Deserializing nested JSON

Question

Need an extra pair of eyes to see what i am doing wrong here. Help appreciated.(including criticisms) I am quite new to Json so please go easy on me.

While just playing around with the BandsInTown API, i am finding it weird to deserialize this json data.

I am not sure whats the best way to paste a Json result here, so please click on the link below to see the data.

https://app.bandsintown.com/events/just_announced?location=San+Francisco%2C+CA&radius=75&per_page=15&authenticate=false

Here's what i am trying to do,

HttpResponseMessage response = await HttpManager.BitRequestManager.SendRequest(uri); 

var jsonMessage = await HttpManager.BitResponseManager.ReadResponse(response);

Here's my models,

public class PopularEvents
    {
        [JsonProperty("data")]
        public Data Data;
    }

    public class Data
    {
        public List<Events> events { get; set; }
    }

    public class Events
    {
        public string id { get; set; }
        public string artist_event_id { get; set; }
        public string title { get; set; }
        public string datetime { get; set; }
        public string formatted_datetime { get; set; }
        public string formatted_location { get; set; }
        public string ticket_url { get; set; }
        public string ticket_type { get; set; }
        public string ticket_status { get; set; }
        public string on_sale_datetime { get; set; }
        public string facebook_rsvp_url { get; set; }
        public string description { get; set; }
        //public List<Artist> artists { get; set; }
        //public Venue venue { get; set; }
        public string facebook_event_id { get; set; }
        public int rsvp_count { get; set; }
        public int? media_id { get; set; }
    }
var events = (List<PopularEvents>)JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(jsonMessage, typeof(List<PopularEvents>));

When i do this, i get an error as shown below,

A first chance exception of type 'Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializationException' occurred in Newtonsoft.Json.DLL Cannot deserialize the current JSON object (e.g. {"name":"value"}) into type 'System.Collections.Generic.List`1[BandsInTown.Models.PopularEvents]' 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) 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.

What am i doing wrong here? essentially what i am trying to do is take the events as a list of objects and thats pretty much it.

Answer 1

Just change line from your code:

var events = (List<PopularEvents>)JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(jsonMessage, typeof(List<PopularEvents>));

By the following:

var events = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<PopularEvents>(json); 

I've just checked it in code:

var res = new HttpClient().GetAsync("https://app.bandsintown.com/events/just_announced?location=San+Francisco%2C+CA&radius=75&per_page=15&authenticate=false").Result;
string json = new StreamReader(res.Content.ReadAsStreamAsync().Result).ReadToEnd();
var events = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<PopularEvents>(json);

And all works fine

It is because the root element of JSON is data and it is about PopularEvents classs, not about List< PopularEvents>

Answer 2

Just tried this locally now, it's definitely working:

public class Artist
{
    public int id { get; set; }
    public string name { get; set; }
    public string url { get; set; }
    public string image_url { get; set; }
    public string thumb_url { get; set; }
    public string large_image_url { get; set; }
    public bool on_tour { get; set; }
    public string events_url { get; set; }
    public string sony_id { get; set; }
    public int tracker_count { get; set; }
    public bool verified { get; set; }
    public int media_id { get; set; }
}

public class Venue
{
    public string name { get; set; }
    public string address { get; set; }
    public string city { get; set; }
    public string region { get; set; }
    public string country { get; set; }
    public double latitude { get; set; }
    public double longitude { get; set; }
}

public class Event
{
    public string id { get; set; }
    public string artist_event_id { get; set; }
    public string title { get; set; }
    public string datetime { get; set; }
    public string formatted_datetime { get; set; }
    public string formatted_location { get; set; }
    public string ticket_url { get; set; }
    public string ticket_type { get; set; }
    public string ticket_status { get; set; }
    public string on_sale_datetime { get; set; }
    public string facebook_rsvp_url { get; set; }
    public string description { get; set; }
    public List<Artist> artists { get; set; }
    public Venue venue { get; set; }
    public string facebook_event_id { get; set; }
    public int rsvp_count { get; set; }
    public int? media_id { get; set; }
}

public class Data
{
    public List<Event> events { get; set; }
}

public class Pages
{
    public int current_page { get; set; }
    public int total_results { get; set; }
    public int results_per_page { get; set; }
    public string next_page_url { get; set; }
    public object previous_page_url { get; set; }
}

public class PopularEvents
{
    public Data data { get; set; }
    public Pages pages { get; set; }
}

Then calling:

var result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<PopularEvents>(json)

Deserializes without a problem.

Answer 3

working fine here:

var res = new HttpClient().GetAsync("https://app.bandsintown.com/events/just_announced?location=San+Francisco%2C+CA&radius=75&per_page=15&authenticate=false").Result;
var t = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<PopularEvents>(new StreamReader(res.Content.ReadAsStreamAsync().Result).ReadToEnd());

Basically the json is all about PopularEvents and not a List<PopularEvents> as mentioned by @Me.Name.