How do I save a JSON file with four spaces indentation using JSON.NET?

Question

I need to read a JSON configuration file, modify a value and then save the modified JSON back to the file again. The JSON is as simple as it gets:

{
    "         


        

Answer 1

I ran into the same issue and found out that WriteRaw does not effect the indentation settings, however you can solve the issue using WriteTo on the JObject

using (FileStream fs = File.Open("config.json", FileMode.OpenOrCreate))
{
    using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(fs))
    {
        using (JsonTextWriter jw = new JsonTextWriter(sw))
        {
            jw.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;
            jw.IndentChar = ' ';
            jw.Indentation = 4;

            config.WriteTo(jw);
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

The problem is that you are using config.ToString(), so the object is already serialised into a string and formatted when you write it using the JsonTextWriter.

Use a serialiser to serialise the object to the writer instead:

JsonSerializer serializer = new JsonSerializer();
serializer.Serialize(jw, config);

Answer 3

Maybe try to feed a tab character to the IndentChar?

...    
jw.IndentChar = '\t';
...

Accordinging to the documentation, it should use the tab character to indent the JSON instead of the space character. http://james.newtonking.com/json/help/index.html?topic=html/T_Newtonsoft_Json_Formatting.htm