C# - parsing json formatted data into nested hashtables

Question

I’m trying to work with some json formatted data in C#, but, I’m having some problems determining the proper way to approach the problem. My issue is that the json formatte

Answer 1

Here is a method I wrote in C# to parse JSON and return a dictionary. Of course it is not appropriate for all use cases, but something like this will give you a nice one-pass parse of the JSON:

/*
     * This method takes in JSON in the form returned by javascript's
     * JSON.stringify(Object) and returns a string->string dictionary.
     * This method may be of use when the format of the json is unknown.
     * You can modify the delimiters, etc pretty easily in the source
     * (sorry I didn't abstract it--I have a very specific use).
     */ 
    public static Dictionary jsonParse(string rawjson)
    {
        Dictionary outdict = new Dictionary();
        StringBuilder keybufferbuilder = new StringBuilder();
        StringBuilder valuebufferbuilder = new StringBuilder();
        StringReader bufferreader = new StringReader(rawjson);

        int s = 0;
        bool reading = false;
        bool inside_string = false;
        bool reading_value = false;
        //break at end (returns -1)
        while (s >= 0)
        {
            s = bufferreader.Read();
            //opening of json
            if (!reading)
            {
                if ((char)s == '{' && !inside_string && !reading) reading = true;
                continue;
            }
            else
            {
                //if we find a quote and we are not yet inside a string, advance and get inside
                if (!inside_string)
                {
                    //read past the quote
                    if ((char)s == '\"') inside_string = true;
                    continue;
                }
                if (inside_string)
                {
                    //if we reached the end of the string
                    if ((char)s == '\"')
                    {
                        inside_string = false;
                        s = bufferreader.Read(); //advance pointer
                        if ((char)s == ':')
                        {
                            reading_value = true;
                            continue;
                        }
                        if (reading_value && (char)s == ',')
                        {
                            //we know we just ended the line, so put itin our dictionary
                            if (!outdict.ContainsKey(keybufferbuilder.ToString())) outdict.Add(keybufferbuilder.ToString(), valuebufferbuilder.ToString());
                            //and clear the buffers
                            keybufferbuilder.Clear();
                            valuebufferbuilder.Clear();
                            reading_value = false;
                        }
                        if (reading_value && (char)s == '}')
                        {
                            //we know we just ended the line, so put itin our dictionary
                            if (!outdict.ContainsKey(keybufferbuilder.ToString())) outdict.Add(keybufferbuilder.ToString(), valuebufferbuilder.ToString());
                            //and clear the buffers
                            keybufferbuilder.Clear();
                            valuebufferbuilder.Clear();
                            reading_value = false;
                            reading = false;
                            break;
                        }
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        if (reading_value)
                        {
                            valuebufferbuilder.Append((char)s);
                            continue;
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            keybufferbuilder.Append((char)s);
                            continue;
                        }
                    }
                }
                else
                {
                    switch ((char)s)
                    {
                        case ':':
                            reading_value = true;
                            break;
                        default:
                            if (reading_value)
                            {
                                valuebufferbuilder.Append((char)s);
                            }
                            else
                            {
                                keybufferbuilder.Append((char)s);
                            }
                            break;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        return outdict;
    }