Problem Deserialising JSON to List<T>

Question

I have a problem Deserialising a JSON string to a List

the TCProject is as follows:

[JsonObject(MemberSerialization.OptIn)]
    public class TCProject
    {
        public override string ToString()
        {
            return Name;
        }

        [JsonProperty(PropertyName = "archived")]
        public bool Archived { get; set; }

        [JsonProperty(PropertyName = "description")]
        public string Description { get; set; }

        [JsonProperty(PropertyName = "href")]
        public string Href { get; set; }

        [JsonProperty(PropertyName = "id")]
        public string Id { get; set; }

        [JsonProperty(PropertyName = "name")]
        public string Name { get; set; }

        [JsonProperty(PropertyName = "webUrl")]
        public string WebUrl { get; set; }
    }

The JSON string looks as follows:

{"project":[{"name":"GCUK","id":"project11","href":"/httpAuth/app/rest/projects/id:project11"},{"name":"Interiors In Spain","id":"project3","href":"/httpAuth/app/rest/projects/id:project3"}]}

the code to convert the string is as follows:

public IEnumerable<TCProject> GetAllProjects()
        {
            var uri = _connection.CreateUri("/httpAuth/app/rest/projects");
            var request = _connection.Request(uri);

            var projects = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<TCProject>>(request);

    return projects;
}

The exception I am getting:

Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerialisationException: {"Cannot deserialize JSON object into type 'System.Collections.Generic.List`1[TCProject]'."}

there has got to be something really easy that i'm missing - anyone got any ideas?

Answer 1

I am pretty sure if you created a class with one property called project and that was a List and deserialized to that object, that everything would just work.

//Using a page "test.aspx" in my existing project (I already had it open)
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Newtonsoft.Json;

public partial class test : System.Web.UI.Page
{
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        string s = "{\"project\":[{\"name\":\"GCUK\",\"id\":\"project11\",\"href\":\"/httpAuth/app/rest/projects/id:project11\"},{\"name\":\"Interiors In Spain\",\"id\":\"project3\",\"href\":\"/httpAuth/app/rest/projects/id:project3\"}]}";
        var p = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<TCProjectWrapper>( s );
        s = "this"; //for easy breakpointing
    }
}
[JsonObject( MemberSerialization.OptIn )]
public class TCProjectWrapper {
    [JsonProperty( PropertyName = "project" )]
    private List<TCProject> Project { get; set; }
}
[JsonObject( MemberSerialization.OptIn )]
public class TCProject {
    public override string ToString() {
        return Name;
    }

    [JsonProperty( PropertyName = "archived" )]
    public bool Archived { get; set; }

    [JsonProperty( PropertyName = "description" )]
    public string Description { get; set; }

    [JsonProperty( PropertyName = "href" )]
    public string Href { get; set; }

    [JsonProperty( PropertyName = "id" )]
    public string Id { get; set; }

    [JsonProperty( PropertyName = "name" )]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [JsonProperty( PropertyName = "webUrl" )]
    public string WebUrl { get; set; }
}

Answer 2

I think in this case you need to grab just the array part of the JSON to de-serialize into a List like this:

    public IEnumerable<TCProject> GetAllProjects()
    {
        var uri = _connection.CreateUri("/httpAuth/app/rest/projects");
        var request = _connection.Request(uri);

        var projects = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<TCProject>>(request.Substring(11, request.Length - 1));

        return projects;
    }