CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netjsonasp.net-mvcserialization
Questionaire
Questionaire

Reputation: 297

Cannot get DataContractSerializer to deserialize JSON

I have a class like 

[DataContract]
public class BranchFormTemplate
{
    [DataMember]
    public BasicSettingsTemplate BasicSettings { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public LclSeedingSettingsTemplate LclSeedingSettings { get; set; }

    .
    .
    .

which I'm trying to instantiate based on a JSON file that is POSTed to the server. What I have is like 

        HttpPostedFileBase file = Request.Files[0]
        HttpInputStream stream = file.InputStream;
        var dcs = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(BranchFormTemplate));
        BranchFormTemplate branchFormTemplate = dcs.ReadObject(stream) as BranchFormTemplate;

and I get the exception

There was an error deserializing the object of type BranchFormTemplate. The data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1.

What confuses me is that this is a System.Xml.XmlException and I'm trying to read JSON, not XML. I basically ripped my code from examples on the internet where the source was JSON format, so I can't figure out what I'm missing here.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1520

Answers (1)

Evk
Evk

Reputation: 101633

DataContractSerializer documentation states:

Serializes and deserializes an instance of a type into an XML stream or document using a supplied data contract.

To deserialize json, you need DataContractJsonSerializer:

Serializes objects to the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and deserializes JSON data to objects.

Note that if you have a choice - there are better alternatives for parsing JSON. The most widely used one is JSON.NET (Newtonsoft.Json).

Upvotes: 2

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