approach to parse json in .net app

Question

I am trying to parse JSON response from a httpwebrequest fetch and a little unsure after reading posts on it, as to what would be the best approach for me. I access the facebook graph api and would like to parse the all fields for a given post.

"data": [
  {
     "id": "17xxxxxxxxxxxxx_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
     "from": {
        "name": "Lxxxxxx",
        "category": "Sports league",
        "id": "17xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
     },
     "picture": "http://external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQB4GscSy-2RHY_0&w=130&h=130&url=http\u00253A\u00252F\u00252Fwww.ligabbva.com\u00252Fquiz\u00252Farchivos\u00252Fbenzema-quiz-facebook.png",
     "link": "http://www.xxxxxva.com/quiz/index.php?qid=34",
     "source": "http://www.lxxxxva.com/modulos/redirectQuiz.php?name=benzema&q=34&time=1312827103",
     "name": "DEMUESTRA CU\u00c1NTO SABES SOBRE... BENZEMA",
     "caption": "www.xxxxxva.com",
     "description": "Demuestra cu\u00e1nto sabes sobre Karim Benzema, delantero del Real Madrid.",
     "icon": "http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v1/yj/r/v2OnaTyTQZE.gif",
     "type": "video",
     "created_time": "2011-08-08T18:11:54+0000",
     "updated_time": "2011-08-08T18:11:54+0000",
     "likes": {
        "data": [
           {
              "name": "Jhona Arancibia",
              "id": "100000851276736"
           },
           {
              "name": "Luis To\u00f1o",
              "id": "100000735350531"
           },
           {
              "name": "Manuel Raul Guerrero Cumbicos",
              "id": "100001485973224"
           },
           {
              "name": "Emmanuel Gutierrez",
              "id": "100000995038988"
           }
        ],
        "count": 127
     },
     "comments": {
        "count": 33
     }
  },
  {
     "id": "17xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_xxxxxxxxxxxxx",
     "from": {
        "name"

not all fields will always be present but I need to be able to iterate through each post.

Update:

I am receiving an error for the following line:

dim serializer as new jsonSerializer()
dim jsArray as JArray = directCast(serializer.Deserialize(New JsonTextReader _
     (New StringReader(responseData))), JArray)

ERROR: unable to cast object of type newtonsoft.json.linq.jobject to type newtonsoft.json.ling.jobject

Answer 1

These references will help you, I believe.

http://dorobantu.me/post/2010/08/22/Deserializing-JSON-to-anonymous-types-in-C.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alexghi/archive/2008/12/22/using-anonymous-types-to-deserialize-json-data.aspx

Answer 2

you could use the newtonsoft JSON deserialiser

you would set up a Data Entity with each of the properties and their sub properties and then use JSON attributes to map the entities to the properties

sample code from a similar thing I was doing:

[JsonObject(MemberSerialization.OptIn)]
    public class Data
    {
        public override string ToString()
        {
            return Name;
        }

        [JsonProperty(PropertyName = "id")]
        public string Id{ get; set; }


    }

public Data DeserialiseData()
        {
            var data = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Data>("JSON string");

    return data;
}

more information can be found here