JSON Serializer object with internal properties

Question

I have class with some internal properties and I would like to serialize them into json as well. How can I accomplish this? For example

public class Foo
{
          


        

Answer 1

Mark the internal properties to be serialized with the [JsonProperty] attribute:

public class Foo
{
    [JsonProperty]
    internal int num1 { get; set; }
    [JsonProperty]
    internal double num2 { get; set; }

    public string Description { get; set; }

    public override string ToString()
    {
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(Description))
            return Description;

        return base.ToString();
    }
}

And then later, to test:

Foo f = new Foo();
f.Description = "Foo Example";
f.num1 = 101;
f.num2 = 202;
JsonSerializerSettings settings = new JsonSerializerSettings() { TypeNameHandling = TypeNameHandling.All };

var jsonOutput = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(f, Formatting.Indented, settings);

Console.WriteLine(jsonOutput);

I get the following output:

{
  "$type": "Tile.JsonInternalPropertySerialization.Foo, Tile",
  "num1": 101,
  "num2": 202.0,
  "Description": "Foo Example"
}

(Where "Tile.JsonInternalPropertySerialization" and "Tile" are namespace and assembly names I am using).

As an aside, when using TypeNameHandling, do take note of this caution from the Newtonsoft docs:

TypeNameHandling should be used with caution when your application deserializes JSON from an external source. Incoming types should be validated with a custom SerializationBinder when deserializing with a value other than None.

For a discussion of why this may be necessary, see TypeNameHandling caution in Newtonsoft Json and and External json vulnerable because of Json.Net TypeNameHandling auto?.