How to deserialize JSON inside a custom claim (from Auth0)?

Question

I'm using Auth0 for a new app I'm writing using ASP.NET Core 1.0. It's working great so far, but I have bumped into something that is stumping me for some reason.

When the user logs in, Auth0 will pass claims back to my app. Auth0 has the ability to add custom data to the user, it is stored in JSON format and comes over as a list of claims.

One of the claims will look something like this:

Type "app_metadata"
Value "\"IsPublisherFor\":[\"p56\",\"p124\",\"p258\"]"
ValueType "JSON"

My question is, how would I convert that claim value into something I can work with? For example, the ability to do something like IsPublisherFor.Contains("p56");

I tried to pass the value to NewtonSoft.Json.JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(value) but it throws an exception. JsonReaderException: Additional text encountered after finished reading JSON content

Any way to convert this cleanly?

Answer 1

You probably need to wrap your JSON string in curly braces. You generally need a single top-level array or object to have valid JSON. Don't know about NewtonSoft, but using the JavascriptSerializer, this works:

var json = "{\"IsPublisherFor\":[\"p56\",\"p124\",\"p258\"]}";
var serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
stuff obj = serializer.Deserialize<stuff>(json);

With the following class defined to receive the data:

public class stuff
{
    public string[] IsPublisherFor { get; set; }
}