Serialise an object to URL parameter string - Including properties from nested objects

Question

I have a class which contains a property who's type is another class. For example:

public class Outer
{
    public string SomeStringProperty { get; set; }
    public Inner SomeClassProperty { get; set; }
}

public class Inner
{
    public string InnerProperty1 { get; set; }
    public string InnerProperty2 { get; set; }
}

I want to convert an instance of the Outer class to a URL query string, and include the properties from the nested Inner class.

For example, given an instance of Outer , such as:

Outer toSerialise = new Outer 
{
    SomeStringProperty = "MyOuterValue",
    SomeClassProperty = new Inner
    {
        InnerProperty1 = "MyInnerValue1",
        InnerProperty2 = "MyInnerValue2"
    }
};

I want to convert this to a string of:

&SomeStringProperty=MyOuterValue&InnerProperty1=MyInnerValue1&InnerProperty2=MyInnerValue2

How can I achieve this?

---

I've found answers to similar questions, however they don't seem to support nested classes.

Potential answer 1 Potential answer 2

Answer 1

We had same problem with callback url's client state in Oauth2 because callback urls have ampersand & too

http://.......?param=123&param2=456&state=?id=1&name=test

We just converted callback url to Base64 encoded string and decoded at service itself.

http://.......?param=123&param2=456&state=P2lkPTEmbmFtZT10ZXN0

Fix:

1. Encode your class instance as json
2. Encode json as base64string
3. Send base64string in url as data param
4. Decode base64 and map json into your model at your api.

JSON:

 { "menu": {
  "id": "file",
  "value": "File",
  "popup": {
    "menuitem": [
      {"value": "New", "onclick": "CreateNewDoc()"},
      {"value": "Open", "onclick": "OpenDoc()"},
      {"value": "Close", "onclick": "CloseDoc()"}
    ]
  }
}}

Base64:

eyJtZW51IjogewogICJpZCI6ICJmaWxlIiwKICAidmFsdWUiOiAiRmlsZSIsCiAgInBvcHVwIjogewogICAgIm1lbnVpdGVtIjogWwogICAgICB7InZhbHVlIjogIk5ldyIsICJvbmNsaWNrIjogIkNyZWF0ZU5ld0RvYygpIn0sCiAgICAgIHsidmFsdWUiOiAiT3BlbiIsICJvbmNsaWNrIjogIk9wZW5Eb2MoKSJ9LAogICAgICB7InZhbHVlIjogIkNsb3NlIiwgIm9uY2xpY2siOiAiQ2xvc2VEb2MoKSJ9CiAgICBdCiAgfQp9fQ==

Url:

&data=eyJtZW51IjogewogICJpZCI6ICJmaWxlIiwKICAidmFsdWUiOiAiRmlsZSIsCiAgInBvcHVwIjogewogICAgIm1lbnVpdGVtIjogWwogICAgICB7InZhbHVlIjogIk5ldyIsICJvbmNsaWNrIjogIkNyZWF0ZU5ld0RvYygpIn0sCiAgICAgIHsidmFsdWUiOiAiT3BlbiIsICJvbmNsaWNrIjogIk9wZW5Eb2MoKSJ9LAogICAgICB7InZhbHVlIjogIkNsb3NlIiwgIm9uY2xpY2siOiAiQ2xvc2VEb2MoKSJ9CiAgICBdCiAgfQp9fQ==

Alternative :

If you must use this query format then you can also use delegate types

Outer toSerialise = new Outer 
{
    SomeStringProperty = "MyOuterValue",
    SomeClassProperty = new Inner
    {
        InnerProperty1 = "MyInnerValue1",
        InnerProperty2 = "MyInnerValue2"
    }
};

var queryObject = new { toSerialise.SomeStringProperty, toSerialise .Inner.InnerProperty1, toSerialise.Inner.InnerProperty2 }