CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#jsonserializationservicestack
lokki
lokki

Reputation: 51

Serialize list of interface types with ServiceStack.Text

I'm looking at ways to introduce something other than BinaryFormatter serialization into my app to eventually work with Redis. ServiceStack JSON is what I would like to use, but can it do what I need with interfaces? It can serialize (by inserting custom __type attribute)

public IAsset Content;

but not

public List<IAsset> Contents;

- the list comes up empty in serialized data. Is there any way to do this - serialize a list of interface types?

The app is big and old and the shape of objects it uses is probably not going to be allowed to change. Thanks

Upvotes: 5

Views: 1533

Answers (1)

Hylaean
Hylaean

Reputation: 1287

Quoting from http://www.servicestack.net/docs/framework/release-notes

You probably don't have to do much :)

The JSON and JSV Text serializers now support serializing and deserializing DTOs with Interface / Abstract or object types. Amongst other things, this allows you to have an IInterface property which when serialized will include its concrete type information in a __type property field (similar to other JSON serializers) which when serialized populates an instance of that concrete type (provided it exists).

[...]

Note: This feature is automatically added to all Abstract/Interface/Object types, i.e. you don't need to include any [KnownType] attributes to take advantage of it.

By not much:

public interface IAsset
{
    string Bling { get; set; }
}

public class AAsset : IAsset
{
    public string Bling { get; set; }
    public override string ToString()
    {
        return "A" + Bling;
    }
}

public class BAsset : IAsset
{
    public string Bling { get; set; }
    public override string ToString()
    {
        return "B" + Bling;
    }
}

public class AssetBag
{
    [JsonProperty(TypeNameHandling = TypeNameHandling.None)]
    public List<IAsset> Assets { get; set; } 
}

class Program
{


    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        try
        {
            var bag = new AssetBag
                {
                    Assets = new List<IAsset> {new AAsset {Bling = "Oho"}, new BAsset() {Bling = "Aha"}}
                };
            string json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(bag, new JsonSerializerSettings()
            {
                TypeNameHandling = TypeNameHandling.Auto
            });
            var anotherBag = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<AssetBag>(json, new JsonSerializerSettings()
            {
                TypeNameHandling = TypeNameHandling.Auto
            });

Upvotes: 1

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