetTypeInstance, deserializedJSObjectDictionary[fieldInfo.Name]);

        return targetTypeInstance;
    }

    public override IDictionary Serialize(Object objectToSerialize, JavaScriptSerializer javaScriptSerializer)
    {
       IDictionary serializedObjectDictionary = new Dictionary();

       FieldInfo[] objectToSerializeTypeFields = objectToSerialize.GetType().GetFields(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance);

       foreach (FieldInfo fieldInfo in objectToSerializeTypeFields)
           serializedObjectDictionary.Add(fieldInfo.Name, fieldInfo.GetValue(objectToSerialize));

       return serializedObjectDictionary;
    }

    public override IEnumerable SupportedTypes
    {
        get
        {
            return new ReadOnlyCollection(new Type[] { typeof(YOURCLASSNAME) });
        }
    }
}