From DataTable in C# .NET to JSON

Question

I am pretty new at C# and .NET, but I\'ve made this code to call a stored procedure, and I then want to take the returned DataTable and convert it to JSON.

Answer 1

Although the JavaScriptSerializer (System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer) cannot convert a DataTable directly into JSON, it is possible to unpack a DataTable into a List that may then be serialized.

The following function converts an arbitrary DataTable into a JSON string (without prior knowledge about field names or data types):

public static string DataTableToJSON(DataTable table)
{
    var list = new List>();

    foreach (DataRow row in table.Rows)
    {
        var dict = new Dictionary();

        foreach (DataColumn col in table.Columns)
        {
            dict[col.ColumnName] = row[col];
        }
        list.Add(dict);
    }
    JavaScriptSerializer serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
    return serializer.Serialize(list);
}