Need help Serializing/Deserializing this JSON

Question

I have this simple JSON and I was making deserializing this JSON, so I can get the elements. This is the JSON I have :

{
  "QuestionIDs": [
    "QID1",
    "QID3"
  ],
  "QuestionDefinitions": {
    "Question1": {
      "DETag": "Q1",
      "Config": {
        "QDescription": "UseText"
      },
      "COrder": [
        "1",
        "2",
        "3"
      ],
      "Validation": {
        "Settings": {
          "ForceResponse": "OFF",
          "ForceResponseType": "ON",
          "Type": "None"
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "NextButton": null,
  "PreviousButton": false
}

This is the code I've written :

[DataContract]
public class RootObject
{
    [DataMember]
    public Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, string>> QuestionDefinitions { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public List<string> QuestionIDs { get; set; }
}

QuestionIDs is working just fine. But, QuestionDefinitions isn't working. It says that it is an empty sequence. I'm not sure what's wrong.

I want to be able to access QuestionDefinitions .

I tried with Json.Net . Facing the same issue. I was able to get the simple elements that are out. But, couldn't get to access the QuestionDefinitions .

Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT :

I also tried implementing this class like this :

[DataContract]
public class QuestionDetails
{
    [DataMember]
    public string DETag { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    [DataMember]
    public List<Configuration> Config { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public List<string> ChoiceOrder { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public List<Validation> Validation { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public List<string> COrder { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public string NextButton { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public string PreviousButton { get; set; }
}


    [DataContract]
    public class RootObject
    {
        [DataMember]
        public Dictionary<string, QuestionDetails> QuestionDefinitions { get; set; }
        [DataMember]
        public List<string> QuestionIDs { get; set; }
    }

Answer 1

Your class strucutre against the JSON getting returned is not correct.

When pasted your JSON in json2csharp.com the following the POCO class which generated:

public class Config
{
    public string QDescription { get; set; }
}

public class Settings
{
    public string ForceResponse { get; set; }
    public string ForceResponseType { get; set; }
    public string Type { get; set; }
}

public class Validation
{
    public Settings Settings { get; set; }
}

public class Question1
{
    public string DETag { get; set; }
    public Config Config { get; set; }
    public List<string> COrder { get; set; }
    public Validation Validation { get; set; }
}

public class QuestionDefinitions
{
    public Question1 Question1 { get; set; }
}

public class RootObject
{
    public List<string> QuestionIDs { get; set; }
    public QuestionDefinitions QuestionDefinitions { get; set; }
    public object NextButton { get; set; }
    public bool PreviousButton { get; set; }
}

Now using the above class as representation of your JSON structure you should be able to deserialize it in to C# object.

The following line of code would do it using NewtonSoft library:

string json = "your json result";
RootObject result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<RootObject>(json);

You can even do it from within Visual Studio if you have 2013 or above doing like following as described in this post :

Hope it helps.

Answer 2

Changing a little the code in @EhsanSajjad's answer , maybe you could use something like:

public class Config
{
    public string QDescription { get; set; }
}

public class Settings
{
    public string ForceResponse { get; set; }
    public string ForceResponseType { get; set; }
    public string Type { get; set; }
}

public class Validation
{
    public Settings Settings { get; set; }
}

public class Question
{
    public string DETag { get; set; }
    public Config Config { get; set; }
    public List<string> COrder { get; set; }
    public Validation Validation { get; set; }
}

public class RootObject
{
    public List<string> QuestionIDs { get; set; }
    public Dictionary<string, Question> QuestionDefinitions { get; set; }
    public object NextButton { get; set; }
    public bool PreviousButton { get; set; }
}

Answer 3

Try this model

public class RootObject
{
    public List<string> QuestionIDs { get; set; }
    public QuestionDefinitions QuestionDefinitions { get; set; }
    public object NextButton { get; set; }
    public bool PreviousButton { get; set; }
}
public class QuestionDefinitions
{
    public Question1 Question1 { get; set; }
    public List<string> COrder { get; set; }
    public Validation Validation { get; set; }
}
public class Question1 {
    public string DETag { get; set; }
    public Config Config { get; set; }
}
public class Config {
    public string QDescription { get; set; }
}
public class Validation {
    public Settings Settings { get; set; }
}
public class Settings
{
    public string ForceResponse { get; set; }
    public string ForceResponseType { get; set; }
    public string Type { get; set; }
}