In C# how can I deserialize this json when one field might be a string or an array of strings?

Question

I have an asp.net-mvc website and i am reading in Json string from a Database. Here is the following json in a DB. It could look like this:

{\"description\"         


        

Answer 1

You may be interested in some details here: JSON.net - field is either string or List

If you're willing to use Json.NET, have this function:

public string[] getAsArray(JToken token)
{
    if (token.HasValues)
    {
        return token.Select(m => string(m)).ToArray();
    }
    else
    {
        return ((string)token).Split(",").Select(s => s.Trim()).ToArray();
    }
}

Then usage:

var json = "...";
JObject o = JObject.Parse(json);
string[] contacts = getAsArray(o["contacts"]);

For either JSON the result should be the same.