Working with JSON in C# .NET 3.5

Question

I have found some helper method that allow me to convert an object to JSONM and JSON to an object. Now I am reading in a json file that looks something like this:

Answer 1

You need to use DataContractJsonSerializer which is in the System.Runtime.Serialization.Json namespace. Mark your class with the [DataContract] attribute, collection classes with the [CollectionDataContract] attribute and the properties with the [DataMember] attribute.

[CollectionDataContract]
public class People : List
{

}

[DataContract]
public class Person
{
     public Person() { }

     [DataMember]
     public int Id{ get; set; }

     [DataMember]
     public string Name { get; set; }
}

Here is a helper class to serialize (To) and deserialize (From)

using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Json;

public class jsonHelper
{
    public static string To(T obj)
    {
        string retVal = null;
        System.Runtime.Serialization.Json.DataContractJsonSerializer serializer = new System.Runtime.Serialization.Json.DataContractJsonSerializer(obj.GetType());
        using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
        {
         serializer.WriteObject(ms, obj);
         retVal = Encoding.Default.GetString(ms.ToArray());
        }

        return retVal;
    }

    public static T From(string json)
    {
        T obj = Activator.CreateInstance();
        using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(json)))
        {
         System.Runtime.Serialization.Json.DataContractJsonSerializer serializer = new System.Runtime.Serialization.Json.DataContractJsonSerializer(obj.GetType());
         obj = (T)serializer.ReadObject(ms);
        }

        return obj;
    }
}

So take your json above and send it to the From method in the jsonHelper class above

People peeps = jsonHelper.From(input);