more json c# issues

Question

This is a continuation of a previous question of mine. The solution worked for what I was trying to do at the time but broke a whole lot of my code. I know it was bad practice not to make sure beforehand but yeah... you live and learn.

Anyhoo, here's the Q: an easy way to serialise c# objects

What I want to know is: is there any way to get the NewtonSoft Library to handle this stuff? If yes, how? If no, suggestions?

What i'm doing is chatting to a RoR3 app using json, now I cant deserialise the response. here's a little code:

The response i'm getting from RoR looks like:

[{"directory":{"created_at":"2011-07-20T22:29:38Z","drive_info":1,"id":15,"name":"New Drive","parent":0,"size":0,"updated_at":"2011-07-20T22:29:39Z","user":1}}]

I'm trying to deserialise it into a list of Directory objects using:

public static CompositeCollection deserialise<T>(string json)
    {
        CompositeCollection result = new CompositeCollection();
        JArray arr = JArray.Parse(json);

        foreach (JObject obj in arr)
        {
            result.Add(JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>(obj.First.First.ToString()));
        }
        return result;
    }

and the relevant part of the directory class looks like:

//   [Serializable]
//   [DataContract]
public class Directory
{
  //  [DataMember]
    public int id { get; set; }

//    [DataMember]
    public string name { get; set; }

 //   [DataMember]
    public int parent { get; set; }

//    [DataMember]
    public int drive_info { get; set; }

//      [DataMember]
    public int size { get; set; }

//     [DataMember]
    public int user { get; set; } 

//       [DataMember]
    public string state 
    { 
        get
        {
          /*  if (parent == 0)
                return _state.identify();
            Directory parental;
            return parental.state;*/
            if (parental != null)
                return parental.state;
            return _state.identify();
        }
        set
        {
            _state = StateFactory.getState(value);
        }
    }

    //[JsonIgnore]
    blah...

I can deserialise most of the time by uncommenting [Serializable] (sometimes i get the following error: Object of type 'System.Int32' cannot be converted to type 'OffloadUI.Directory'. still investigating), and I can serialise by uncomenting [DataContract] and all instances of [DataMember]. What i need is something that will work in both directions.

Answer 1

Thanks to Zootius I found a useful guide. Here's what i did, works like a bought one:

[JsonObject(MemberSerialization.OptIn)]
public class Directory
{
    [JsonProperty]
    public int id { get; set; }

    [JsonProperty]
    public string name { get; set; }

    [JsonProperty]
    public int parent { get; set; }