Styjun

I am attempting to deserialize a tree of JSon objects I get back into a DTO. The tree can be up to 4 levels deep, and over 1200 nodes. The code is C# using Newtonsoft.Json for deserialization.

EDIT

The JSon looks like:

[

 "id": 1095,
 "name": "Item1-1",
 "children": [
 
 "id": 1097,
 "name": "Item2-2",
 "children": [
 
 "id": 18,
 "name": "Item3-3",
 "children": [
 
 "id": 19,
 "name": "Item4-4",
 "children": [],
 "level": 4,
 "parentId": 18
 ,
 
 "id": 20,
 "name": "Item5-4",
 "children": [],
 "level": 4,
 "parentId": 18
 
 ],
 "level": 3,
 "parentId": 1097
 
 ],
 "level": 2,
 "parentId": 1095
 
 ],
 "level": 1,
 "parentId": null

]

My DTO is similar to this:

public class MyDTO

 [JsonProperty("id")]
 public int Id get; set; 
 [JsonProperty("name")]
 public string Name get; set; 
 [JsonProperty("children")]
 public MyDTO[] Children get; set; 
 [JsonProperty("level")]
 public int Level get; set; 
 [JsonProperty("parentId")]
 public int ParentId get; set; 

 public MyDTO()
 
 

I like Brian Rogers' solution in this link, which deserializes the json into objects:
How do I use JSON.NET to deserialize into nested/recursive Dictionary and List?

 public static class JsonHelper

 public static object Deserialize(string json)
 
 return ToObject(JToken.Parse(json));
 

 private static object ToObject(JToken token)
 
 switch (token.Type)
 
 case JTokenType.Object:
 return token.Children<JProperty>()
 .ToDictionary(prop => prop.Name,
 prop => ToObject(prop.Value));

 case JTokenType.Array:
 return token.Select(ToObject).ToList();

 default:
 return ((JValue)token).Value;
 
 

I call the JSonHelper with object obj = JsonHelper.Deserialize(jsonString);

I have been experimenting with converting this code into a method to convert to MyDTO, but I keep running into compiler errors. I have attempted to simply convert the JValue casts with MyDTO and move on to the List with a List.

My goal is to call MyDTO obj = JsonHelp.Deserialize(jsonString) and get the tree of MyDTO objects back. Is it possible to do what I am trying, or should I find a way to cast each object to MyDTO?

First your JSON is missing a brakcet ], then your model needs a nullable parentId. Making a couple simple changes you can then you JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<IEnumerable<MyDTO>>(json).

So your JSON should look like this:

[

 "id": 1095,
 "name": "Item1-1",
 "children": [
 
 "id": 1097,
 "name": "Item2-2",
 "children": [
 
 "id": 18,
 "name": "Item3-3",
 "children": [
 
 "id": 19,
 "name": "Item4-4",
 "children": [],
 "level": 4,
 "parentId": 18
 ,
 
 "id": 20,
 "name": "Item5-4",
 "children": [],
 "level": 4,
 "parentId": 18
 
 ],
 "level": 2,
 "parentId": 1095
 ],
 ],
 "level": 1,
 "parentId": null

]

And can be deserialized with this model:

public class MyDTO

 public int Id get; set; 
 public string Name get; set; 
 public MyDTO[] Children get; set; 
 public int Level get; set; 
 public int? ParentId get; set; 

Using this code:

var dto = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<IEnumerable<MyDTO>>(json);