Deserialize JSON object with array

Question

Why do i get an error when i try to deserialize this JSON:

{
  "id" : 1,
  "name" : "demo",
  "pixeldata" : [
      { "time" : "1", "colour" : "#ff5357" },
      { "time" : "2", "colour" : "#2424ff" },
      { "time" : "3", "colour" : "#ff0d13" },
      { "time" : "4", "colour" : "#f7ff4a" },
      { "time" : "5", "colour" : "#fa24ff" },
      { "time" : "6", "colour" : "#ff3e43" }
  ]
}

into these classes:

public struct Display
{
    public int id;
    public string name;
    public List<Pixeldata> pixeldata;
}

public struct Pixeldata
{
    public float time;
    public string colour;
}

using this:

Display MyDisplay = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Display>(json_string);

error says:

Error converting value "[{ "time" : "1", "colour" : "#ff5357"}, {etc...}]" to type 'System.Collections.Generic.List`1[Pixeldata]'. Path 'pixeldata', line 1, position 313.

I've been reading similar QnA's, looking at various examples and they all look like this should work, but it doesn't, what do i do?

---

Update: i used this code to dump my string

Debug.Print("JSON DUMP: "+_ServerResponse.data);

this is the exact result as it shows in the console

JSON DUMP: {"id":1,"name":"demo","pixeldata":"[{ \"time\" : \"1\", \"colour\" : \"#ff5357\"},{ \"time\" : \"2\", \"colour\" : \"#2424ff\"},{ \"time\" : \"3\", \"colour\" : \"#ff0d13\"},{ \"time\" : \"4\", \"colour\" : \"#f7ff4a\"},{ \"time\" : \"5\", \"colour\" : \"#fa24ff\"},{ \"time\" : \"6\", \"colour\" : \"#ff3e43\"}]"}
[0:] 

Answer 1

"time" is of type string in your json, but you try to deserialize to type float. That won't work.

Update: Apparently, after reading the comments on your questions it would work in some implementations of Json.Net, but that might be "version-dependent", and hence might not work in your scenario.

Answer 2

The JSON i was receiving was not properly formatted.

I think it has something to do with how SQL stores JSON.

So i just messed around with decoding the values i got from the database then re-encoded them before sending, and now it works.