CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#jsonserialization
sandmanager
sandmanager

Reputation: 1

Deserialize Json data when the key value is dynamic

I have been working with JSON for years but I have never been faced with a situation where the key values are dynamic. I am sure there are other situations but in my particular case I am trying to deserialize a LinkedIn stream. Following is a sample of the data returned request that is made with the scope set to r_liteprofile.

I have tried using a Dictionary but the return value is always null.

Following is a sample of the data return from the LinkedIn API call:

{
  "id": "REDACTED",
  "firstName": {
    "localized": {
      "en_US": "Tina"
    },
    "preferredLocale": {
      "country": "US",
      "language": "en"
    }
  },
  "lastName": {
    "localized": {
      "en_US": "Belcher"
    },
    "preferredLocale": {
      "country": "US",
      "language": "en"
    }
  },
  "profilePicture": {
    "displayImage": "urn:li:digitalmediaAsset:B54328XZFfe2134zTyq"
  }
}

What I don’t understand is how to handle “localize” when the data is being deserialized. If I anticipate that the key value is going to be “en_US” everything works fine. But this is not something that will always be true. From my research the number of different values is limited and the following is a subset of the available keys.

{
  "localized": {
    "de_DE": "LinkedIn",
    "en_US": "LinkedIn",
    "es_ES": "LinkedIn",
    "in_ID": "LinkedIn"
  }
}

Following is the type definition: 

public class Localized
{
    public string en_Us { get; set; }
}

public class PreferredLocale
{
    public string country { get; set; }
    public string language { get; set; }
}

public class LastName
{
    public Localized localized { get; set; }
    public PreferredLocale preferredLocale { get; set; }
}

public class FirstName
{
    public Localized localized { get; set; }
    public PreferredLocale preferredLocale { get; set; }
}

public class ProfilePicture
{
    public string displayImage { get; set; }
}

public class LinkedLiteProfile
{
    public LastName lastName { get; set; }
    public FirstName firstName { get; set; }
    public ProfilePicture profilePicture { get; set; }
    public string id { get; set; }
}

And the code:

var data = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(<<file address>>);
var result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<LinkedLiteProfile>(data);

Upvotes: 0

Views: 816

Answers (3)

sandmanager
sandmanager

Reputation: 1

To extract the value I used the following

var data = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(<<file address>>);
var result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<LinkedLiteProfile>(data);
var firstName = result.firstName.localized.Values.FirstOrDefault();

Upvotes: 0

sandmanager
sandmanager

Reputation: 1

I figured it had to be something simple. I had tried replacing the setter with

public Dictionary<string, string> Localized {get; set; }

but the result was null.

What worked for me (as suggested by Joao Paulo Amorim) was to replace Localized with a Dictionary as follows:

public class LastName
{
    public Dictionary<string, string> localized { get; set; }
    public PreferredLocale preferredLocale { get; set; }
}

public class FirstName
{
    public Dictionary<string, string> localized { get; set; }
    public PreferredLocale preferredLocale { get; set; }
}

Upvotes: 0

Larry
Larry

Reputation: 652

You could parse it into a Dictionary, by replacing your class Localised with:

public Dictionary<string,string> Localised { get; set; }

Newtonsoft.JSON and Json.NET can automatically parse these objects into a dictionary.

Upvotes: 1

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