Deserialize JSON with RESTSharp C#

Question

I'm trying to deserialize a JSON in a Xamarin App. I've read a lot about, but still have problems, so, maybe here someone can help:

My JSON response is something like this:

{
    "Events":[
            {
                "id":7,
                "name":"show",
                "datefrom":"2012-01-01",
                "timeto":"12:00:00",
                "price":"3",
                "imagen":"null",
                "desc":"rock band playing",
                "info":"Info about tickets",
                "user":1,
                "place":9,
                "dateto":"2013-02-02",
                "timeto":"12:30:00",
                "Eventcategories":[]
            },
            {"id":2, name:...

As I've read, I've created two classes, one for the Object (Event) and other for the JSON response (EventResponse) The second one has only a list of Events:

public class EventResponse
{
    public ObservableCollection<Event> Events { get; set; }
    public EventResponse(){
    }
    }
}

And Event class has all the fields returned by the JSON:

private int _id;
        public int id {   
            get { return _id; }
            set {

                _id = value;
                OnPropertyChanged ();
            }
        }

        private string _nombre;
        public string nombre {   
            get { return _nombre; }
            set {
                if (value.Equals (_nombre, StringComparison.Ordinal))
                    return;
                _nombre = value;
                OnPropertyChanged ();
            }
        }...

After this, I want my app to parse this JSON, but the only thing I can get is an String containing the JSON content.

var client = new RestClient("myip/api/events");
            var request = new RestRequest (Method.GET);
            var asyncHandle = client.ExecuteAsync<EventResponse>(request, response => {
            //Here I see the json result
            string jsonString=response.Content;
            //The same
            Console.WriteLine(response.Content);
            //Nothing is shown here
            Console.WriteLine(response.Data.Events[0].id);
            });

¿Could anybody give me some clue on how can I see the json result? I think I'm following the appropriate steps, but after many hours I can't reach anything. Thanks

Answer 1

Most likely the JSON serializer is failing to deserialize back into objects. It looks like you are trying to combine a VM and DTO into one class which IMO is not a very good idea. Keep the DTO as simple as possible. If you change the EventResponse to the below code can you then get the object?

public class Event
{
    public int id { get; set; }
    public string name { get; set; }
    public string datefrom { get; set; }
    public string timeto { get; set; }
    public string price { get; set; }
    public string imagen { get; set; }
    public string desc { get; set; }
    public string info { get; set; }
    public int user { get; set; }
    public int place { get; set; }
    public string dateto { get; set; }
    public List<object> Eventcategories { get; set; }
}

public class EventResponse
{
    public List<Event> Events { get; set; }
}

Answer 2

You're missing the final step of deserializing the JSON string. You can use Json.net to deserialize the string to the appropriate object. You can do that like so:

var eventResponse = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<EventResponse>(jsonString);

Here is a link to Newtonsoft's Json.Net http://www.newtonsoft.com/json

Answer 3

This is how you can deserialize directly into an specific entity/object using Newtonsoft.Json.dll, which is a very helpful library and can be installed from nugget. More details you can find on the following link: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Newtonsoft.Json/

userData = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<GRALUserData>(response.Content,
                    new JsonSerializerSettings
                    {
                        PreserveReferencesHandling = PreserveReferencesHandling.Objects
                    });