Deserialize json response

Question

I'm using an API that among other things have these two responses:

{
    "enrollDeviceErrorResponse": {
        "errorCode": "GRX-1056",
        "errorMessage": "DEP Reseller ID missing. 
        Enter a valid DEP Reseller ID and resubmit your request."
    }
}

or

{
    "enrollDeviceErrorResponse": [
      {
            "errorCode": "GRX-1056",
            "errorMessage": "DEP Reseller ID missing. 
            Enter a valid DEP Reseller ID and resubmit your request."
        },
        {
            "errorCode": "DEP-ERR-3003",
            "errorMessage": "Order information missing. T
            he transaction needs to have one or more valid orders. 
             Enter valid orders and resubmit your request."
        },
        {
            "errorCode": "DEP-ERR-3001",
            "errorMessage": "Transaction ID missing. 
            Enter a valid transaction ID and resubmit your request."
        }
    ]
}

I've created some classes that can deserialize into these responses:

public class EnrollDeviceErrorRoot
{
    public EnrollDeviceErrorRoot()
    {
        this.EnrollDeviceErrorResponse = new EnrollDeviceErrorResponse();
    }

    public EnrollDeviceErrorResponse EnrollDeviceErrorResponse { get; set; }
}

public class EnrollDeviceErrorRoot
{
    public EnrollDeviceErrorRoot()
    {
        this.EnrollDeviceErrorResponse = new EnrollDeviceErrorResponse();
    }

    public EnrollDeviceErrorResponse EnrollDeviceErrorResponse { get; set; }
}

public class EnrollDeviceErrorResponse
{
    public string ErrorCode { get; set; }

    public string ErrorMessage { get; set; }
}

I am having a hard time coming up with a nice way to determine which one of my classes I should use depending on the response. I currently have this failing code:

var multipleErrors = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<EnrollDeviceErrorsRoot>(response);

if (multipleErrors.EnrollDeviceErrorResponse != null && multipleErrors.EnrollDeviceErrorResponse.Any())
{
    this.StatusCode = multipleErrors.EnrollDeviceErrorResponse.Select(x => x.ErrorCode).Aggregate((a, b) => a + ", " + b);
    this.StatusMessage = multipleErrors.EnrollDeviceErrorResponse.Select(x => x.ErrorMessage).Aggregate((a, b) => a + Environment.NewLine + b);
    this.HasErrors = true;

    return;
}

var singleError = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<EnrollDeviceErrorRoot>(response);

if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(singleError.EnrollDeviceErrorResponse.ErrorCode))
{
    this.StatusCode = singleError.EnrollDeviceErrorResponse.ErrorCode;
    this.StatusMessage = singleError.EnrollDeviceErrorResponse.ErrorMessage;
    this.HasErrors = true;

    return;
}

Error from code above:

Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializationException : Cannot deserialize the current JSON object (e.g. {"name":"value"}) into type 'System.Collections.Generic.List`1[Atea.Dep.Core.Service.Models.EnrollDeviceErrorResponse]' 
because the type requires a JSON array (e.g. [1,2,3]) to deserialize correctly.

To fix this error either change the JSON to a JSON array (e.g. [1,2,3]) or change the deserialized type so that it is a normal .NET type (e.g. not a primitive type like integer, 
not a collection type like an array or List<T>) that can be deserialized from a JSON object. 
JsonObjectAttribute can also be added to the type to force it to deserialize from a JSON object.

How are other people handling this deserializations from responses when they don't know what they are getting back from the server? I could of course just look at the raw response and determine that way but are there other cleaner ways to do this? I Can't change the API, I have no idea why there just couldn't be one response with a list with one or more errors.

Answer 1

You can use something like this:

var output;
dynamic jObject = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject (outputAPI);
bool isArray = jObj.enrollDeviceErrorResponse.Type == JTokenType.Array;
bool isObject = jObj.enrollDeviceErrorResponse.Type == JTokenType.Object;
if(isObject)
   output = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<EnrollDeviceErrorResponse>(outputAPI);
//else you will use the other class to deserialize the object

Answer 2

You can use

JObject.Parse(response)["enrollDeviceErrorResponse"].Type

to determine the type of the response. In 1st case it will be obect, in 2nd - array. Then it will be easy to continue with proper deserialization.