How to display a json array in a textbox using c#

Question

I would like to know how to deserialize a json array and display it on a richTextbox. I'm calling an API to get the JSON array. Can someone help me out with this. I have got it into a List but i'm not sure whether i've done it properly.

Form1.cs

private void btnStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    runapi("http://localhost:8080/json_coordinates");
}

public void runapi(string api)
{
        try
        {
            WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(api);
            HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
            Stream dataStream = response.GetResponseStream();               

            StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(dataStream);
            string json = reader.ReadToEnd();
            obj.DeserializeJsonDes(json);          
            // Help me fill it up to display data on the richTextBox    
            //richTextBox1.Text = responseFromServer;
            reader.Close();
            dataStream.Close();
            response.Close();

        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {

        }
}

Class JsonDes

class JsonDes
{ 
    public List<JsonDes> name { get; set; }
    public List<JsonDes> coordinates { get; set; }

    public List<JsonDes> DeserializeJsonDes(string jsonArray)
    {
        //return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<JsonDes>(json);
        return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<JsonDes>>(jsonArray);
    }        

}  

The original JSON being passed in has the structure:

[{'name' : 'Train 1', 'coordinates' : '38.892802, -77.061945'},
{'name' : 'Train 2', 'coordinates' : '38.941686, -77.134043'}]

Answer 1

The easiest way would be first define your class to fit the shape of one record in the data being retrieved.

In this case:

public class JsonDes
{
   public string name { get; set;
   public string coordinates { get; set; }
}

From there, you just need to use Newtonsoft's Json.NET to deserialize it.

public static List<JsonDes> Convert(string json)
{
   return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<JsonDes>>(json);
}

Answer 2

Your class structure is not clear.However without knowing that I will try to answer the question.

What you can do is to cast a dynamic type like JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<dynamic>() to deserialize this string into a dynamic type then simply access its properties in the usual way.

var results = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<dynamic>(jsonArray);

Now you cane access results[0].Name .

Alternatively you can return object of type JArray .

dynObj = (JArray)JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(jsonArray);

Then iterate over this object like

 foreach (JObject item in dynObj)
 {
      access now item["Your Property Name"]
 }

Hope this helps you.