Parse the JSON Response in C#

Question

I get a json response after making a query to an api.

The JSON is like:

    {
   "results": [
      {
         "alternatives": [
            {
               "confidence": 0.965,
               "transcript": "how do I raise the self esteem of a child in his academic achievement at the same time "
            }
         ],
         "final": true
      },
      {
         "alternatives": [
            {
               "confidence": 0.919,
               "transcript": "it's not me out of ten years of pseudo teaching and helped me realize "
            }
         ],
         "final": true
      },
      {
         "alternatives": [
            {
               "confidence": 0.687,
               "transcript": "is so powerful that it can turn bad morals the good you can turn awful practice and the powerful once they can teams men and transform them into angel "
            }
         ],
         "final": true
      },
      {
         "alternatives": [
            {
               "confidence": 0.278,
               "transcript": "you know if not on purpose Arteaga Williams who got in my mother "
            }
         ],
         "final": true
      },
      {
         "alternatives": [
            {
               "confidence": 0.621,
               "transcript": "for what pink you very much "
            }
         ],
         "final": true
      }
   ],
   "result_index": 0
}

I have to do two things to above json result (I keep it as a string*):

1. Get the transcript part(s) of the json response.

2. Process those strings.

   • I am new to this. Converting to string is only called serialization. Why would deserialization help here ?

Converting to string: I did it using:

 var reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());


            responseFromServer = reader.ReadToEnd();

How to achieve this ?

Answer 1

You could parse the JSON into concrete classes and work with those hereafter.

To do so, you could use a service like json2csharp which generates classes based on the JSON you provided. Alternatively, you could use the Visual Studio built-in feature Paste JSON As Classes:

public class Alternative
{
    public double confidence { get; set; }
    public string transcript { get; set; }
}

public class Result
{
    public List<Alternative> alternatives { get; set; }
    public bool final { get; set; }
}

public class RootObject
{
    public List<Result> results { get; set; }
    public int result_index { get; set; }
}

You can then use JSON.NET to parse the stringified JSON to concrete class instances:

var root = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<RootObject>(responseFromServer);

Answer 2

You should deserialize this. It's the easiest way to deal with it. Using Json.NET and dynamic that might look like:

dynamic jsonObj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(responseFromServer);
foreach (var result in jsonObj.results) {
    foreach (var alternative in result.alternatives) {
        Console.WriteLine(alternative.transcript);
    }
}

But you might want to make explicit classes for it instead. Then you can do:

MyRootObject root = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<MyRootObject>(responseFromServer);

And deal with it like any other .NET object.