webservice returning data as string in json object

Question

I am trying to create a webservice in .NET Framework 4.0 to return some data in json format.

Below is my code for WebMethod

[WebMethod]
[ScriptMethod(ResponseFormat = ResponseFormat.Json)]
public string GetLobMonth(string month)
{
    JObject forecastResponse = new JObject();
    JObject probabilityResponse = new JObject();
    JObject response = new JObject();
    string revenue = String.Empty;
    String location = String.Empty;
    String probability = String.Empty;


        SqlConnection dbConnection = new SqlConnection(connection_string);
        if (dbConnection.State != System.Data.ConnectionState.Closed)
        {
            dbConnection.Close();
        }
        dbConnection.Open();

        SqlCommand sqlCommand = new SqlCommand(sqlQuery, dbConnection);

        var result = sqlCommand.ExecuteScalar();

        if (result != null)
        {
            using (SqlDataReader reader = sqlCommand.ExecuteReader())
            {
                while (reader.Read())
                {
                    //revenue = reader[0].ToString();
                    location = reader[1].ToString();

                    double figures = double.Parse(reader[0].ToString());
                    figures = Math.Round(figures, 2);
                    revenue = figures.ToString();

                    figures = double.Parse(reader[2].ToString());
                    figures = Math.Round(figures, 2);
                    probability = figures.ToString();

                    forecastResponse.Add(location, revenue);                            
                    probabilityResponse.Add(location, probability);

                }
            }
            dbConnection.Close();

            response["data1"] = forecastResponse;
            response["data2"] = probabilityResponse;

        }
        else
        {
            response.Add("error", "No records found");
        }

        var jsonResponse = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(response.ToString());
        return jsonResponse;

    }

}

The service return data in json in following format: {"d": "\"{\\r\\n \\\"data1\\\": {\\r\\n \\\"region1\\\": \\\"value1\\\"},\\r\\n \\\"data2\\\": {\\r\\n \\\"region2\\\": \\\"value2\\\",\\r\\n}\\r\\n}\""}

Why is the json data returned beginning with d and the original content is stored as string.

Answer 1

I solved the above problem by the conventional way of returning the output from a class.

I defined a class for the data returned from db.Stored the data in the class and finally returned the class as an object.

This way I was able to get the response in proper JSON format.

Answer 2

Try this:

var jsonResponse = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(response.ToString(), Formatting.Indented);
response.Content = new StringContent(jsonResponse, Encoding.UTF8 , "application/json");