JSON.NET and Replacing @ Sign in XML to JSON converstion

Question

The JSON.NET framework can convert XML to JSON, but it uses the @ sign in the JSON as the attribute. I would rather remove this before sending it to the view. What would b

Answer 1

This is my regex contribution, using lookaheads and lookbehinds to ensure it only occurs in the attribute field

(?m)(?<=^\s+\")(@)(?=.+\"\:)

Breakdown:

(?m) - Run in multiline mode

(?<=^\s+\") - Lookbehind to find the beginning of the line, one or more spaces, and a quote symbol

(@) - Match the @ after the quote

(?=.+\"\:) - Look ahead to match any character at least once, followed by another quote and then a colon

Answer 2

I went ahead and used this. Let me know if there is a better way.

public ActionResult Layout()
{
    var xml = new XmlDocument();
    xml.XmlResolver = null;
    xml.Load(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/Navigation.xml"));

    var jsonText = JsonConvert.SerializeXmlNode(xml, Newtonsoft.Json.Formatting.Indented);
    return Content(Regex.Replace(jsonText, "(?<=\")(@)(?!.*\":\\s )", string.Empty, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase));
}

Answer 3

The Regex not always work great,when content has the @ character and in the first place,that will be replace too. so I think(?<!:)(\"@)(?!.\":\\s ) may be better.

Answer 4

First replace all "@" in your xml content with some placeholder (as example {{at_the_rate}}). Then use below code

JsonConvert.SerializeXmlNode(doc).Replace("@", "").Replace("{{at_the_rate}}", "@")

Answer 5

I suggest using the following regex, it the same as @yieio provided, but enhance to leave the content as is without any modifications, and affect only property names

var jString = Regex.Replace(
JsonConvert.SerializeXmlNode(content, Newtonsoft.Json.Formatting.None, true),
 "(?<=(\\,\\\"|\\{\\\"))(@)(?!.*\\\":\\\\s )", String.Empty, System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

Answer 6

It took me quite a while to find the right answer, so I thought I'd share:

var xDocument = XDocument.Parse("<xml><a attr=\"b\">c</a></xml>");
var builder = new StringBuilder();
JsonSerializer.Create().Serialize(new CustomJsonWriter(new StringWriter(builder)), xDocument);
var serialized = builder.ToString();

public class CustomJsonWriter : JsonTextWriter
{
    public CustomJsonWriter(TextWriter writer): base(writer){}

    public override void WritePropertyName(string name)
    {
        if (name.StartsWith("@") || name.StartsWith("#"))
        {
            base.WritePropertyName(name.Substring(1));
        }
        else
        {
            base.WritePropertyName(name);
        }
    }
}

Output:

{"xml":{"a":{"attr":"b","text":"c"}}}