How do I de/serialize JSON in WinRT?

Question

How do I take an object and convert it to a JSON string and then back into that object from a string, specifically, in WinRT for my Windows 8 Metro application?

Answer 1

OP asked for an answer that pertained to metro apps on Windows 8, but this question comes up when doing a basic search for serializing/de-serializing jsons for WinRT, so I'm adding this answer for those who are looking for a more modern approach.

Modern WinRT has built-in handlers for this challenge, so no need to use JSON.net

Use JsonObject from Windows.Data.Json

For serializing use Parse or TryParse.

For de-serializing but still in JSON format, use Stringify.

Answer 2

Like this:

using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Json;
using System.Text;

public static T Deserialize<T>(string json)
{
    var _Bytes = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(json);
    using (MemoryStream _Stream = new MemoryStream(_Bytes))
    {
        var _Serializer = new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(T));
        return (T)_Serializer.ReadObject(_Stream);
    }
}

public static string Serialize(object instance)
{
    using (MemoryStream _Stream = new MemoryStream())
    {
        var _Serializer = new DataContractJsonSerializer(instance.GetType());
        _Serializer.WriteObject(_Stream, instance);
        _Stream.Position = 0;
        using (StreamReader _Reader = new StreamReader(_Stream)) 
        { return _Reader.ReadToEnd(); }
    }
}

Answer 3

First generate C# classes with http://json2csharp.com/ Then use http://james.newtonking.com/pages/json-net.aspx for parsing

My user class currently looks like this:

public class User
{
    public string id { get; set; }
    public string username { get; set; }
    public string full_name { get; set; }
    public string profile_picture { get; set; }
    public string bio { get; set; }
    public string website { get; set; }
    public Counts counts { get; set; }

    public static User SingleFromJSON(string jsonString)
    {
        return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<SingleUser>(jsonString).data;
    }

    public static User MultipleFromJSON(string jsonString)
    {
        return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<SingleUser>(jsonString).data;
    }

    private class SingleUser
    {
        public User data { get; set; }
    }

    private class MultipleUsers
    {
        public List<User> data { get; set; }
    }
}

public class Counts
{
    public int media { get; set; }
    public int follows { get; set; }
    public int followed_by { get; set; }
}

Super easy :D